This is the preliminary schedule of papers, meetings, and presentations for the 2018 American Dialect Society annual conference to be held at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Thursday, January 4 through Sunday, January 7, 2018. For more information on the hotel and location, and other events associated with the conference, see the Linguistic Society of America website.
Thursday, January 4
Executive Council
Room: Provence
Chair: ADS President Sali Tagliamonte (University of Toronto)
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 PM
Open meeting; all members welcome.
Annual Business Meeting
Room: Provence
Chair: ADS President Sali Tagliamonte (University of Toronto)
Time: 3:00 – 3:30 PM
ADS Session 1: Southern American English I
Room: Provence
Chair: Sonja Lanehart (University of Texas, San Antonio)
Time: 4:00 – 6:00 PM
4:00 Paul Reed (University of Alabama): Rootedness and the Southern Shift in Appalachia
4:30 Joseph A. Stanley (University of Georgia), William A. Kretzschmar Jr. (University of Georgia), Margaret E. L. Renwick (University of Georgia), Rachel M. Olsen (University of Georgia), Michael Olsen (University of Georgia): The Gazetteer of Southern Vowels
5:00 Brian José (Indiana State University): A real-time study of the Southern Vowel Shift in Kentuckiana
5:30 Hayley Heaton (University of Michigan): Implicit attitudes towards American Southern English: Evaluating the IAT’s strength and malleability
Words of the Year Nominations
Room: Provence
Chair: Ben Zimmer, chair of ADS New Words Committee
Time: 6:15 – 7:15 PM
Open meeting of the New Words Committee; ADS members and all interest parties are welcome. This meeting reviews nominations for Words of the Year 2017. Final candidates will be identified in preparation for the vote at 5:00 p.m. Friday.
Sister Society Meet and Greet Reception
Room: Lobby Lounge
Time: 8:30 – 10:00 PM
Friday, January 5
ADS Session 2: Canada and North America: A Study in Contrasts
Room: Provence
Chair: Michael Adams (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Time: 8:30 – 10:30 AM
8:30 Stefan Dollinger (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Margery Fee (University of British Columbia, Vancouver): Why parkade is Canadian and kerfuffle isn’t: Introducing DCHP-2, a new historical-contrastive dictionary of Canadian English
9:00 Nicole Rosen (University of Manitoba), Fraser Taylor (Carleton University), Amos Hayes (Carleton University): Visualization of social variables in language variation and change: /æg/-raising in the Canadian Prairies as a test case for cyber-mapping
9:30 Michol F. Hoffman (York University), James A. Walker (La Trobe University): Whose sorry now? (orV) in Toronto English
10:00 Charlotte Vaughn, Tyler Kendall, and Kaylynn Gunter (University of Oregon): Exploring the social meaning of adjective intensification
ADS Session 3: Narrative, Performance, Identity
Room: Provence
Chair: Jennifer Bloomquist (Gettysburg College)
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
11:00 Patricia Cukor-Avila (University of North Texas): Variation in African American Vernacular English narrative syntax
11:30 Brandon Jent (University of Kentucky): “If you ask me for one, I’ll give you three”: oral storytelling performance and construction in Central Appalachia
12:00 Ayesha M. Malik (University of Texas at San Antonio and St. Mary’s University School of Law): Hip hop’s (un)official religion: examining distinctively Islamic features in Hip Hop Nation Language
ADS Session 4: Southern American English II
Room: Provence
Chair: Paul Reed (University of Alabama)
Time: 1:00 – 2:30 PM
1:00 Phillip Weirich (Indiana University, Bloomington): Varied perceptions of Southernness in dialect transition zones
1:30 Marie Bissell (North Carolina State University): A perceptual dialectology approach to examining gender-region attitude interactions for southern speech
2:00 Martha Austen (The Ohio State University): The phonetic realization of the pin-pen merger
ADS Session 5: The Middle
Room: Provence
Chair: Patricia Cukor-Avila (University of North Texas)
Time: 3:00 – 4:30 PM
3:00 Martha Austen (The Ohio State University), Shontael Elward (The Ohio State University), Zack Jones (The Ohio State University), Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (The Ohio State University): Country identity and the North-Midland divide
3:30 Larry LaFond (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville), Ken Moffett (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville): Lexical cracks in a dialect island and the greying of Illinois
4:00 Daniel Duncan (New York University): Stigmatization-driven chain shift in St. Louis
Words of the Year Vote
Room: Grand Ballroom C
Time: 5:00 – 6:15 PM
Words in half a dozen categories as well as a Word (or Phrase) of the Year 2017 will be chosen from the slate of nominees previously determined at the nomination meeting. Before each vote, brief statements will be invited from advocates for or against the candidates. All are welcome to attend!
