TYR_V3_N1 copy.pdf ISSN: 2560-9815 (Print) 2560-9823 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.theyoungresearcher.com All articles appearing in The Young Researcher are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 Canada License. 2019 Volume 3 | Issue 1 The Young Researcher Recommended Citation Fridy, E. (2019). Rural and urban dialect perceptions of Kentucky high schoolers. The Young Researcher, 3 (1), 50-59. Retrieved from http://www.theyoungresearcher.com/papers/fridy.pdf Rural and Urban Dialect Perceptions of Kentucky High Schoolers Emma Fridy 50 Introduction The purpose of this research is to identify links be- tween high schooler’s perception of rural Kentucky dialect and how that affects their overall perception of students living in rural Kentucky. The research took place in Louisville, using high schoolers as par- ticipants, for which there is no previous research. In fact, Cramer has recently called for further analysis of border communities (where communities meet) as well as a need for a broader understanding of regional identity associated with language (Cramer, «Contest- ed Southerness,» 166). Louisville fits that niche, as it is located on the border between the South and the Midwest. A combination of focus groups and question- naires was implemented, for which there is little to no precedent in the field of sociolinguistics or PD. The question explored was whether dialect affects per- sonal perceptions, especially among Kentucky high schoolers. The significance of this research is that it will provide the academic community with a greater understanding of regional identity, linguistic varia- tion, and prejudices, as well as show how a younger generation views language and identity. No research Rural and Urban Dialect Perceptions of Kentucky High Schoolers Emma Fridy This research focuses on the previously unstudied dialect perceptions of Kentucky urban high schoolers as it relates to their rural peers. Focus groups and questionnaires were used to collect data with a grounded theory method being employed to analyze data. Students were asked their percep- tions of topics relating to regional identity, linguistic variation, and prejudices, as well as how they, as a younger generation, view language and identity. The purpose of this research was to identify trends in urban high schoolers’ perceptions of their rural peers. The research found many students held prejudices against rural students, and although they recognized the prejudices, they believed them to be true. The research further concluded that Louisville high schoolers perceive Louisville is a separate cultural and dialectal entity from rural Kentucky, and that rural Kentuckians are more likely than Louisvillians to be uneducated, ignorant, and impoverished. Furthermore, urban stu- dents think that rural Kentuckians have an overall negative view of Louisvillians, especially African Americans, stemming from a lack of communication and a difference in political and social values. These findings clearly point to the fact that urban students have negative views of rural citizens, and that Kentucky needs to address systematic social division within the state between urban and rural citizens, especially students. Keywords: perceptual dialectology, Kentucky students, rural dialect perception, urban dialect per- ception, rural stereotypes RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 51 has been done comparing these factors, much less with this sample, partly because the field of PD is so new. That makes this research foundational in nature. This research shows that prejudices are prevalent within Kentucky’s urban high schoolers, and that most urban students believe rural students to be ig- norant, uneducated, poor, and conservative. Analysis also led to the conclusion that most of these prejudices were the effects of a serious lack of communication between urban and rural students. This research is in- tegral to Kentucky’s current very tense political situa- tion between urban and rural areas. Literature Review Dialectology and Sociolinguistics The idea of variation within languages is not new, nor is the intersection between variation in culture and language. However, over the past hundred years, great strides have been made in research regarding how geography, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity affect perceptions of linguistic variation. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, dialectology was found to be extremely useful in cohort with other linguistic tradi- tions to further the study of language as a “socially sit- uated vehicle of communication” (Sankoff, 171). The 1980s also brought great change to the field as dialec- tologists began branching out from simply document- ing dialects and began researching linguistic variation “as a correlate or indicator of social variation and as a source of language change” (Nelson, 193). This change opened up new areas of research previously ignored such as inner-city dialects and the language of young- er speakers, as experts wanted to document language change over time (Nelson, 214), as well as new fields of study such as historical sociolinguistics, mainly fo- cused on Western Europe (Agar & MacDonald, 78). About a decade after that revelation, a new wave of thought swept through the dialectology community: the idea that dialects are not inferior to standardized language nor are they any less structurally complex or effective for communicating. The new idea concluded that every form of