Hillbillies. The. Toothless rednecks. Backwoods Druggies. White Trash. West Virginia has been made into a joke by negative stereotypes that have been around for decades. These stereotypes were first recognized when people “discovered” the Appalachian area, and disapproved of the “strange” people who lived there. However, many residents of West Virginia do not fit these old stereotypes and often have to prove themselves to be anything other than what the media has portrayed them as, even today. The people of West Virginia have a unique dialect which is tied directly to their heritage, and have built lifestyles that protect their history; they do not deserve to be represented so poorly to the rest of the world. I had always thought the way I grew up…show more content… In Carrisa Massey’s Appalachian Stereotypes: Cultural History, Gender, and Sexual Rhetoric, Massey states, ".contemporary figures in the media prove the truth of the stereotype, blurring the line between caricature - the exaggeration of truth - and fiction - imagined stories" (Massey). Fictional stories and dramatizations continue to spread the many misconceptions of the Appalachian people, making it difficult for some to understand the difference between accurate and false depictions. With these stereotypes being widely accepted, many residents of the area have adopted a form of self preservation known as code switching, in order to combat the potential of confirming these ideas. Code switching is one method used by people who are self-conscious of their speech, changing their intonations and dialect around different people to “fit in” with said group. Aishina Shaffer interviewed Kirk Hazen, linguistics professor at West Virginia University and director of the West Virginia Dialect Project, to discuss the effects of stereotyping based on
