The Culture of Appalachian Dialect

by Gabe Maynard

Growing up in the southern coal fields of my mountainous West Virginia home, I developed a thick southern accent. As a child, I never knew how thick my accent actually was; we never left home, and if we did it was to Myrtle Beach during coal miner`s vacation. It was a meeting spot for coalminers all throughout the region where coal miners brought themselves and their families for some much-needed rest and relaxation. It was suddenly like we were home again, running into neighbors in public and the stores blasting John Denver’s “Country Roads.” Even though we were eight hours from home, it was like we were still there, unable to escape the mountains that linked us all together.

These small Appalachian mountain towns, however, hide a well of knowledge that citizens of the region have developed through the generations. I am from an area where people can live without assistance, a land where people can grow and hunt their own food, find and make their own water sources, fix their homes, and mine out enough coal to light the entire U.S. The rest of the world, however, does not see us citizens of Appalachia as smart. In fact, a completely opposite stereotype cast its dark shadow across the region because of the accents we speak with.

This part of the country was settled by the many different groups of people that used these mountains as a refuge from oppressing governments and were using the new world as a way to escape these regimes. The settlers here picked the hills of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and other mountain states in our region because they were reminded by the terrain of the beautiful homes from the Germanic countryside, Ireland, England, and the many other European countries whose people that settled this region. Unfortunately, these mountains made it very difficult to transport in any goods or to move from town to town. Journeys that should only have taken hours turned into days depending on the conditions of the roadways at the time. The transportation difficulties caused the people who braved the conditions and made this place their home to settle in pockets of isolation. This is the cause for most of the accent that people hear when talking to someone from southern Appalachia. In our history, we were never exposed to the many different accents that make up the standard American English dialect that drives the work force today.

Since becoming an English major and a writing consultant at Glenville State College, I have encountered many opposing points and views when it comes to my accent. I have been asked, “How are you supposed to teach English if you have an accent?” This is a question that gets old after a while and one that is offensive. As a member of the Appalachian society, I tend to speak with a`s where my o`s should be or use words that occasionally resemble a story from Shakespeare such as yonder, ponder, or even phrases like dead as a door nail were all words or phrases popularized in Shakespeare’s writings. That does not mean that I do not know linguistics, grammar, or that I do not carry a deep love for reading with me every day. I can teach English, even with a different accent.

Shirley Brice Heath talks about the same problems with speech and grammar in the south in her book Ways with Words Language, Life, and Work in Communities an Classrooms. The book talks about a teacher named Mrs. Gardner who taught first-grade children in the rural area of Trackton, North Carolina, a town much like mine. Nestled in North Carolina`s countryside these children had developed a particular accent that was extremely thick and hard to understand. The school had already considered these children “potential failures” because of their results, a reading test which did not take into consideration their strong accents or the fact that they had never been introduced to Standard American English. This particular group of students used what at the time the school district and local universities referred to as “Black Dialect.” Mrs. Gardner, however, refused to give up on the students and decided to do something radical that no one had tried to do with this young and impressionable group of kids. She decided to teach them.

Mrs. Gardner throughout the year introduced these children to new ways of thinking. The students were introduced to stories that made reading fun, they were taught how to sound words out phonetically along with other practices to help these students read better and up to their grade level. “At the end of the year, all but one of the children in Mrs. Gardner’s class were reading on at least grade level; eight were at third grade level, six were at second grade level, and the rest were at grade level” (Heath 287). Mrs. Gardner was able to give these children voices to help them not only throughout the rest of their education but throughout the rest of their lives. “The psychological value of building positive self-concepts by having what could have easily become the lowest reading class become the school’s prestige group is obvious” (Heath 287). Because Mrs. Gardner took the time to help her students find a voice, they now have the confidence to answer the questions asked of them in their educational and professional careers. Students left her classroom not being the group that was destined to failure, rather being a group now that was ready to take on the world after realizing their true potential.

Mrs. Gardner was able to accomplish the extraordinary feat of turning not only these student’s academic careers around, but also their whole lives around by creating a culture of learning within the walls of her classroom. That is the same goal that writing tutors such as myself should go into the writing center with every day. Because of this learning culture, that the writing center has given me the opportunity to help people with thick accents such as myself learn to write papers the proper way growing their self confidence as we progress through the writing process

According to the book The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice creating a culture of learning is one of the key principles needed to run a successful writing center. As tutors we should not think that we have all the answers, but we should be mindful that we are learning everyday with the students that we help. Through listening to those who have been told their whole lives they are stupid and not smart enough to complete college or even have a productive life post high school, we can raise their confidence of their own knowledge and will see a tremendous improvement in their papers. “If we are able to cultivate in ourselves and in our tutors an awareness of teaching as learning, as becoming rather than as a display of being knowledgeable, we will be well on our way to creating a sustainable learning culture within our writing centers” (Geller et al. 59).

Being a tutor at the writing center at Glenville State College has given me a unique opportunity to speak to those who like me have a thick accent and are trying to better themselves through education. Several of the students whom I see on a regular basis have the same issues that I have encountered through school thus far. They speak with an accent and people think that because of that, they are not qualified to have a college degree. In a lot of cases the students that I see also write their papers with a strong Southern voice. Students will come in, even after proofreading with their paper reading like a conversation, except that the subject verb agreement is often wrong and some of the words are misused. These words which are considered misused according to the rules of grammar, are considered normal speech for those of us who call Appalachia our home. When this becomes an issue within the student’s paper, as a tutor it is important to not destroy the students psyche because of some simple grammar misuse. Instead, we should take the time to learn why the student is using the words in the manner that he or she is using them and then teach them that instead of changing their own accent teach them how to change modes, writing formally with standard American English, and still being proud of their accents and where they come from.

However, creating a culture of learning between both tutors and students, has allowed us tutors to give power to those students who have an accent. On paper students can develop their thoughts and create some of the most beautiful works of literature that I have ever read. We would not be able to get these results if we were to just speak to these students like the “red necks” that they have been told they are their whole life. Instead we listen to the stories that students have to offer about the world that made them the men and women who sit in front of us. We learn about the beauties of their culture, and they learn how to bring their papers to life, making them equal with the so-called standard English-speaking community.

Having the opportunity to help these students is what this tutoring position is all about. Not only am I granted the opportunity to help these students get better grades on their paper, but I also get to encourage them to show how intelligent they truly are through their own voice. As someone who knows what it is like to be doubted by people just because I talk differently than what people think appropriate of educated people. I find joy in being able to give student`s voice`s meaning through helping them with their papers and helping them prove that their voices carry weight and deserve to be heard, not just tossed aside because they are unable to conform to the Standard American English that controls all too many of our futures.

Works Cited

Heath, Shirley. Ways with Words. Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge University Press, 1983

Geller, Anne, et al. The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice. Utah State University Press, 2007.