speech is a dialect; it just so hap- pens that one dialect was named Standard (Chambers & Trudgill, 3). It was at this point that dialectology and sociolinguistics started to look nearly indistinguish- able from one another, and where modern sociolin- guistic research began. This concept is fundamental to this research as the students were evaluating another group of students that were ultimately deemed infe- rior along with their dialects. Geography became an important factor in socio- linguistic research and the concept of a chain of mu- tual intelligibility was formed. Mutual intelligibility is when people speaking similar dialects (or even lan- guage) can understand one another. Essentially, ... dialects on the outer edges of the geographical area may not be mutually intelligible, but they will be linked with a chain of mutual intelligibility. At no point is there such a break that geographically ad- jacent dialects are not mutually intelligible, but the cumulative effect of the linguistic differences will be such that the greater the geographical separation, the greater the difficulty of comprehension. (Chambers & Trudgill, 5) In modern society, with phone lines and the inter- net, regional dialects are moving closer to standard dialects (Wieling, 13) which can make this chain of mutual intelligibility irrelevant. However, this concept is still applicable on a dialect continuum. This con- tinuum can also be social, and within Kentucky, the dialect change between urban and rural is very abrupt and sharp, which leads to a break in this continuum and a breakdown of communication. This was also illustrated in Jamaica, where the low- er class spoke Creole while the upper class spoke Eng- lish, creating social tension (Chambers & Trudgill, 7). In the poorer neighborhoods, Creole was spoken and speaking either English or Creole identified closely with a socioeconomic status. Even in the U.S.A. to- day, this social factor is evident as the descendants of immigrants use their heritage language less and less in favor of English (Pégram 110). A continuum also exists among speakers of different ages, with more homogeneity among members of a family in older generations (Hamilton & Hazen, 102). Eva-María Suárez Büdenbender argues that this is also the case with dialect in Puerto Rico, where a sizeable portion of the population speaks Dominican Spanish. Major- ity speakers often cite dialect as the principal method of identifying Dominican immigrants, and Büden- bender’s study found that negative stereotypes such as poverty and illiteracy were associated with a dialect, RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 52 with more weight being placed on heavier accents (Büdenbender, 110). Accents are only a part of dialect, but for many people, it is the most visible and easi- est identifying trait of different dialects. Another clear connection between perceived socioeconomic status and language is the Fresa phenomenon on the US/ Mexico border. The Fresa phenomenon is made up of young people living in Mexico but near the US border who are incorporating aspects of both American and Mexican culture into their everyday lives in order to be perceived as upper class. This is opposed to their peers, who primarily identify with Mexican culture. In this sense, speaking English is seen as a luxury for the upper class (Holguín, 36). On top of that, it has been found that in pre-revolutionary Cuba, English anglicisms had a direct correlation to the upper-class population—in other words, the rich people of Cuba were mixing English into their Spanish more than lower-class people (Sánchez & Antonio, 45). Altogether, dialectology and sociolinguistics are far-reaching fields that deal with a number of complex variables, but the research in this paper will primarily focus on geographic distribution and socioeconomic status in relation to linguistic variation. Within Ken- tucky, there is a broken social continuum as well as se- verely different lifestyles between urban and rural stu- dents that stems from a difference in socioeconomic class and social views. This research explores how all of these factors work together to influence the dialect perception of Kentucky high schoolers. Perceptual Dialectology (PD) Penelope Eckert argues that there have been three major waves so far in terms of sociolinguistic research. These waves helped provide different levels of mean- ing to sociolinguistic variables (Eckert, 88). However, all three waves occurred before the field of PD had taken off. For the purposes of this research, PD is de- fined as “a branch of folk linguistics that attempts to redress the balance somewhat focusing on what non- linguists think, say, and understand about language and linguistic variation” (Cramer & Montgomery, 2). Even today, PD is a relatively new and emerging field. It is clear that extensive research has been done to show that geography and socioeconomic status play an important role in language variation, and that lan- guage variation is linked to culture and society. How- ever, because of the delayed interest in PD, a large gap in knowledge exists when it comes to how geography and cultural aspects affect people’s perceptions of lin- guistic variation. Another key factor in this discussion is identity, be- cause how people perceive the language of others and of themselves often has to do with individual iden- tity and group identity (Büdenbender, 110; Cramer, “Perceptions of Appalachian English,” 61-62). At one point, Coupland wrote an article in direct opposition