The hour will begin with the results of the American Name Society’s vote on its choice of Name of the Year.
Bring-Your-Own-Book Exhibit and Reception
Room: Grand Salon
Time: 6:30 – 7:30 PM
Saturday, January 6
ADS Session 6: Panel on Chain shifting in the Third Dialect: A dialogue on the similarities between the California and Canadian Vowel Shifts
Room: Provence
Time: 8:30 – 10:00 AM
Moderator: Kara Becker (Reed College)
Panelists: Teresa Pratt (Stanford University), Janneke Van Hofwegen (Stanford University), Annette D’Onofrio (Northwestern University), Penelope Eckert (Stanford University), Robert Podesva (Stanford University): How much wiggle room is there in a shift?
Charles Boberg (McGill University): A closer look at the Short Front Vowel Shift in Canada
James Grama (Australian National University, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language), Robert Kennedy (University of California at Santa Barbara): A lot of thought about variance and contrast: Reconsidering low-back identity and the California Vowel Shift
Valerie Fridland (University of Nevada, Reno), Tyler Kendall (University of Oregon): What is the California Vowel Shift? And, how would we know?
Discussant: William Labov (University of Pennsylvania)
Labov (1991) identified a Third Dialect of disparate regions which were not participating in a North American chain shift (either the Northern Cities or the Southern shifts), characterized by the low back merger of bot and bought and stability for the low front vowel bat. Since then, scholars working in Third Dialect areas have identified a chain shift of the short front vowels bat, bet and bit. This shift is known in California as the California Vowel Shift and in Canada as the Canadian Vowel Shift, and each CVS has an increasingly large body of literature devoted to its sociolinguistic patterning. Though some of these scholars have noted the similarity between the two CVSes, by and large the two literatures have proceeded independently. When considered, the difference in phonetic realization of the merged low back phoneme has been cited as evidence that the two shifts are not the same; specifically, that the relatively lower and fronter realization of bot/bought in California English should block the pull or drag chain from beginning. In addition, scholars have pointed to differences across studies in the order of rotation of bat, bet and bit in apparent time, as well as the direction of each vowel’s movement, as evidence of dissimilarity. This panel will directly address the similarities between the two CVSes, with perspectives from within California and Canada as well as evidence from outside these areas where the chain shift is occurring. Discussion will focus on the central question of whether the shifts are the same or not, as well as what phonological and social factors are at play in the Third Dialect that would account for the vocalic patterns seen there.
