Citizen Discourse on Contaminated Water, Superfund Cleanups, and ...

analysis illuminated the different senses of place that tourists visiting Montana might glean from tours presented by nonnative tour guides in contrast to that received from tours presented by members of the Blackfeet tribe (Carbaugh & Rudnick, 2006). This type of analysis has also helped us learn about the way water is described differently by native peoples in Massachusetts (Morgan, 2003; Morgan, 2007). By contrasting specific phrases and notions, such as “natural splendor” and “people's history,” researchers were able to expose the complexities and potential conflicts found within the larger, more complete, discourse (Carbaugh & Rudnick, 2006). Although patterns within conversations are used to create these cultural categories and concomitant senses of place, there typically is not one unifying discourse within any particular community.

Outside the field of communication studies, other works have shown that, over time, a limited number of contrastive discourses can emerge as pivotal and dualistic notions that are central to particular local senses of place. For instance, Jakle (1999) showed that symbolic constructions of “urban” and “rural” function as opposing place identities. Harwick (2001) and Stilgoe (1994) showed that linguistic distinctions among insiders and outsiders are vital to the identities of coastal residents. Jarosz and Lawson (2002) illustrated that “rednecks” need “sophisticates” as comparison references in order to collectively assert their rural identity. Little (2002) examined the discourse of masculinity as the force that negates femininity in rural settings. Finally, Jeffery, Jeffery, and Jeffery (2004) found that two opposing symbolic constructions define the available cultural spaces available to unemployed youth.

It can be said, then, that linguistic struggles regarding cultural place identities often reduce the interpretive possibilities to a discourse of dialectic pairings. As shown earlier, “urban” versus “rural,” “insider” versus “outsider,” “redneck” versus “sophisticate,” and “masculine” versus “feminine” are familiar pairings. Both individually and collectively, the emergent discourse is likely to present itself as a struggle between symbolic pairings that form a linguistic net tangled with contested notions. When a place seems to have one stable or primary designation, we can