to Trudgill’s statement “that identity is ‘irrelevant’ as a factor in his area of interest”, arguing that “to rule out all issues of identity, particularly in circumstances of demographic movement and cultural mixing, seems unnecessarily restrictive” (267). Identity can even come into play in situations like interviews, where men were found to respond differently (more politely) to women interviewers than other women partici- pants were, and the phenomenon was so widespread in the South that is was named the Rutledge Effect (Bailey & Tillery, 390). One study went even so far as to assert its findings as “compelling evidence of such indissoluble bonds that link language and identity” (Brown, 285). Haller & Müller concluded that identity is directly related to attitudes, and therefore presum- ably to actions. They suggested further research on identity (28), which this paper will indirectly be deal- ing with as associated with the identities of the groups of people being sampled. An expert in the field, Jennifer Cramer, has done extensive research specifically on the perception of speech within Kentucky, mainly focusing on Lou- isvillians’ perspective of Appalachian and Southern speech. She has found that Louisvillians routinely identity with the perceived “best parts” of Appalachian speech only (Cramer, “Perceptions of Appalachian English,” 62). Louisvillians also consider Appalachian speakers different from themselves, with an unedu- cated and incorrect dialect, although the Appalachian dialect is considered to be relatively pleasant. Louis- villians were also extremely accurate when denoting where Appalachia was, specifically within Kentucky. Louisvillians are aware of the negative image America has of Appalachia and seek to separate from that im- age (Cramer, “Perceptions of Appalachian English,” 61). It has also been found that mental dialect maps are extremely important for people to determine where their community lies, and where “other” starts RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 53 (Iannàccaro & Dell’Aquila, 276). These sources are significant to this research because dialect maps have already been created and analyzed, and clearly there is a divide between rural Kentucky and urban Kentucky. Methods This research builds off of previous research in the perceptual dialectology field. It does so by looking at a new category of participants: high schoolers. It also does so by moving past dialect maps and onto focus group analysis. A Grounded Theory Phenomenologi- cal approach was used to collect primarily qualitative, and some demographic, data from focus groups. Data were analyzed using the Grounded Theory technique and the software MAXQDA2018 in order to discern the overall perceptions of Kentucky high schoolers. Because the topic of Perceptual Dialectology (PD) is not one generally discussed by high schoolers, focus groups were used to facilitate meaningful conversa- tion (Agar and MacDonald 78). Focus groups were also chosen because the topic discussed related to ex- periences and attitudes, which are well suited to focus groups (Kitzinger 302). Two focus groups were conducted at an urban school in Kentucky. A phenomenological method re- volves around deep analysis of a small sample size—in this case, ten students. A phenomenological approach also meant that questions could entirely be formulated beforehand because no assumptions about the results could be made. The focus groups were a loose format, allowing the students to talk about whatever came up, with the researcher simply guiding the discussion to- ward the research question. For full focus group tran- scriptions, see Appendix B and Appendix C. Focus groups were audio-recorded, each student was assigned a number before transcription for pur- poses of anonymity, and consent forms were obtained. See Appendix A for the consent form model. The sample was convenient, with a random sample being infeasible for high school participants, as they had to volunteer for the focus group during their study hall. The school was chosen because it was neither privileged or underprivileged and demographically diverse, with males and females being almost equally represented, and minority students representing 40% of the student population. Questionnaires were also used because self-reporting has been found to be extremely accurate when talking about lack of bias, which is called for by a Grounded Theory Phenom- enological method (Bailey & Tillery, 399). Question- naires were used to obtain personal and demographic information, as well as level of linguistic education, which was expected to be zero. This was one of the only assumptions made because Grounded Theory calls for unbiased data. However, it was necessary. In the field of PD, participants usually have no linguistic education. Because the topic of PD is extremely nu- anced and complex, a Phenomenological approach was necessary in order to reduce bias and to paint a full picture of students’ attitudes and perceptions. De- spite some literature fundamentally disagreeing with Grounded Theory (GT) Methods (Thomas & James, 790), mainstream consensus holds that GT is a re- spectable method if conducted properly, and due to the foundational structure of this research—no other research on this topic has been conducted surround- ing high schoolers—finding a theory was especially relevant. In order to find a theory, the focus groups were analyzed using the GT method of coding line by line before a process of memoing began that was recursive and