ADS Poster Session
Location: Grand Ballroom A/D at poster boards 93 and 94
Time: 10:30-12:00
Ayden Loughlin (University of Victoria): A weird poster: lexical competition among adjectives of strangeness over time
Kathryn Remlinger (Grand Valley State University), Austin Belanger-Iott (Grand Valley State University), Melissa Dean (Grand Valley State University), Tristan Kittle (Grand Valley State University), Alice Pozzobon (Grand Valley State University), Richard Vegh (Grand Valley State University): How much Dutch? The linguistic landscape of Holland, Michigan
ADS Session 7: Panel on Mormon English and Mormon Lexis: Describing and Defining a Religiolect
Room: Provence
Moderator: Arwen Taylor (Arkansas Tech University)
Time: 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Panelists: Arwen Taylor (Arkansas Tech University): Is there a Mormon English? Lexis and the identification of dialect
Kjerste Christensen (Brigham Young University): Life, death, and family: Mormon missionary metaphors
David Bowie (University of Alaska Anchorage), Boyd J. Petersen (Utah Valley University): Lexical variation in the Mormon Culture Region: The interaction with religion
The connection between religious identity and language variation is not often addressed directly; most often, religion is addressed either as a facet of ethnicity or as a community of practice governing linguistic innovation and dissemination. The Mormon religion, with its history of geographical segregation and its dense and multiplex congregational networks has fomented the development of a unique variety of English usage among its members, most notably in the domain of lexis. However, Mormon English has so far received relatively little scholarly attention, as studies of the English of the Intermountain West only occasionally take stock of the effects of religion on dialect, and studies of the anthropological role of language in Mormonism have rarely addressed the dialectal features of the language itself. This panel brings together three varied approaches to Mormon lexis and usage, in order to advance the description, documentation, and theorization of Mormon English: a study of lexical variation measurable between adherents and non-adherents of the Mormon faith; a study of the conceptual metaphor underlying certain slang terms in Mormon missionary culture; and a study that theorizes the possibility of identifying Mormon English as a discrete dialect.; all three contributing to a small but growing body of work addressing the lexical distinctiveness of this community of speakers.
ADS Annual Luncheon
Room: Grand Salon
Chair: ADS President Sali Tagliamonte (University of Toronto)
Time: 12:15 – 1:45 PM
Speaker: Guy Bailey (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley): The Life and Growth of Language in an Age of Catastrophic Events
Cost is $40. Student members of ADS may attend free. Make reservations in advance with ADS Executive Secretary Allan Metcalf at americandialect@mac.edu.
ADS Session 8: Syntax Matters
Room: Provence
Chair: Elaine Chun (University of South Carolina)
Time: 2:00 – 4:30 PM
2:00 Alexandra D’Arcy (University of Victoria), Ildara Enríquez García (University of Victoria): Expanding the quotative dialectic: Evidence from indirect quotation
2:30 Derek Denis (University of Toronto, Mississauga), Isra Saghir (University of Toronto,
Mississauga): Default singulars was present in turn of the century Ontario English
3:00 Sara S. Loss (Oklahoma State University): The distribution of Oklahoma personal datives, a study of the periphery
3:30 Justin Bland (The Ohio State University), Kenneth Baclawski Jr. (University of California, Berkeley), Matthias Raess (Ball State University): The first decade of because-NP: 2007-2016
4:00 Sali A. Tagliamonte (University of Toronto): Beyond go slow and think quick: The suffixless adverb in North America
Sunday, January 7
ADS Session 9: American English All over the Place
Room: Provence
Chair: Kathryn Remlinger (Grand Valley State University)
Time: 8:30 – 10:30 AM
8:30 Nathalie Dajko (Tulane University), Katie Carmichael (Virginia Tech): Plus ça change … (Un)changing perceptions of New Orleans English
9:00 Julia Swan (San Jose State University), Kara Becker (Reed College): Perception in West Coast English: BAG-raising in three West Coast cities
9:30 Wil A. Rankinen (Grand Valley State University), Aaron L. Albin (Kobe University): Geographic distribution of Finnish vs. Anglicized pronunciations of the word ‘sauna’ in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
10:00 Natalie Schilling (Georgetown University): “Backwards talk” in Smith Island, Maryland: Production, perception, and persistence in the face of dialect loss
ADS Session 10: Utah English
Room: Provence
Chair: Jeffrey Reaser (North Carolina State University)
Time: 11:00 – 12:30 PM
11:00 Marianna Di Paolo (University of Utah), Lisa Johnson (University of Utah): Revisiting (NG) in Utah English
11:30 Joseph A. Stanley (University of Georgia), Kyle Vanderniet (University of Georgia):
Consonantal variation in Utah English: What el[t]se is happening[k]?
12:00 Elizabeth Peterson (University of Helsinki): “Should I say ja?” Performance and routine in agreement markers in Sanpete County, Utah