EXPLORATIONS OF DIALECT PERCEPTION IN INDIANA

Abstract

Indiana lies at the crossroads of some of the major regional dialects in American English (Inland North, North, Midland, South). While a great deal of work in dialectology has focused on variation in linguistic production, interest in variation in perception has developed relatively recently. This work explores the perceptions that people from Indiana (Hoosiers) have regarding dialectal variation in their state. Two studies, a survey (n = 163) and a draw-a-map task (n = 68), explore the attitudes and beliefs that Hoosiers have toward their own and other varieties of English in the state. Two other studies, a four-alternative forced-choice task and a free classification task (n = 109), probe Hoosiers’ ability to identify and classify dialects in Indiana.

Some general findings are that Hoosiers, on the whole, are aware of the same kinds of dialectal variation that professional dialectologists have identified, and they can identify the dialects somewhat accurately (30% where chance is 25%). An analysis of participants’ response patterns indicates that they discriminate between South and Non-South dialects and that they further discriminate between Marked and Unmarked Non-South varieties. While there is slight variation in perceptions depending on where people live in the state (a proxy for their linguistic experience), the results suggest that variation occurs within a consistent overarching structure of perceptual relationships (i.e., there is one structure regardless of a person’s position within the structure). This work contributes to a growing body of research that is interested in the role of perception in the representation of variation.