The Politics of Appalachian Rhetoric by Amanda E. Hayes (review)

In his essay "In My Own Country," Silas House recalls the prejudice he and his classmates faced when a substitute teacher mimicked their accents. "If you want people to take you seriously, you must stop talking like a hillbilly," he remembers. In The Politics of Appalachian Rhetoric, Amanda E. Hayes describes an analogous situation in her positing that teachers of traditional composition (which often relies on what Hayes refers to as "academic argumentation") misread or fail to acknowledge Appalachian rhetoric, which Hayes characterizes as persuasion relying on stories with emphasis on place, time, and people, sometimes omitting a traditional thesis in place of descriptions of related elements important to the writer. Hayes contends that establishing an acknowledgment of Appalachian rhetoric will foster, in turn, a "recognition, inside and outside Appalachia, of the existence and validity of Appalachian culture that we seem nowhere near achieving. I am putting forward here that making Appalachian rhetoric more visible academically, particularly in composition studies, can be an important first step, with potential individual, legal, and economic repercussions" (41). Working with Appalachian rhetoric, she concludes, provides students greater ability to weigh the power and influence of various literacies, employing them as situations merit.

Hayes practices her notions of Appalachian rhetoric in her work, mixing expected conventions of academic writing with autobiographical elements, such as stories of classroom experiences, family legends and traditions, and immediate concerns of contemporary politics with its exploitation of Appalachian people through economy, stereotypes, and dismissive, prejudicial assumptions about the region. She addresses herself to fellow Appalachians. "I am concerned," she writes, "by what Appalachian cultural erasure can mean for us and our ideas about self-identity and educational attainment" (140, emphasis added). Nevertheless, Hayes offers the consistent reminder that she comes from one specific region of Appalachia, noting that Appalachia's diversity of folkways has in turn fostered varied Appalachian dialects and emphasizing that an Appalachian rhetoric must, in turn, recognize those varied dialects. Her addressing other Appalachian folks sometimes leads to her shifting to vernacular to make her point, practicing the inclusiveness she preaches. Her awareness of many Appalachian cultures, however, creates some difficulty when she notes similarities in the voices of her home Ohio region and those of some North Carolina regions. "My conclusion, drawn after a good deal of research and reflection, is no, we do not have southern accents. Because me, my family, and my neighbors may sound a bit like speakers from North Carolina, but honey, ain't a one of us southern" (55, italics in original). Although Hayes later clarifies her position by asserting, "When the popular imagination conflates being southern with being Appalachian, we have less access to claims of cultural identity" (58), it would be helpful to see more discussion of what occurs when some members of the extended Appalachian region identify themselves as Appalachian as well as something else, such as when a southern Appalachian is both southern and Appalachian.

Hayes describes the promotion of an Appalachian rhetoric as a means "to determine our own discursive identities," remaining wary that dismissing Appalachian vernacular as the "wrong" way to talk in turn erases Appalachian identity (166). One imagines that many of this book's readers will have experienced such labeling. In her essay "On and On: Appalachian Accent and Academic Power," Meredith McCarroll describes her assimilating an academic voice at the cost of setting aside her later recaptured Appalachian voice: "Now that I have learned to articulate issues about representation and gender politics, I want to do so in my own voice—to let my vowels relax into the shape that they wanted to take all along. I want to honor the voices that were the soundtrack of my upbringing." Rather than comparing these voices to a "soundtrack," Hayes relies on the extended comparison of rhetoric to quilting, a ready metaphor for an organic form developed from pieces of various familiar uses.

As poet Melissa Range writes in her essay "Outsider Appalachian," "In my work, whether...