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Up with the Times or Down for the Count? Language Variation and Change in Vermont

February 10, 2000

Participants:
  • Julie Roberts, Anthropology, UVM
  • Rebecca Amblo, Student, UVM
Length: 0:56:25
Next Air Dates: No upcoming airtimes are currently scheduled

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Tags:

VT dialects, social change, endangered dialects, dialect features

Program Description:

The dialect one speaks gives clues about the region from which he or she comes, but it can also tell us much more. Dialects can serve as a marker of speakers' group affiliations and can even help identify social changes taking place within a region. Rural dialects emerged from the isolation of rural countryside, but as more and more people move into these areas, the dialects that have been spoken there may become endangered. Is this happening in Vermont? In this talk, we discuss how the Vermont dialect is changing, and which speakers are leading the change. We also explore which dialect features are more resistant to change and why this might be. Julie Roberts, University of Vermont, with the help of students like Rebecca Amblo, has been interviewing Vermonters for the past four years--collecting samples of their speech as well as their views of Vermont and the changes the state has experienced. These interviews form the basis of this project on dialect change in Vermont upon which this research-in-progress seminar draws.