Scheduled Events

Annual Awards Banquet
Date: Monday, May 19, 2008
Time: 6 to 9 p.m.
Speaker: CMU Professor Dr. Barbara Johnstone, “Pittsburghese: The Linguistic Heritage of Southwestern Pennsylvania”
Place: Radisson Hotel Pittsburgh, 101 Mall Boulevard, Monroeville, PA 15146
Cost: $24 members, $29 non-members, $19 students and unemployed (includes dinner and presentation)
Check payments can be made to STC Pittsburgh, c/o Marlene Miller, 4259 Glen Lytle Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15217
RSVP by May 13 to Bryce Walat at walat_bryce@msn.com or 412-779-1795. Include your name, phone number and email address.

Get directions at: http://www.radissondestinationguide.com/locationMap.process/OID_EB39EA2D/?hotelCode=PITTSBUR

Have you ever wondered why the Cleveland accent is so different from Pittsburgh’s – despite the fact that the two cities are only a couple of hours apart? Have you ever wondered where yinz, slippy, and redd up come from? Should Pittsburghers – and former Pittsburghers – be embarrassed about their unique dialect of English, or should they be proud of it? Find out how “Pittsburghese” came to be, and where it’s headed, in this presentation by CMU Professor of English Barbara Johnstone.

Together with a colleague at Pitt, Professor Johnstone is working on a National Science Foundation funded project to describe the speech patterns of Southwestern Pennsylvania and explore how “Pittsburghese” has come to be such a strong symbol of Pittsburgh’s identity. In her talk, she will trace the history of the dialect and talk about how it is changing, in the context of changes in other American dialects. Along with the French and Indian War, the steel industry, the Steelers, and the “Sahside,” local speech is an element of our local heritage. Come learn more about it!

Barbara Johnstone is Professor of Rhetoric and Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her specialty is sociolinguistics – the study of language in society. For the past seven years, she has been studying the dialect of the Pittsburgh area, as it’s spoken, and, yes, as it’s written. A native of central PA, Professor Johnstone first got interested in language and place through hearing the local dialect there, and she is happy finally to be able to study it here. Professor Johnstone’s research “Pittsburghese” has been featured in the Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review and on local television. She has also appeared in WQED’s “Pittsburgh A to Z,” in an NFL Films feature about the “Steeler Nation,” and in the national PBS special “Do You Speak American?”.