Kingsolver relies on her familiarity with Southern dialect to reinforce the realism and lyricism evident in her writing style. As a realist, she imitates what is real. The Southern dialect spoken by Taylor and Lou Ann is the dialect that Kingsolver remembers speaking while growing up in rural Kentucky. It is a dialect full of imagery that awakens the senses. Years after leaving Kentucky and her native dialect behind, Kingsolver utilized the poetic and unique features of that dialect to give her characters substance and personality.
A dialect is a spoken version of a language. Dialects develop when people are separated or isolated from one another due to natural geographic barriers, such as mountain ranges, or social barriers, such as class. Prior to the development of motorized travel, which allows people to move about more easily, and mass communication technology, including telephones, communication among regional groups of people was practically nonexistent. As a result, dialects are regional and often have distinct features of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. There are three general areas in the United States in which people speak different dialects. The eastern dialect is spoken in eastern New York and New England; the Southern dialect is spoken south of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River and Westward beyond the Mississippi into Texas; and the rest of the country speaks what is called a general American or Western dialect.
