UW News

August 17, 2011

A Seattle accent? Study looks at ‘perceptual dialectology — accents we think we have

This map shows how all study participants responded when asked 'Where do people speak differently?'

This map shows how all study participants responded when asked "Where do people speak differently?"

The average American can readily recognize the slow drawl of a southern accent, the dropped (and added) Rs of a Boston accent and the unique French and English mash-up of certain areas in Louisiana. But a Washington accent, or even a Pacific Northwest accent? Not so much.

So, is there no distinctive manner of speaking in these parts? Thats what Betsy Evans, assistant professor of linguistics, would like to know.

“The conventional wisdom is that there is so much heterogeneity, so much variation in English in the Northwest and in Washington that there arent really any patterns,” Evans said. “As linguists were looking for patterns of variation.”

Of course, Evans points out, it isnt surprising that no patterns have been found, because very little research has been done. She brings out a recent dialect map of the United States, on which fine-grained groupings crowd everything on the eastern two-thirds. And then theres a large area encompassing 11 states, called simply “The West.” Washington is one of those states. So does that mean that Washingtonians speak the same as natives of Wyoming, or New Mexico?

This map shows areas that participants marked as 'country,' or 'hick.'

This map shows areas that participants marked as "country," or "hick."

Not likely, but Evans said that linguists havent really studied the matter to find out. Thats why shes done a preliminary study to get the ball rolling in Washington.

“My study is specifically asking Washingtonians, do they think there are patterns?” Evans said. “Are there different ways of talking in Washington state, and could you give those ways a name?”

She said the study falls into a research category called perceptual dialectology, where the researcher asks real people what they think about how language is spoken. It does not catalogue actual differences in speech, such as the way a short A is pronounced, but rather peoples perceptions of how others talk. Participants in the study were given a map of Washington and asked to indicate on it places where they thought peoples English sounded “different” and to give a label for that variety.

“Youd think that people might just shrug their shoulders and say ‘I dont know when asked to point out language differences, but they didnt,” Evans said. “Most drew circles around certain areas and labeled them.”

Betsy Evans

Betsy Evans

The completed maps were scanned and read by geographic information systems software. The software was able to aggregate all the maps and show the areas that had received the most marking. The most common label used for areas marked was “hick/country/southern,” and it was most often attached to the extreme southeastern corner of Washington and to the area north of Spokane.

The second-largest category noted the influence of Spanish, strongest around the cities of Wenatchee, Yakima and Pasco and to a lesser degree around Tacoma.

Two other categories were “squishier.” One singled out areas where there was “a lot of slang,” while another noted specific pronunciations, such as saying “Warshington” instead of “Washington.” Slang was noted in urban areas all over the state, while the pronunciation label was strongest around Bellingham and Spokane. The final category noted the influence of Canada and was, unsurprisingly, along the Canadian border.

The study was small, with 229 maps returned and 178 of them usable. Most of the study subjects were students from Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia and Wenatchee. All of them had lived at least half their lives in Washington. The average age was 26.

Evans noted that the cultural divide between eastern and western Washington was in evidence as eastern Washington was most often identified as “country,” or “hick.” Because of its farming history, it tends to be associated with rural, agricultural and “cowboy” culture, she said.

Interestingly, eastern Washington residents did not call out areas of language difference as strongly as those from western Washington; the strongest language difference they noted was in the area around Seattle.

Thats not surprising, Evans said, because her study is about perceptions, not actual language differences.

“What people say about language has nothing to do with language,” she explained. “It has to do with what they believe about the people who use that language. Thats whats fascinating to me about attitudes and perceptions of language. For a linguist, the features of language that make a particular group unique have no inherent value. People attach a value to the features based on their perception of the people. For example, young people use ‘like a lot. From a linguistic point of view, theres no inherent inarticulateness about that. Its a value we attach to people who use that feature a lot.”

Perceptual studies are important, she said, because they help us recognize how people understand their communities and how they perceive themselves.

While Evans studies perceptions, her colleague Alicia Wassink is interviewing and recording Seattleites to document actual language differences in the city. The two expect to work together in the future as they try to fill in the gaps about spoken language in Washington.

The next step, Evans said, is to create a tool for collecting the data online so that respondents don’t have to use pen and paper to complete the survey.  That will make it easier to collect data from a wider sample of Washingtonians, either by having them use their own computer or by going into the field with a tablet computer for people to use for responding.

“Collecting the data in this way means we can survey more people and have a more representative sample, analyze the data quicker, and also include some sound samples of speech for respondents to listen to and respond to,” Evans said.

For more information about the work, see Evans website.