美国国家公共电台 NPR Y'all Heard? An Argument For The Great Southern Pronoun

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Listen up, y'all. Maybe even those Yankees should start saying y'all. There's a new book, "Speaking Of Alabama: The History, Diversity, Function And Change Of Language" where a chapter by linguistics¹ professor Catherine Davies includes a section called "A Southern Improvement To The Pronoun System." Professor Davies teaches at the University of Alabama. She joins us now from the studios of Alabama Public Radio in Tuscaloosa. Thanks so much for being with us.

CATHERINE DAVIES: My pleasure, Scott.

SIMON: How y'all doing?

DAVIES: (Laughter) Fine - how are you?

SIMON: So what can y'all do for today's pronouns?

DAVIES: Well, Southern English is doing a great job because in the past, starting with old English, we used to have a single pronoun for you and then one for more-than-one-person you. So thou - that was just for one person when you were speaking to that person. And then we used to have two forms of the pronoun that we used when we addressed more than one person. So it was ye and you. And then over time, we ended up with just one, which was the you, which meant we have this problem. If we're talking to one person, we say you. If we're talking to more than one person, we say you. So along comes Southern English and proposes you all becomes y'all. Now, we have other forms of that like, you's and you guys....

SIMON: Yeah. That's what we say in Chicago. Yeah. OK. Yeah.

DAVIES: ...And you'uns and yinz in Pittsburgh. But Southern English just took you and all and combined it. And we've got y'all. And it seems very useful.

SIMON: So y'all can be a collective pronoun without being gender² specific.

DAVIES: Yes, exactly. And sometimes non-Southerners will say, well, you can use y'all when you're addressing one person.

SIMON: I have made that mistake. Yes.

DAVIES: (Laughter) And there's some controversy³ about that. But I link it to Southern politeness. So, for example, if I go into a diner by myself and sit down and the waitress comes over to me and says, y'all ready to order? - one interpretation⁴ of that is that she's assuming that I couldn't possibly be eating alone. And so other people are going to be coming to join me.

SIMON: Aw.

DAVIES: And so she's asking me that. And so the y'all there is in relation to all the other people that are with me who have not yet appeared.

SIMON: You surely must hear from language purists who think that y'all shouldn't use y'all.

DAVIES: Of course. And linguists⁵ are always pushing back against that. And one could predict that eventually - because y'all seems to be spreading - that it might become our new plural⁶ you.

SIMON: I think ever since the invention of broadcasting, Professor Davies, we've been hearing that this medium on which you and I are conversing⁷ is going to end regionalisms in American language because we're all talking like announcers like this.

DAVIES: (Laughter).

SIMON: But that hasn't been my experience.

DAVIES: Yeah.

SIMON: Regionalisms still survive, don't they?

DAVIES: Yeah. So one of the ways that you signal where you're from and your regional identification is through speaking in a certain way. So that's why we linguists would predict that regional dialects will absolutely not die out. They may become easier for people from other parts of the country to understand. They may become focused on particular things like pronouncing I, like ah, like roll tide.

SIMON: Hey. You're good at this (laughter).

DAVIES: Yeah. And y'all - well, I practiced that. You have to move your tongue forward slightly to do that (laughter).

SIMON: Wait - roll tide.

DAVIES: Tide - there you go. There you go (laughter).

SIMON: Oh, mercy. Catherine Davies is a professor of linguistics at the - do we need to say this? - University of Alabama. Thank y'all.

DAVIES: Well, thank you, Scott. It was my pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARIEN ROTH'S "BUNKY WITH BRAD PAISLEY")

1 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

4 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

5 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

6 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

7 conversing   

v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I find that conversing with her is quite difficult. 和她交谈实在很困难。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were conversing in the parlor. 他们正在客厅谈话。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》