cyclical in nature. Through this process, codes were organized into concepts and later categories in order to form a final theory. The purpose of this re- search was to assess perception and attitudes based on social factors. The open format of focus groups helped stimulate an environment for sharing attitudes and perceptions, and the demographically diverse stu- dents addressed social factors. As shown by the table below, the convenient sample was 70% white and 70% female, while Kentucky is 51% female and 90% white. These differences are a limitation of a convenient sam- ple and should be taken into account. However, both sexes and multiple races were represented. See Table I for a full breakdown of demographics. Table I Focus Group Demographics Male Female Black White Focus Group 1 0 2 0 2 Focus Group 2 3 5 3 5 Total 3 7 3 7 RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 54 Questionnaires helped to collect data students may not have wanted to share with the group and/or did not make sense to discuss (demographics, family history, etc.). Students had previously been assigned numbers and those were connected to questionnaires, which enabled the coding process to be anonymous while still knowing which student was which in the focus group and questionnaire. The questions on the questionnaire were piloted as focus group questions but were found to be awkward in a group and were moved to the questionnaire before the actual research was conducted. By using a Qualitative Phenomeno- logical Grounded Theory method, the most substan- tive information was gathered as efficiently as pos- sible, and the analysis of data was as significant as it could have been. Results & Discussion Perception of Rural Dialect Students agreed across the board that the dialect of rural Kentucky was extremely different from that of Louisville. The perception of rural dialect centered around the fact that rural Kentuckians have a distinc- tive accent, with one student stating that, “if you go outside of Louisville, the language that you hear, it gets more countryish.” Rural dialect was described as being less proper, less formal, and associated with Christianity and conservative political doctrine. One student summed it up by saying, “I think of Confeder- ate flags, Republican, conservative.” This finding sup- ports Cramer’s research findings that Louisville iden- tifies as separate from the rest of the state of Kentucky (Cramer, “Perceptions of Appalachian English,” 61). One recurring theme within focus groups was that students acknowledged their prejudices were not founded in anything besides stereotypes and came to the conclusion that dialect doesn’t define a person. One student related that “it has a prejudice to it, and it’s hard to hear that, it’s hard to hear someone and not have prejudice,” while students across the board could not agree whether a person’s accent defined them. The two general themes were that “your accent or anything shouldn’t define who you are … it’s an im- pression of who you are, and it doesn’t define you, but it’s part of who you are,” juxtaposed with “it shouldn’t define you, but I think it does define you.” This ex- pands with Brown’s theory that language and identity are inseparable, inextricably linked (Brown, 285). However, students felt that many of the prejudices were true. For example, the overwhelming consensus was that rural people are less educated and that their accent identifies them as such. However, students did admit that after they thought about it, rural people still seemed less educated, but students were unsure if they actually were less educated. Furthermore, stu- dents said that partially due to lack of education and also from lack of opportunity, rural people are more likely to live in poverty. Students also expressed that on top of lack of education, “people with more strong country accents, they are more ignorant,” as they have not traveled or experienced the outside world. This revelation specifically helped to answer the research question as it was made clear that stereotypes of peo- ple are directly linked to their respective dialects. Another large theme that came up repeatedly in fo- cus groups was that Louisville’s dialect is completely separate from that of rural Kentucky. Students re- ferred to this dialect as “city,” and almost all students identified with the city dialect rather than with the rural. However, some students did identify with some parts of the rural dialects. A large part of this, accord- ing to students, is that everyone gets their dialect from their family, or the people they grew up around. One student, echoing the entire focus group said, “Family. I feel like all my stuff I be saying, see … I be, come from my family. I pick up stuff, when you’re young, when you’re little, that’s how you learn how to talk, that’s how you learn how to walk.” This particular student picked up the phrase “I be” from her family. For the students with parents or family from a more rural or Southern area, having more rural colloquialisms was not uncommon, as some students reported “slipping into accents,” while the students with families from Louisville almost all completely identified with the city accent. In fact, across all focus groups, students brought up the idea that some people in Louisville exaggerated or even faked country accents, exempli- fying how out of place country accents are in Louis- ville. However, most students were quick to point out that while country accents are rare in Louisville, you do encounter them when