The baptist pastor persona: A sociophonetic case study of vowel stability across a lifespan
This paper investigates the vowels of John Piper, a Baptist pastor who is well known in Reformed Evangelical circles, from 15 sermons ranging from 1980 to 2017. Specifically, I analyzed eight phonological processes contrastive between Southern speech in Greenville, SC, where Piper is from, and Central Minnesota English (CMNE) in Minneapolis, MN, where Piper lived and preached for 37 years. Although Piper had extensive dialect contact with CMNE, the SVS features present in 1980 remained relatively stable over time. The lack of dialect shift in Piper’s vowels suggests that the Baptist pastor persona he identifies with is tied to being from the South and therefore sounding Southern. I propose that this may be due to the widespread reach of the Southern Baptist Convention, leading to a crucial discussion of linguistic authenticity in prepared and performed speech, as well as prescribed and ascribed identities.
