Consistency of Spelling and Pronunciation Deviations of Appalachian Students

T HE pronunciation of certain words by Appalachian residents differs so markedly from that of Standard American English that the mountain man often has difficulty understanding those outside his community. Few studies, however, have been made specifically of the Appalachian dialect, and those which have been conducted, have been concerned mainly with vocabulary rather than with phonemic characteristics. The following study investigates the pronunciation of certain words by Appalachian students and analyzes the consistency between the Appalachian dialectal pronunciation of certain vowels and the spelling of words in which these vowels appear.