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Representations of speech in the WPA slave narratives of Florida and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston
Western Folklore, Summer 2000 by Garner, Lori Ann
Summer Ives examines such associative values specifically with respect to written dialect in literature and the social implications made by an author's employing what he has termed "literary dialect." In "A Theory of Literary Dialect," Ives discusses the "compromise between art and linguistics" that inevitably occurs when writers seek to convey regional speech patterns on the printed page without attempting complete phonemic transcriptions. While Ives draws examples primarily from works of poetry and fiction-such as Chaucer's "Reeve's Tale," Shakespeare's King Lear, or Joel Chandler Harris' Brer Rabbit stories-the issues he addresses apply to a far wider range of materials, works classified as fiction as well as non-fiction.' His definition of literary dialect-"an author's attempt to represent in writing speech that is restricted regionally, socially, or both" (1971:146)-will be used here to better understand how dialect was employed in the transcription of the interviews with former slaves conducted by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration.
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A note on dialect usage from editor Sterling A. Brown, which accompanied instructions to interviewers on June 20, 1936, encouraged "simplicity in recording dialect" (Rawick 1972b:176). He cited Zora Neale Hurston as one of three authors (the other two being Erskine Caldwell and Ruth Suckow) whose use of dialect interviewers could follow. These authors, he claimed, made "truth to idiom be paramount, and exact truth to pronunciation secondary" (1972b:176). In the same note, however, Brown discourages some of the very spellings used by Hurston in her writings. In listing "samples of certain faults" interviewers should avoid, for example, he includes "ah for I," "useter, useta for used to," and "wuz for was" (Rawick 1972b:177).' Hurston uses the spelling "Ah" extensively in Their Eyes Were Watching God as in "Naw, Ah thank yuh. Nothin' couldn't ketch me dese few steps Ah'm goin"' ([1937] 1990:4; emphasis mine). Similarly, in her writing of dialogue Hurston often writes "useter"-as in Dey all useter call me Alphabet 'cause so many people had done named me different names" ([1937] 1990:9)-and"wuz"-as in "... dem three boys and us two girls wuz pretty aggravatin', Ah speck" ([1937] 1990:8).
In addition to applying different methods of phonological transcription, most WPA field workers also differed from Hurston in their recording of speech and the circumstances surrounding the interviews. (Such omissions are often the work of editors involved at later stages of the project, however, as will be discussed below.) In Mules and Men Hurston does not limit her writing to the speech of her informants but instead includes description of the entire context surrounding any given story as well as her own prompting questions and responses. The description of her return to Eatonville in Mules and Men serves as an example (1990 [1935]:7-8):
"Hello, heart-string," Mayor Hiram Lester yelled as he hurried up the street. "We heard all about you up North. You back home for good, I hope."
