Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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hi everyone. So for our project we chose to do Appalachian english
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and it's our group is I'm all been, I'm Adriana,
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I'm gus I'm sarah and so let's get right into it.
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What is the Appalachian english?
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So Appalachian english is a variety of american english
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found in the Appalachian region of the United States.
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And back in 1965,
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the Appalachian Regional Development Act declared that all of West Virginia and
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parts of 12 other states would be officially known as the Appalachian region
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because of the Appalachian english spoken in these locations.
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Looking at the map here,
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this region extends as far north as new york and as far south as Mississippi
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In total.
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It can it consists of 423 counties,
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which is a lot larger than what I initially thought
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moving on, we're going to talk about why we chose this topic.
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So I want to start with talking a bit of about the acquaintances of Appalachia.
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We have often met people that speak Appalachian english.
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Whether or not we knew that it was Appalachian english and we want to talk a lot about
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why it is important to understand what this dialect
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is and how to interact with people that speak at
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another factor in choosing this topic was the proximity to home
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for some of us that was something brand new to us and to be transparent.
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We knew very little of Appalachian english
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before and wanted to learn something new,
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especially upon realizing that the region starts a few hours west of where we live.
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Yeah.
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And the third reason we chose this topic was because we were interested with how
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Appalachian english has such a rich history
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and how it's been maintained for generations.
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However, despite being such a prominent and unique dialect,
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its speakers have been stereotyped and discriminated against for using it.
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So we also want to learn more about these issues.
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And next we'll talk some about the linguistic profile of Appalachian english.
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So Appalachian english borrows its linguistic aspects
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for many different dialects of american english.
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It is technically a form of southern english and is very,
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very similar to texas english actually.
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And then the next we'll go into the fin ology a little bit.
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So there are three major aspects of the vowel shift with an Appalachian english.
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One of the big ones is the Monmouth organization of
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the dip thong and where it's like tire or ride,
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which makes them turn into sounding a little more like tar arad
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brad.
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Another is the movement of the long defunct further back in the mouth,
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making words like face and neighbors sound more like fice and neighbor.
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These are more common on stressed syllables.
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The last common phonological difference is to change in
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the eye and then the small uppercase I fouls
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to come with the signature southern drawl soap.
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It will sound a little bit like p it or seat will sound like site.
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This is again more common on stressed syllables.
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Now we'll talk a little bit about linguistic differences across Appalachia.
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So in the further north parts of Appalachia, you hear the vowel shift much less.
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It's still there but not nearly as prominent
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in the further south.
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It's much much deeper and very recognizable as the hillbilly accent.
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We also see some major lexical differences like
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y'all is very prominent throughout all of Appalachia.
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But western pennsylvania specifically uses the ends instead,
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which means un's instead of you all.
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And next gus is gonna talk a little bit about the syntax.
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So there's a lot of difference in tactical
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differences between standard american english and Appalachian english.
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Um One of the most famous of course is the double model.
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Like you might should or might could in
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which you combine two metals together into one.
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Um
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Another very common feature is the dropping of lee in your adverbs
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for example to do something quick and said do something quickly.
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And there's plenty of other features that are worth mentioning,
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such as demonstrative them like you get
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them whatever's um double plural such as toxins
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and others. Um
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It should also be noted that there are many syntactic features of
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Appalachian english that although common ones are slowly fading from the dialect
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such as the
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perfect. I've done like as you done did that
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as well as the level was, which is if he was to do something
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and next sarah's gonna talk a little bit about the history of the region.
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All right. So let's dive into the past,
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the first major group who inhabited the Appalachian region were
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native americans with some of the most prominent tribes,
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including the Cherokee and Shawnee.
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Then in the 1700s discuss Irish
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and Germans and other european settlers came into the region seeking land,
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religious freedom and more opportunities offered by immigrate to America.
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And as white settlers moved to Appalachia, so did Africans.
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When daniel Boone and his men cut a path through the Appalachian region,
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they created the cucumber,
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Cumberland gap,
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also known as the wilderness Road.
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This road allowed immigrants to sail from their country to Virginia and
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continued westward through states such as
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pennsylvania Tennessee and was now Kentucky.
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Later on,
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more migration groups were created and open up more
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of the Appalachian rope region to more settlers.
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Yes,
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provide the means for more people to travel through
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the rough mountainous terrain to move through Appalachia and
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live in different parts of the region because Appalachia
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has been inhabited by various diverse cultures and races.
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These groups, traditions,
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values and languages have helped shape the region's identity and a select.
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Yeah,
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cool.
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All right.
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And now with the present to this day,
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it's culture and language is still celebrated and shaped by its inhabitants,
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but the idea of a typical Appalachian is stereotyped as white poor,
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unintelligent and uneducated by the media and wider population.
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The negative perceptions overlooked the
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true diversity of the region's population
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which continues to grow more diverse
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as different communities moved to Appalachia.
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These misconceptions also marked the potential competency of Appalachians
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impacting how they view themselves and limiting their job perspectives
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and they also belittle the complexity of Appalachian culture,
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history and language.
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So now to start to sort of wrap things up,
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I wanted to talk about the connections
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to class starting with sub regional variation.
