386 Betsy E. Evans
Keyser—in the northern and eastern part of the state); one from an Inland
North dialect (as were Noah’s parents), and another South Midlands speaker
not from West Virginia. Respondents (n=69) were recruited at the University
of West Virginia in Morgantown, WV and asked to listen to the tape and
indicate whether they believed each speaker was from West Virginia or not
using a ¿ ve-point scale.
- “you are sure that the speaker grew up in West Virginia”
- “you think the speaker grew up in West Virginia”
- “you don’t know if the speaker grew up in West Virginia”
- “you think that the speaker did not grow up in West Virginia”
- “you are sure that the speaker did not grow up in West Virginia”
Figure 16.4 shows the mean scores for all speakers. The mean score for the
Charleston speaker (1.67) indicates that respondents felt sure that he grew up
in West Virginia and suggests that “southern” speech is a salient character-
istic for such an indenti¿ cation. The mean score for Noah’s imitation (1.93)
in conjunction with t-test results showed the difference between the mean
scores for the imitation and Charleston speaker to be not signi¿ cant (.08).
Thus it seems that the respondents perceived the imitation to be as likely to
be from West Virginia as the Charleston speaker. Mean scores for the other
speakers on the tape show that respondents weren’t sure or perceived those
Figure 16.3 Noah’s normal and imitation systems.