traveling around Kentucky and other parts of the South, and as such, students RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 55 expressed familiarity with the rural dialects. This sup- ports general findings of Kentucky dialects, and the fact that Kentucky is situated on a border between the Midwest and the South plays a large role in the unique situation of the high schoolers. One subset of students that had radically different views of rural peoples were the African American stu- dents, who expressed fear surrounding the attitudes of rural people towards different races and ethnicities. The African American students stereotyped those ru- ral people as conservative and often racist. One of the first students to speak brought up that “nobody’s blind to what’s really going on in the world, let’s be real. Ev- erybody knows what’s going on with the whole Black Lives Matter, all lives matter, on and on.” Later during the discussion of this topic, students were asked if they felt more unsafe around people with deeper country accents, and every African American student said yes. Students perceived rural Kentuckians as more likely to target a black person with hate as opposed to an urban person, with one student speculating this was “because they’re not surrounded as much by as many black people.” Another common sentiment among African American students, although it was also present in white students, was the need to adapt their language, a phenomenon known as codeswitching. African American students cited using less slang, slurring few- er words, and trying to sound more formal, just to be safe around people with country accents. In contrast, white students reported doing the same things to their dialect, but for the purpose of improving prospects at job interviews or during the college application pro- cesses. It has been previously established that Stan- dard English is required for most job opportunities and college interviews (Godley & Escher, 712)(Whit- ney, 68), and that “...many African American children are not proficient enough in Standard English to fa- cilitate academic success and career mobility” (Taylor, 35). So the fact that African American students did not address codeswitching in that context, and instead exclusively in the context of avoiding hatred certainly speaks to how dire their perceived need to codeswitch is around rural people. This finding expanded on the relationship between dialect and personal perception. Clearly, African American students have prejudices against white rural people, and they simply use dialect to identify those people. Black students also expressed resentment at be- ing labeled “ghetto, ”ratchet,” or ”thuggish.” These students felt like people with country accents were more likely to harm them, physically or verbally. Not surprisingly, the students who felt that rural people often label them negatively based on their accent con- sistently argued within their focus group that dialect should not define a person, particularly the intelli- gence level of a person. As one student put it, “you could still be smart, you could still be anything.” How- ever, the students that expressed resentment at being labeled negatively based on their accent agreed that people with country accents are less educated, poorer, and more ignorant. Overall, students expressed negative perceptions of rural students, including that rural students are less educated, poorer, and more likely to be racist. Stu- dents identified rural Kentuckians based on their ac- cent, and students separated Louisville from the rest of Kentucky in terms of cultural aspects. This affirms Büdenbender’s theory that groups of people have neg- ative stereotypes and are identified by their dialect as opposed to people simply disliking dialects because of the way that it sounds (110). Essentially, the students affirmed that they had negative views of rural dialects and rural people. Perception of Rural Students’ Attitudes The last section of each discussion was dedicated to how students thought rural students perceived them. Unsurprisingly, all students across all focus groups agreed that rural people do not like Louisvillians, and that general rural attitudes towards urban centers are negative. One student even went as far as to say “I know people in other parts of Kentucky hate Louis- ville”. The reasons range from the fact that Louisvil- lians don’t like the outdoors, to the fact that Louisville is significantly more Democratic/liberal than the rest of the state. Technology was also brought up, with some students arguing that rural Kentuckians do not like Louisville because we use new technology. How- ever, all of these factors were combined into a concept dealing with a lack of understanding and communica- tion. Students cited rural Kentuckians as thinking “that since we’re from the city, we don’t understand them,” and that rural Kentuckians are not likely to visit cities RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 56 often, being more confined to their towns than urban students. Coupled alongside these conclusions was the concept that urban students perceive rural peoples as generally ignorant, in the same vein as the percep- tion of lack of education previously discussed. One student stated, “I feel that people that don’t want to educate themselves or maybe are a bit more ignorant” in reference to rural people, and another student af- firmed that “people with more strong country accents, they are more ignorant.” The idea that rural people looked down