Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community

Preface

vii Preface As editors, we came to this book with personal histories in Appalachia and keen interests in language. To clarify why we are so passionate about this topic, we offer our stories. Amy D. Clark I grew up in the far southwestern corner of Virginia in what might be called the heart of Appalachia, a part of the state that converges with eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and southern West Virginia. Born to teenage parents, I was a fourth living generation in a family of front porch storytellers, so numerous linguistic heirlooms were passed on to me over the years. My great-grandmother (whom we called “Mamaw”) sparked my interest in the history of Appalachian Englishes. I grew up just a mile from her farm in Jonesville, Virginia. She referred to a bedspread as a “counterpane ” and the peacocks that clattered on the roof of her house and in the surrounding woods as “pea-fowls.” She talked about what she “commenced to” do that day and warned us that we would “feel right common ” the next morning if we ate too many green apples. She and my great-grandfather told stories about “haints” that had—at certain points in their pasts—revealed themselves up and down the “holler” where they lived. While growing up, I attributed the different kind of English they spoke to their ages; I thought it was just the way older people from the hills talked. But I also remember how Mamaw described our ancestors, a strange breed originally from Scotland. It would be years later, when I returned to her recorded voice and heard the melody in her vocabulary and grammar and the way she pronounced her words that I would begin viii Preface to link her version of English to the place we call home and to my own language patterns. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I watched enough television to see and hear the cultural demarcation between mainstream America and my region, particularly in the way people in my family and in my community spoke. I loved to read, but I was never introduced to Appalachian literature in my high school English classes, where I might have recognized my home voice in that of the characters. Our curriculum did not include classes that invited discussions of Appalachian issues or culture, so I did not identify as an Appalachian, nor did I understand that I spoke a particular regional dialect. Because I devoured so much literature, I had tacit knowledge of the rules of standard American English (SAE) and honed the skill of code-switching from an early age; I could turn off my dialect when I wanted to, but it was always at the risk of teasing from friends and family who believed that SAE was for people who thought they were too good to be associated with our neck of the woods. A class at Clinch Valley College (renamed the University of Virginia ’s College at Wise in 1999) changed all that. The class, called Appalachian Prose and Poetry, introduced me to James Still, Lee Smith, Mary Lee Settle, Harriette Simpson Arnow, and many others. Their characters’ voices mirrored my own. I remember feeling so proud when I realized that my culture was worthy of study, that an entire field was dedicated to my homeplace, people, and culture. As my research project for the course, I began working on an oral history of my great-grandmother’s life. I spent hours transcribing stories that I had heard growing up, but for the first time I was actually listening to the poetry of her dialect: the rhythm in her accent, the expressions as colorful and musty as old-timey clothing in a trunk, the creative syntax of her sentences. I realized that my entire life had been an education in Appalachian studies, that there were people who wanted to read about the kinds of stories I had listened to over and over again, and that my vernacular dialect—my home voice—would be invited into that discussion. It was a watershed moment in owning my identity as an Appalachian. As an educator in central Appalachia, I work to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of the region’s dialectal diversity, particularly for students who may face well-meaning but misguided ideologies about Preface ix vernacular dialects in the classroom. In my view, referring to a student’s vernacular...