Yooper Talk: Dialect as Identity in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

by Kathryn A. Remlinger

Yooper Talk is a fresh and significant contribution to understanding regional language and culture in North America. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan―known as "the UP"―is historically, geographically, and culturally distinct. Struggles over land, labor, and language during the last 150 years have shaped the variety of English spoken by resident Yoopers, as well as how they are viewed by outsiders.

Drawing on sixteen years of fieldwork, including interviews with seventy-five lifelong residents of the UP, Kathryn Remlinger examines how the idea of a unique Yooper dialect emerged. Considering UP English in relation to other regional dialects and their speakers, she looks at local identity, literacy practices, media representations, language attitudes, notions of authenticity, economic factors, tourism, and contact with immigrant and Native American languages. The book also explores how a dialect becomes a recognizable and valuable Yooper talk (or "Yoopanese") is emblazoned on t-shirts, flags, postcards, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers.

Yooper Talk explains linguistic concepts with entertaining examples for general readers and also contributes to interdisciplinary discussions of dialect and identity in sociolinguistics, anthropology, dialectology, and folklore.

Genres: Language, Cultural, Linguistics, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

Published June 27, 2017

Reviews

[Sean Kottke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read for aficionados of applied linguistics and the Upper Peninsula, with enough repetition and restatement of key concepts and exemplars to make its core arguments accessible to casual readers. Whether it will sustain the interest of readers outside the region is an open question, but the last chapters on mediatization of linguistic ideologies pull in enough pop culture references unrelated to the UP to make compelling points.

[Chris Trevino · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Yooper, I'm very happy that people like Kathryn Remlinger and Wil Rankinen are doing research about the unique aspects of our overlooked region. This book seems to be more intended for casual readers, which makes it a fun and easy read. Part of me wished for a bit more hard information and analysis. As a whole, I enjoyed it and think that it adds value to local regional studies.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was really difficult to get through as it read like a graduate thesis. It was also very repetitive. And I took a linguistics class in college (same school as where the author studied), so I went into this with some familiarity with the terminology Remlinger uses.

[susan cocco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like a thesis. Repetitive. Did not finish. I guess as a yooper who left for 35 years and returned,I was hoping for a fun read.

[Will Strobel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primarily an academic analysis of the Yooper dialect and more broadly a foray into the immigrant heritage of the Upper Peninsula. Overall, I was disappointed with the realization of this concept. Remlinger is a Professor of English and an academic, which shines throughout this book. That is to say that the research is well-founded and presented with accuracy but is found lacking in keystone stylistic choices which would have helped retain my interest. The same sentences, phrases, and examples are repeated ad nauseum between many of the already terminology-heavy chapters. Yooper Talk is a very short book which feels like it could have been even shorter with an editor willing to cut back on the research paper principle that the same argument needs to be reinforced again and again and again. I always applaud the decision to publish deep-dives on niche subject matter by knowledgeable experts, but I felt like this one needed quite a bit more material to work with before it could reach its potential. I wouldn't recommend to the average reader, although it would serve as an excellent case study and source of citations for students of linguistics and ethnography.