Language Variation in a Blue Ridge Community

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Language Variation in a Small Blue Ridge Community"examines the application of Social Network Theory(SNT) to asociolinguistic study conducted in a small, ruralcommunity located in the Appalachian dialect region. This studyfocuses on data fromthirteen individuals, all members of the sameclose-knit social network. The informants are residents of a small town('Carrollton'), located in the mountains of western North Carolina, an area experiencing social and economic change as the resultof tourism and the construction of a golf resort. Grammaticaland phonological data are presented and analyzed in terms of thetraditional sociolinguistic variables of age and education levelas well as in terms of the social network members' network scores. Though SNT carries with it expectations regarding the uniformityof network members' speech and the maintenance of marked linguistic features, the variable of network score could not belinked statistically to the use of many Carrolltonlinguistic features. Given this unexpected result, this work provides anexplanation of the intra-network variation through the use of an'identity' variable.