Abstract Submission: Available Oct. 17, 2014 - Jan. 18, 2015

The Southeastern Conference on Linguistics invites abstract submissions for papers for the 82nd meeting, which will be held concurrently with Language Variation in the South IV (LAVIS IV) in downtown Raleigh, NC, April 9-11, 2015. Papers in all areas of language and linguistics are welcome, including papers and panels on the teaching of linguistics, but special consideration will be given to proposals related to the conference theme, "The New South."

In the thirty-three years since LAVIS was first convened, the South has undergone and continues to undergo a remarkable transformation. For example, since LAVIS I, Raleigh, NC, has grown from 150,000 to 435,000 residents. The 2010 census found the South to be the fastest growing area in the United States, growing 14.3% over the previous decade to more than 114 million people (all population figures from census.gov). Currently eleven of the twenty fastest-growing cities in the US are located in the South. But the South is not growing uniformly. Many traditionally important Southern cities, including Birmingham, AL; Knoxville, TN; Richmond, VA; and Columbia, SC, have grown little since LAVIS I was held. Furthermore, non-metro regions have also undergone important cultural changes. The Appalachian Mountain region, for example, has been changed in part due to tourism, making the local culture and dialect a potential cultural commodity vis-à-vis a variety associated with linguistic subordination, as it might be more urban, transplant areas. At the same time, different areas of the region have not moved in lockstep; in fact, there were more economically distressed counties in Appalachia in 2014 (93) than in 1980 (80) (see Wood & Bischek 2000: 36-41 and Appalachian Regional Commission 2013).

"The New South" is in part a story of demographic and economic boom, but many other compelling narratives exist as well, including the cultural and demographic transformations brought by immigrants from all over the world. In the census of 2000 and 2010, states like Georgia and North Carolina had the fastest growing percentage Hispanic populations in the US. While Latinos are clearly the most visible group of recent immigrants to the South, other groups have transformed the region over the past thirty years, including large populations of Asians (Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Indian, Pakistani, etc.), Middle Easterners (Lebanese, Iraqi, Egyptian, Saudi, Yemeni, etc.) and Southern and Eastern Europeans (Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, etc.).

Thus, "The New South" is comprised of increasing demographic and linguistic diversity, but as important are the changes to the traditional populations and ways of life. LAVIS IV and SECOL 82 together will be the most comprehensive conference documenting language in this dynamic landscape.

Abstracts for 20-minute papers should not exceed 400 words, excluding title and references. Authors may submit up to two abstracts (across both conferences), one individual and one joint. Abstracts will be accepted electronically through EasyAbstracts between October 17, 2014, and January 18, 2015.

Please direct all inquiries to: secol_raleigh at ncsu dot edu

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Language Variety in the South: The New South (LAVIS IV) is the fourth in a series of landmark events in the field. LAVIS I, which was planned and arranged by Michael B. Montgomery and Guy Bailey and held at the University of South Carolina-Columbia in the fall of 1981, constituted an initial display of the state of research as it then existed and served as a model for further solid scholarship on language variation in the South. It resulted in a volume of 21 articles entitled Language Variety in the South: Perspectives in Black and White, edited by Montgomery and Bailey and published by the University of Alabama Press.

Following suit, LAVIS II, organized by Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally and Robin Sabino, and held at Auburn University in the spring of 1993, helped to consolidate the achievements of prior research while showcasing methodological advances and signaling a forward-looking change that broadened the research agenda. This conference resulted in a second landmark publication by the University of Alabama Press. A refereed selection of 38 papers appeared in a volume entitled Language Variety in the South Revisited, edited by Bernstein, Nunnally & Sabino.

Approximately 11 years separated LAVIS I and LAVIS II. In the spring of 2004, after a similar interval, it was both appropriate and essential to stage LAVIS III. Organized by Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies, and hosted by the University of Alabama, LAVIS III showcased the latest applications in the quantitative analysis of linguistic data, as well as other new methodologies for examining language change and variation. It also expanded the scope of inquiry by including indigenous languages and trade jargons in the American South, as well as the examination of the connections of the South to the Caribbean. And it examined the European linguistic mix and the types of English, French, Spanish, German, Gaelic, Italian, etc. that made their way to the South. The South has long been far more multicultural and multilingual—and complex--than often acknowledged. As with the previous LAVIS conferences, a major volume of 45 articles resulted from this conference, titled New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches, edited by Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies (University of Alabama Press, 2015).

LAVIS III established benchmarks for the study of language in the South, and LAVIS IV seeks to showcase the multiple trajectories of evolution of the "New South," now the most rapidly growing region in the US.

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See below for a listing of all speakers and presentations. For abstracts of each presentation, access the Full Program.

LAVIS Plenary Speakers

Dennis R. Preston - Opening Plenary - ['sʌδɚn], ['sʌδən], ['sʌδɹən], [sʌ̃:n], etc: What we/they think/thought is is/was/will be
William A. Kretzschmar, Jr. - Closing Plenary – LAVIS: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

LAVIS Panels

African American English

Tracey Weldon - Sounding Black: Labeling and Perceptions of African American Voices on Southern College Campuses
Patricia Cukor-Avila - Growing INTO and IN African American English
Sonja Lanehart - Black Is, Black Isn't: Perceptions of Language and Blackness

Appalachian English

Michael Montgomery - The Appalachian Border as the Locus for New Dialect Formation: A Test Case with Respect to Aspect
Allison Burkette - The Interaction of Linguistic and Object-Based Stancetaking in Appalachian Interviews
Paul Reed - Appalachia, Monopthongization, and Intonation: Rethinking Tradition

Hispanic English & Spanish

Erik Thomas - What a Swarm of Variables Tells us about the Formation of Mexican American English
Phillip Carter - Perceiving Miami in English and Spanish
Jim Michnowicz - Spanish-English contact in North Carolina: Different variables, different trajectories

Louisiana English & French

Michael Picone - Language and Dialect in Louisiana, The State of the Research
Nathalie Dajko - The Continuing Importance of French in Louisiana
Katie Carmichael - R-lessness in Cajun English and New Orleans English

Outreach & Engagement

Kirk Hazen - From Community Engagement to Public Outreach: Historical Analysis and Future Goals
Bridget Anderson - Applied Sociophonetics in Forensic Linguistic Casework Involving Voice Comparison and Speaker Profiling
Anne H. Charity Hudley & Christine Mallinson - From Opportunity Gaps to Progressive Partnerships: Interdisciplinary Models of Sociolinguistic Justice in the New South

Recent Immigrant Groups in the South

Elaine Chun - "She be acting like she's black": Ideologies of language and blackness among Korean American female youth in Texas
Agnes Bolonyai - `Where are you from?': Immigrant stories of accent, belonging, and `Other' experiences in the South
​Luciana Fellin - The new Italians of the South

Southern Identity

Barbara Johnstone - Enregistering Speech with Identity in the New South
Becky Childs - Language and Internet in the New South
Catherine Evans Davies - Performing Southernness in Country Music

The Urban South

Bill Labov - The Phonology of the Urban South: an Overview
Robin Dodsworth - Network cluster detection and the reversal of the Southern Vowel Shift in Raleigh
Mary Kohn - (De)Segregation: The impact of de-facto and de-jure segregation on African American English in the New South

Video Response - First Language: The Race to Save Cherokee

Neal Hutcheson & Danica Cullinan- Directors
​Chris Koops & Hartwell Francis - Response Panel

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We would like to thank our sponsors for all of their support:

William C. Friday Endowment

North Carolina State University College of Humanities and Social Sciences

North Carolina State University Department of English

The American Dialect Society

National Science Foundation Aware #1451103

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