Production, Perception, and Patterning: "Performance" Speech in an Endangered Dialect Variety

Abstract

In this presentation, I examine a register that has received little in mainstream sociolinguistic literature, speech. Performance can be defined as the style of associated with speakers' attempting to display for others a certain language variety, whether a language or dialect alien to their own community or their own language or language variety. Because sociolinguists typically focus on utterances which minimize the paid to speech, they have tended to dismiss style, in which speakers focus on itself as they demonstrate for others what they perceive to be salient features of the language variety on display. Even in discussions of style which downplay the attention to speech criterion (e.g., Bell 1984), is cast aside, perhaps because it is considered unnatural, a mere byproduct of the sociolinguistic interview. However, a number of sociolinguistic studies which focus on dialect imitation (e.g., Preston 1994, Butters forthcoming), as well as anthropology-based studies of communicative patterns (e.g., Bauman 1975) show that style does occur in natural conversation and, indeed, may play a central role in the daily patterns of certain communities. An examination of may thus yield essential data on fundamental issues related to language in its social context. In addition, the investigation of lends valuable insight into specialized sociolinguistic situations, including those that contextualize endangered languages and language varieties. Endangered languages are often characterized by an unusually sharp focus on the language itself, and on the successful performance of the rare or dying language for speakers of

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