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So we talked a lot about language variation this
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semester and the album has covered the vowel shift.
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I wanted to talk about it a bit more
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in terms of the northern and southern Appalachian subregions.
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I read a study
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that compared the usage of certain lexical features of Appalachian english
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surveys were administered to parts of northern and southern Appalachia,
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asking respondents if they use certain words or
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phrases that were inherent to Appalachian english.
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The diagram picture is from one of the set from one set of the results
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that came back from the data collected,
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the darker color on the bar graph is for
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southern Appalachia and the lighter is for northern Appalachia.
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The data shows that people in Southern Appalachia use more
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lexical features of Appalachian english than those up north.
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This is true for the majority of the other data sets as well,
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which are linked in our references.
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The reasoning behind why the data trends this way is that even though
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these features are a part of traditional Appalachian english.
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Many of these terms are also used in general Southern
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english and therefore are consistently reinforced in the south.
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There is also evidence that points to many people in the
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north not wanting to admit to using traditional Appalachian english,
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possibly due to language biases, which I'm getting ready to expand on.
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So the last two, the last two connections are code switching and language bias.
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Since these two topics were a huge conversation in
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our class and kind of go hand in hand,
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I read a narrative written by a woman named dr MEREDITH Carroll.
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She recounts her college experience where she
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first realized that she was Appalachian.
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At first she was proud of her heritage,
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but later became subjected the stereotypes that made her think
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that because of the way she talked and because of her culture,
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she was perceived as less smart because of this.
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She began to try and talk right and hide her accent from here.
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She went on to get her PhD and was rather successful.
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One day while she was at a conference,
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the speaker was speaking in Appalachian english,
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she ended up having this sort of realization that
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she needed to take back ownership of her culture,
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her language and her identity
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stories like this are all too common
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for Appalachian english users with many consciously or
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unconsciously code switching to standard english in order
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to be seen as more prestigious and smart
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and another study I read about Appalachian
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english and standard english in the classroom.
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This is about how educators perceived and handled Appalachian english
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being used in the elementary classroom,
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many teachers were instructed to only let their students use standard english.
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One teacher even told of how her class would have to make a
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promise each day to not dishonor their country by not talking correctly.
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Well that statement is wrong on so many levels.
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I did find that in some situations there is
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a need for elementary Children to understand standard english
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in order to learn vocabulary words and read textbooks in standard english.
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However,
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this should not be done by letting the Children
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speak by not letting the Children speak Appalachian english.
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Instead their dialectical differences, differences should be celebrated.
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One teacher said that she works on both Appalachian
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english and standard english with her students so that they'd
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be prepared for whatever comes their way and I think
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this is an excellent way of handling this situation.
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Um there's a lot of stereotypes associated with Appalachian english
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which carry on throughout the rest of their life,
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not just the childhood.
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Um
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uh some of these are of course the classic,
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talking slow lack of intelligence connection as well as
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the idea that Appalachian people are universally all impoverished or uneducated,
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which of course is not true.
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Um
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one of the more interesting ones to me is
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the perception that Appalachian people lack trustworthiness and we see
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this as often fueled by our media right in which
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there is the idea of the dangerous Appalachian people.
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In fact,
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in 2021 there's a movie by the name of wrong term which showed Appalachian people as
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these horrible backwards villains who are killing people.
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Um and media like that contributes to the stereotypes of untrustworthiness.
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Additionally,
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we have issues going forward where people with Appalachian dialectical features
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are less likely to be higher than people who speak more standard english.
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And now we'll move on to the major takeaway,
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starting with culturally diverse background of sarah.
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All right,
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so the first major takeaway from our project is how
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Appalachian english has such a culturally culturally diverse background.
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There are popular misconceptions about what apple Appalachian english is.
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Some say it's a preserved for it's a preserved pure form of Elizabeth in english,
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while others say it's a preserved language used by the Scots irish.
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But both of these theories are inaccurate
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as they overlooked the numerous cultures and
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races that have contributed to the linguistic
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diversity of Appalachian english even today,
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the use of Appalachian english is still impacted
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by many communities and their own unique linguistic features
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called a thing in accumulating over multiple generations into the
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distinctive linguistic features of what we know as the language
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of the Appalachian region today.
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Yeah,
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So for our second major take away,
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I'm going to talk a little bit more about the misconceptions that have
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been caused by things such as the media at like the movie,
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the Hillbilly Elegy which is also a book and the movie came
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out back in 2020 and that just created a whole plethora of horrible
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stereotypes and misconceptions such as
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uh leading people to believe that Appalachians are poor, impoverished,
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white trash,
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uneducated unclean when in reality there are a melting
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pot of traditions and cultures that should be celebrated.
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And then for the final takeaway,
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I want to talk about understanding the dialect of Appalachian english.
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We really hope that this presentation has helped you to know how to listen to and talk
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to people that speak Appalachian english and respect
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their way of speaking a little bit better.
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So
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on a final note,
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we have a little bit more information involving
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the study that I talked about earlier about the
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vowel shift between northern and southern Appalachia and the
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differences in the use of left school features.
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So the sources right there, if anybody wants to check it out. Thank you so much.
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Thank you. Thank you.