upon Af- rican Americans was again brought up during this section of the focus groups. The fact that Louisville is significantly more Democratic than the rest of Ken- tucky was mentioned, along with the fact that African Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Howev- er, it was concluded that the largest factor influencing this perception was ignorance, as urban students be- lieved rural people to be ignorant of social problems such as racism, resulting in the perception that rural people are more likely to be hateful towards African Americans. Overall, students perceived rural Kentuckians as having a negative perception of urban Kentuckians, primarily due to social and political values, as well as the perceived difference in lifestyles. Theory As perceived by high schoolers in Louisville, Ken- tucky, Louisville is a separate cultural and dialectal entity from rural Kentucky and rural Kentuckians are more likely than Louisvillians to be uneducated, igno- rant, and impoverished. Furthermore, urban students think that rural Kentuckians have an overall negative view of Louisvillians, especially African Americans, stemming from a lack of communication and a differ- ence in political and social values. Limitations and Implications While this research presents new information, it is important to note that with only ten participants across two focus groups, these results can not be gen- eralized to the whole population, or even that of the South. This research pertains only to Kentucky, spe- cifically to the regional perspective of Louisville high schoolers. While this research is unique and therefore draws significant conclusions, more focus groups would need to be conducted in order to generalize the theory presented. However, this does not discount the conclusions drawn, as there was enough data to reach a point of saturation. A convenient sample was not ideal, as this may have biased the data in favor of those who are more comfortable with or care more about dialect percep- tion and language. However, the themes represented in this sample are likely to be present in populations without said bias, as even though the general public is not aware of the study of dialect perception, every person has biases, however explicit or implicit, that would allow them to participate in focus groups simi- lar to the ones in this project. The sample was taken entirely from Louisville, and Kentucky does have two major cities: Louisville and Lexington. While these cities are culturally and politi- cally similar, it is important to note that the findings of this research will by nature be more applicable to Louisville than Lexington. Furthermore, as the re- searcher was also from Louisville, it is possible that only Louisville-specific topics were discussed un- knowingly. Conducting further research in Lexington would be extremely useful to support the findings of this research. Though this study had some limitations, the data generated is still valuable in understanding the unique factors that influence dialect perception among Ken- tucky high schoolers. The data represented a founda- tional study in Kentucky student Perceptual Dialectol- ogy—no previous research has evaluated high school students’ perceptions of the issue. Understanding these perspectives is critically important as the ten- sions between rural and urban America become more prevalent, and in light of the fact that today’s students, will eventually be directing and voting for policy. If effective policies regarding state and local government in Kentucky are to be developed, students’ perspec- tives must be understood. This research provides a base upon which to further explore students’ dialect perception through additional focus groups and tar- geted questionnaires. RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 57 Future Directions To allow for generalization of this theory to all Ken- tucky students, a future study will involve additional focus groups across more urban schools, especially in Lexington, and branch out into more rural parts of the state to gather the perceptions of rural students. Tar- geting future focus group questions to major themes that arose from this research and that will arise in fur- ther studies will allow the researcher to focus on the more important concepts and categories. Eventually, a theory will be generalized to all Kentucky students, and the state government, local governments, schools, and businesses, will be able to use this information to better accommodate dialects, as well as work to dispel some of the untrue prejudices against rural or urban students. Hopefully, this will help address the under- lying problems surrounding the stigma of a rural or urban dialect. Conclusions The importance of this theory is seen in its applica- tion to current policy as well as to the previous per- ceptual dialectology research. The cultural divide is mainstream knowledge in Kentucky, with local news station WFPL writing a story entitled “‘Louisville, Not Kentucky: Dissecting The State’s Urban-Rural Divide.” The article addresses the political split between rural and urban Kentucky, but concludes with the state- ment that Louisville/Lexington and the rest of Ken- tucky have a “shared future,” evident by the fact that Louisville/Lexington rely on rural areas for fresh food and energy, while rural Kentucky depends on urban centers for economic activity. This “shared future” is the exact reason why the legislature of Kentucky, and of course, the citizens should come together