|
I was wondering if any of you have been following PBS Frontline's three part series "Country Boys" about the lives (and rather miserable lives) of two teenagers in Eastern Kentucky and their friends and families? Some linguists call the English they speak "Appalachian English". It is usually gets classified in linguistic atlases of the U.S. as either "Southern" or "Southern Midlands" American English.
Some historians and demographers claim that the Cumberland Gap region in Virginia and Kentucky is the real cultural, political and linguistic division of English North America and not the U.S. - Canadian border.
The mother of one of the teenagers said something ("We're gon' tear up this ol' trailer down") which typifies what most people think of when they think of "Appalachian" or "Hillbilly" (even "Hillbilly redneck") English. The standard American English of what she said would be "We're going to tear this old trailer down."
Any comments or opinions?
|
|
|
sounds pretty much the way I imagined rednecks to speak...
|
|
|
That particular demographic group is probably not an ideal model for ESL students.
|
