Postvocalic /-r/ in South Carolina

A Social Analysis

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8729635
AutoresRaven I Mcdavid (autor correspondente)
Ano1948
Volume23
Fascículo3/4
Páginas194-194
Data de publicação1948-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Speech (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/486918
OpenAlexW2327141575
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas28

rrHE RELATIONSHIP between speech forms and the cultural configurations 1 and prestige values within a civilization has been indicated by linguistic scientists, but so far most of the study of that relationship has been directed toward languages outside the Indo-European family.2 It is, however, just as proper to utilize the data of linguistics, as derived from a study of dialects of our own language, in analyzing some of the problems within our own culture.3 As an example of a situation in which linguistic data and other cultural data must be correlated, one may examine the distribution in South Carolina and the adjacent parts of Georgia of postvocalic /-rX as constriction in such words as thirty, Thursday, worm, barn, beard, Jather.4 (In popular terminology, speakers lacking constriction in words of these types are said not to pronounce their /-r/.) A social analysis proved necessary for this particular linguistic feature, because the data proved too complicated to be explained by merely a geographical statement or a statement of settlement history. In this particular problem, moreover, the social analysis seems more significant than it might seem in othersll because the presence or absence of postvocalic /-rX as constriction becomes an overt prestige symbol only on a very high level of sophistication. With little experience a speaker learns that the folk forms ['laItasd], lightwood and ['faatlboasd], fireboard, do not have the prestige of the corresponding standard forms kindling and mantelpiece5-that the folk forms are gener

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