to make policies that are in everyone’s best interest. As evidenced by the recent teacher sick-outs within public school districts, this has not happened of late. In 2018 as well as 2019, Kentucky teachers, particu- larly urban teachers, have staged sick-outs, in which a large number of teachers call in as sick, and school is forced to cancel for lack of substitute teachers. From Jan 1, 2019 to March 20, 2019, teachers had six sick- outs, and the Courier-Journal, a local news source, reports that the reason for these sick-outs was to pro- test anti-education legislation in the Republican-con- trolled Kentucky legislature. USA Today also reported that the state requested all the names of the teachers that participated in the sick-outs, escalating the al- ready tense situation. The Governor of KY, who has the support of rural KY, has rallied against the teacher sick-outs, angering many urban teachers. It is clear that the research presented here is part of a larger social trend that sees Louisville and Lex- ington as separate from the rest of Kentucky, and that political and social tensions are high in the state right now. Seeing as the students of Kentucky are the most affected by Kentucky’s education system, along with the fact that Kentucky’s youth will one day be making decisions as legislative representatives or even teach- ers, it is clear that Kentucky as a whole would benefit from the knowledge of its cultural and social divides. Hence, the findings of this research can be directly ap- plied to the current situation within the state in order to direct policy and encourage the redressment of un- true or unfounded prejudices or assumptions regard- ing the rural and urban populations of Kentucky. Works Cited Agar, Michael, and James MacDonald. “Focus Groups and Ethnography.” Human Organization, vol. 54, no. 1, 1995, pp. 78–86. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/44126575. Bailey, Guy, and Jan Tillery. “The Rutledge Effect: The Impact of Interviewers on Survey Results in Linguistics.” American Speech, vol. 74, no. 4, 1999, pp. 389–402. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/455664. Brown, Tony. “Key Indicators of Language Impact on Identity Formation in Belarus.” Russian Language Journal / Русский Язык, vol. 63, 2013, pp. 247–288. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43669239. Büdenbender, Eva-María Suárez. “‘Te Conozco, Bacalao’: Investigating the Influence of Social Stereotypes on Linguistic Attitudes.” Hispania, vol. 96, no. 1, 2013, pp. 110–134. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23608458. Chambers, J. K, and Peter Trudgill. Dialectology. 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1998. Cramer, Jennifer, and Chris Montgomery. “Cityscapes and Perceptual Dialectology: Global perspectives on non-linguists’ knowledge of the dialect landscape.” 2016. Mouton de Gruyter. RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 58 Cramer, Jennifer. Contested Southerness : The Linguistic Production and Perception of Identities in the Borderlands. Duke University Press, 2016. Cramer, Jennifer. “Perceptions of Appalachian English in Kentucky.” Journal of Appalachian Studies, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 45–71. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=trueanddb=a9handAN=1313064 17andsite=ehost-live. Eckert, Penelope. “Three Waves of Variation Study: The Emergence of Meaning in the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 41, 2012, pp. 87–100., www.jstor.org/stable/23270700. Francis, W. Nelson. Dialectology: An Introduction. Longman, 1983. Godley, Amanda, and Allison Escher. “Bidialectal African American Adolescents’ Beliefs About Spoken Language Expectations in English Classrooms.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, vol. 55, no. 8, 2012, pp. 704–713. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41827771. Haller, Max, and Bernadette Müller. “Characteristics of Personality and Identity In Population Surveys: Approaches For Operationalizing and Localizing Variables to Explain Life Satisfaction.” BMS: Bulletin of Sociological Methodology / Bulletin De Méthodologie Sociologique, no. 99, 2008, pp. 5–33. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23895457. Hamilton, Sarah, and Kirk Hazen. “Dialect Research in Appalachia: A Family Case Study.” West Virginia History, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 81–107. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/43264825. Holguín Mendoza, Claudia. “Sociolinguistic Capital and Fresa Identity Formations on the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Frontera Norte, vol. 30, no. 60, July 2018, pp. 5–30. EBSCOhost, doi:10.17428/rfn.v30i60.1746. Iannàccaro, Gabriele, and Vittorio Dell’Aquila. “Mapping Languages from inside: Notes on Perceptual Dialectology.” Social and Cultural Geography, vol. 2, no. 3, Sept. 2001, pp. 265–280. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/14649360120073851. Kitzinger, Jenny. “Introducing Focus Groups.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 311, no. 7000, 1995, pp. 299–302. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29728251. McLaren, Mandy. “Teachers Fear Retribution after Kentucky Education Chief Seeks Names of Those Staging ‘Sickouts’.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 20 Mar. 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/news/ education/2019/03/20/teacher-strike-sickout-kentucky- jcps-wayne-lewis-names-list/3223587002/. Pégram, Scooter. “Navigating behind the Shadows of Steel: The Convergence and Divergence of Identity and Language among Latino Youth in Northwest Indiana.” Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, vol. 17, no. 1, Sept. 2017, pp. 97–116. EBSCOhost, search. ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=trueandAuthType =ip,uid,cpid,urlandcustid=s1176192anddb=a9hand AN=129365589. Ryan, Jacob. “‘Louisville, Not Kentucky:’ Dissecting The State’s Urban-Rural Divide.” 89.3 WFPL News Louisville, 8 July 2017, wfpl.org/louisville-not-kentucky-dissecting- commonwealths-urban-rural-divide/. Sánchez, Fajardo, and José Antonio. “Anglicisms and Calques in Upper Social Class in Pre-Revolutionary Cuba (1930-1959): A Sociolinguistic Analysis.” International Journal of English Studies, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 33–55. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=trueandAuthType=ip,uid,cpid,urlandc ustid=s1176192anddb=a9handAN=117071112. Sankoff, Gillian. “Dialectology.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 2, 1973, pp. 165–177. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2949267. Taylor, Orlando L. “Ebonics and Educational Policy: Some Issues for the Next Millennium.” The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 67, no. 1, 1998, pp. 35–42. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2668238. Thomas, Gary, and David James. “Reinventing Grounded Theory: Some Questions about Theory, Ground and Discovery.” British Educational Research Journal, vol. 32, no. 6, 2006, pp. 767–795. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/30032707. Whitney, Jessica. “Five Easy Pieces: Steps toward Integrating AAVE into the Classroom.” The English Journal, vol. 94, no. 5, 2005, pp. 64–69. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/30047356. Wieling, Martijn, et al. “Quantitative Social Dialectology: Explaining Linguistic Variation Geographically and Socially.” PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 9, Sept. 2011, pp. 1–14. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023613. RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS 59 Appendix A Dialect Perception Consent Form You are being asked to take part in a research study of how high school students perceive language. You are being asked to take part because you are a high schooler at one of the schools participating in this study. Please read this form carefully and ask any questions you may have before agreeing to take part in the study. What the study is about: The purpose of this study is to learn about the relationship between geographic distribution factors and dialect perception. You must be a student from a chosen school to participate. What we will ask you to do: If you agree to be in this study, we will ask you to take part in a focus group. The focus group will include questions about your dialect (speech), your upbringing (cultural con- text), your perceptions of how other groups of people speak, where you live (rural v urban), language stereo- types you my have, and how much formal education you’ve had dealing with language. The focus group will take about one hour to complete. The focus group session will be recorded. I will also ask you to com- plete a questionnaire after the focus group which will take approximately 15 minutes. The questionnaire will cover demographics as well as final questions regard- ing your education and family. Risks and benefits: There is the risk that you may find some of the questions about your personal life and beliefs to be sensitive. There are no benefits to you. This study simply wishes to learn more about the speech perceptions and patterns of high school students. Compensation: None Your answers will be confidential. The records of this study will be kept private. In any sort of report we make public we will not include any information that will make it possible to identify you. Research re- cords will be kept in a locked file; only the researchers will have access to the records. If the focus group is tape-recorded, it will destroyed after it has been tran- scribed, which is anticipate to be within two months of its taping. Taking part is voluntary: Taking part in this study is completely voluntary. You may skip any questions that you do not want to answer. If you decide not to take part or to skip some of the questions, it will have no effect. If you decide to take part, you are free to withdraw at any time. If you have questions: The researcher conduct- ing this study is Emma Fridy, and she is a student at duPont Manual HS. Please ask any questions you at egfridy@gmail.com or at 1-502-541-9508. Statement of Consent: I have read the above infor- mation, and have received answers to any questions I asked. I consent to take part in the study. Your Guardian’s Signature ___________________ ________________ Date ________________________ Your Guardian’s Name (printed) _____________ __________________________________________ _____ In addition to agreeing to participate, I also consent to having the focus group tape-recorded. Your Guardian’s Signature ___________________ ________________ Date _________________________ Signature of person obtaining consent ______________________________ Date _____________________ Printed name of person obtaining con- sent ______________________________ Date _____________________ This consent form will be kept by the researcher for at least three years beyond the end of the study. RURAL AND URBAN DIALECT PERCEPTIONS OF KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOLERS