ABSTRACT
MALLINSON, CHRISTINE LOUISE. The Dynamic Construction of Race, Class, and Gender
through Linguistic Practice among Women in a Black Appalachian Community. (Under the
direction of L. Richard Della Fave.)
This dissertation conceptualizes and analyzes the dynamic construction of race, class,
and gender through linguistic practice in a way that integrates the sociological study of social
organization with the study of language in its social context. I illustrate the efficacy of the
approach in its application to a field study of the black Southern Appalachian community of
Texana, North Carolina. I begin by contextualizing the setting using qualitative evidence
from naturalistic observation and interviews with residents. I then focus on the social and
linguistic habits of two groups of four women in the community. Drawing from observation
and interviews, I analyze qualitative data on the groups’ contemporary situations, shared
memories, and ways of life. The qualitative data provides content for interpreting
quantitative analyses of sociolinguistic data with regard to race, class, and gender identities.
Drawing on both data sources, I show that the two groups of women exhibit distinctions
based on lifestyle and presentation that divide them into discrete status groups. I thus
provide evidence to show how social status is articulated with local character, in everyday
practice, but is also rooted in the system of stratification in ways that intersect with gender,
race, and language. My findings exemplify how agentive social actors use language as
symbolic vehicles in daily interaction, in concert with other social practices, to constitute
intersecting social structures. I draw these conclusions from within an integrative framework
that incorporates three bodies of social theory: intersectionality and structuration theories
from sociology and community of practice theory as it has developed within variationist
sociolinguistics. In framing variationist sociolinguistics w