ABSTRACT

The South eagerly defines itself against the North, advertising itself as more earthy, more devoted to family values, more spiritual, and then is furious to have things turned around, to hear itself called hick, phony, and superstitious. The individual’s understanding of boundaries is something of great interest to geographers, who have studied what has been called the maps in the mind. Ayers’ body of work confirms that non-Southerners do have a consistent sense of a Southern core, which is referred to as the Deep South or Southern Trough. The concept of an undesirable South moves in concentric rings outward from the Southern Trough, as seen in a composite “mental map” constructed from a study of environmental preferences voiced by students. In a survey of 798 adult residents of Georgia, individuals answered questions about what it means to “have a Southern accent,” and were subsequently asked to evaluate their own language.