Transplanted to Appalachia, I live in Bristol, Tennessee,
and have taught English at
King College since 1980. I was born and raised in
Michigan and earned my B.A. and M.A. degrees in English
literature at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
The last two years have been spent working on my doctorate
at Michigan Technological University. My degree will be in
Rhetoric and Technical Communication (the study of
communicating in the workplace).
My first trip to the Southern mountains was at age 6. My
mother was principal of the high school in Grant, Michigan.
Two of her teachers were from Appalachia: one from
Owingsville, Kentucky, the other a graduate of King College
from Weaverville, North Carolina. Neither of the young women
had cars, so my mother and I drove them home to the
mountains and in the process fell in love with the hills.
Ever after, I could not go too long without a trip to the
Smokies or a leisurely ramble on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It
is no wonder that I finally came to live in the mountains
myself or that I have embraced the culture of the region.
I began learning about Melungeons through articles in the
Bristol Herald Courier and other regional publications.
The longer I lived in Upper East Tennessee, the more I read,
coming quickly to novels by writers like Lee Smith, Sharyn
McCrumb, and Wilma Dykeman. So, my connection to Melungeon
people is not by blood, but instead is first a reader's and
later a writer's connection.
My reading led me to further research. When I was asked to
write a scholarly paper as a part my application to graduate
school, I decided to write about Melungeon characters in
Appalachian fiction. The result of my efforts became a book,
How They Shine,
published by Mercer University Press in December 2001.
What is Linguistics?
Scholars are interested in several aspects of the unique
human activity that is language. They study both the way
language is structured (or its grammar) and how language use
indicates speakers'/writers' relationships to one another.
Study of how human connections are played out in
conversation is called socio-linguistics.
One of the graduate courses I took in my Ph.D. program was
called Linguistic Analysis. In that course we read books and
articles by many experts in the field and were challenged to
do a project that explored some facet of current work or
theory.
Scholars in
linguistics are interested in analyzing electronic
conversation for a number of reasons. First it is a
relatively new way to observe human communication. One of
the most labor-intensive aspects of linguistic study is the
transcription of human speech from audio or video tapes.
Writing down one hour of conversation can take as long as
six hours of tedious work. But, both e-mail dialog and
synchronous conversation (like what occurs in a chat room)
are already in written form. Therefore, the scholar can go
straight to her/his analysis without the long hours of
transcription.
The research
for my book had led me to the Melungeon e-mail list at
Rootsweb. As I read the postings over a period of several
years, I was intrigued by the evidence of community I found
there as well as the wealth of information and the poignancy
of many of the stories list members share online. I decided
that my linguistics course project would be an analysis of
one thread of discussion on the list. There were several
reasons for my choice:
The research I did for my book gave me a good foundation of
history and literature to build on.
Several years as a list member had given me a sense of what
"usual" list conversation was like.
An analysis of list conversation might be a step toward my
dissertation research (topic: how Melungeon people are using
the Internet).
The final form my study took is a website that I
presented to the small audience of my professor and
classmates in an online venue called a MOO (Multi-User
Domain, Object Oriented). A MOO is an interactive
website where people can meet in real time and have
dialog. It enables persons who could not be together in
actual space to be together in a virtual space. Since I
was analyzing electronic conversation that had occurred
online, I chose to present my analysis online, too.
The MOO "window" where my website appeared was narrow.
Therefore, I elected to have the text go all the way
from one margin to the other. This worked well in the
MOO, but makes the site a little hard to read when it is
viewed on the web. The light blue background was chosen
to contrast with the other two MOO windows that have a
white background.
The Methods I Used in My Study
Before I began to work on anything specific I had done a
lot of reading--books and articles in the fields of
linguistics and Melungeon studies as well as hundreds
(thousands) of list postings over the course of several
years. My specific steps in gathering and presenting
information are listed below:
I chose a thread
of messages titled "Melungeon herbal medicine."
I wrote a letter asking all participants in the list
discussion for permission to quote their postings in
my final analysis. Every person quoted in my
analysis gave permission for their postings to be
used; many asked that their real names be used.
I printed four copies of the list messages (one as a
back-up, one in chronological order, one
reconstructing the web of messages and responses,
one divided by authors).
I read the messages MANY times.
I made notes on the pages of messages themselves and
also generated tables to categorize the traits I
noticed as I read and re-read the postings.
I met with my professor to get her expert opinion on
my work.
I created
the website reporting my findings.
What I Discovered
Scholars in socio-linguistics believe that the
relationships of persons in an identified group can be
determined from their conversation alone. Markers
include such things as forms of address, interruptions,
"hedges" (a sequence such as "in my opinion"), use of a
person's name, use of first person and third person
pronouns, and repetition of a word or phrase.
During the period of the "Melungeon herbal medicine"
discussion (a week at the beginning of February 2002),
there was also a spirited conversation on the list about
what it means to call oneself "Melungeon." This topic
came up because of the DNA testing and how people were
identified to participate in that study. However, no
mention of that topic was present in the thread I chose.
Yet, I discovered that the markers of group membership
were present in the herbal medicine discussion thread.
This discovery and the details of how I reached my
conclusions constitute my project.
As you read the report presented in the website, I ask
you to remember that it was created for a graduate
course. The text is academic in tone and style because
of the context and audience.
My research question was "How is community enacted and
maintained on the Melungeon List?" The answer is quite
simple. There is a group of people on Melungeon-L who
are descendants of the first Melungeons in Hancock
County, Tennessee. These people occupy center stage on
the list. Others who are also list members participate
in the various discussions, but the core group has
information and life experience to share that others
learn from and appreciate.
Several people have asked me to share my project, called
"A Wired Neighborhood," and to explain it. I hope these
comments are helpful additions to the project itself
A Wired Neighborhood
