The new edition of this classic text chronicles recent breakthrough developments in the field of American English, covering regional, ethnic, and gender-based differences.
- Now accompanied by a companion website with an extensive array of sound files, video clips, and other online materials to enhance and illustrate discussions in the text
- Features brand new chapters that cover the very latest topics, such as Levels of Dialect, Regional Varieties of English, Gender and Language Variation, The Application of Dialect Study, and Dialect Awareness: Extending Application, as well as new exercises with online answers
- Updated to contain dialect samples from a wider array of US regions
- Written for students taking courses in dialect studies, variationist sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, and requires no pre-knowledge of linguistics
- Includes a glossary and extensive appendix of the pronunciation, grammatical, and lexical features of American English dialects
Table of Content
Companion Website x
List of Figures xi
Preface xiii
Phonetic Symbols xvii
1 Dialects, Standards, and Vernaculars 1
1.1 Defining Dialect 2
1.2 Dialect: The Popular Viewpoint 2
1.3 Dialect Myths and Linguistic Reality 8
1.4 Standards and Vernaculars 9
1.5 Language Descriptivism and Prescriptivism 14
1.6 Vernacular Dialects 16
1.7 Labeling Vernacular Dialects 17
1.8 Why Study Dialects? 18
1.9 A Tradition of Study 21
1.10 Further Reading 24
References 25
2 Why Dialects? 27
2.1 Sociohistorical Explanation 28
2.1.1 Settlement 28
2.1.2 Migration 29
2.1.3 Geographical factors 30
2.1.4 Language contact 31
2.1.5 Economic ecology 33
2.1.6 Social stratification 34
2.1.7 Social interaction, social practices, and speech communities 35
2.1.8 Group and individual identity 38
2.2 Linguistic Explanation 40
2.2.1 Rule extension 42
2.2.2 Analogy 44
2.2.3 Transparency and grammaticalization 47
2.2.4 Pronunciation principles 50
2.2.5 Words and word meanings 55
2.3 The Final Product 57
2.4 Further Reading 57
References 58
3 Levels of Dialect 59
3.1 Lexical Differences 59
3.2 Slang 64
3.3 Phonological Differences 68
3.4 Grammatical Differences 79
3.5 Language Use and Pragmatics 86
3.6 Further Reading 93
References 94
4 Dialects in the United States: Past, Present, and Future 97
4.1 The First English(es) in America 98
4.1.1 Jamestown 98
4.1.2 Boston 100
4.1.3 Philadelphia 103
4.1.4 Charleston 105
4.1.5 New Orleans 106
4.2 Earlier American English: The Colonial Period 106
4.3 American English Extended 110
4.4 The Westward Expansion of English 115
4.5 The Present and Future State of American English 117
4.6 Further Reading 122
References 123
5 Regional Varieties of English 125
5.1 Eliciting Regional Dialect Forms 126
5.2 Mapping Regional Variants 128
5.3 The Distribution of Dialect Forms 132
5.4 Dialect Diffusion 143
5.5 Perceptual Dialectology 148
5.6 Region and Place 153
5.7 Further Reading 154
Websites 155
References 156
6 Social Varieties of American English 159
6.1 Social Status and Class 159
6.2 Beyond Social Class 162
6.3 Indexing Social Meanings through Language Variation 164
6.4 The Patterning of Social Differences in Language 165
6.5 Linguistic Constraints on Variability 170
6.6 The Social Evaluation of Linguistic Features 174
6.7 Social Class and Language Change 177
6.8 Further Reading 179
References 179
7 Ethnicity and American English 183
7.1 Ethnic Varieties and Ethnolinguistic Repertoire 184
7.2 Patterns of Ethnolinguistic Variation 185
7.3 Latino English 188
7.4 Cajun English 196
7.5 Lumbee English 199
7.6 Jewish American English 203
7.7 Asian American English 206
7.8 Further Reading 210
References 211
8 African American English 217
8.1 Defining the English of African Americans 218
8.2 The Relationship between European American and African American English 220
8.3 The Origin and Early Development of African American English 225
8.3.1 The Anglicist Hypothesis 226
8.3.2 The Creolist Hypothesis 226
8.3.3 A Note on Creole Exceptionalism 228
8.3.4 The Neo‐Anglicist Hypothesis 228
8.3.5 The Substrate Hypothesis 230
8.4 The Contemporary Development of African American Speech 231
8.5 Conclusion 238
8.6 Further Reading 239
References 240
9 Gender and Language Variation 245
9.1 Gender‐based Patterns of Variation 247
9.2 Explaining General Patterns 251
9.3 Localized Expressions of Gender Relations 253
9.4 Communities of Practice: Linking the Local and the Global 255
9.5 Gender and Language Use 258
9.5.1 The “Female Deficit” Approach 259
9.5.2 The “Cultural Difference” Approach 263
9.5.3 The “Dominance” Approach 265
9.6 Investigating Gender Diversity 267
9.7 Talking about Men and Women 269
9.7.1 Generic he and man 269
9.7.2 Family names and addresses 270
9.7.3 Relationships of association 271
9.7.4 Labeling 272
9.8 The Question of Language Reform 273
9.9 Further Reading 275
References 276
10 Dialects and Style 281
10.1 Types of Style Shifting 282
10.2 Attention to Speech 286
10.2.1 The patterning of stylistic variation across social groups 287
10.2.2 Limitations of the attention to speech approach 291
10.3 Audience Design 293
10.3.1 The effects of audience on speech style 295
10.3.2 Questions concerning audience design 298
10.4 Speaker Design Approaches 301
10.4.1 Three approaches to style, “three waves” of quantitative sociolinguistic study 301
10.4.2 Studying stylistic variation from a speaker‐design perspective 303
10.5 Further Considerations 306
10.6 Further Reading 307
References 309
11 The Application of Dialect Study 311
11.1 Dialects and Assessment Testing 313
11.1.1 “Correctness” in assessing language achievement and development 314
11.1.2 Testing linguistic knowledge 318
11.1.3 Using language to test other knowledge 319
11.1.4 The testing situation 321
11.2 Teaching Mainstream American English 323
11.2.1 What standard? 323
11.2.2 Approaches to MAE 326
11.2.3 Can MAE be taught? 328
11.3 Further Reading 334
References 335
12 Dialect Awareness: Extending Application 337
12.1 Dialects and Reading 337
12.2 Dialect Influence in Written Language 340
12.3 Literary Dialect 343
12.4 Proactive Dialect Awareness Programs 347
12.5 Venues of Engagement 349
12.6 A Curriculum on Dialects 351
12.7 Scrutinizing Sociolinguistic Engagement 358
12.8 Further Reading 363
Websites 363
References 364
Appendix: An Inventory of Distinguishing Dialect Features 367
Glossary 391
Index 415
About the author
Walt Wolfram is William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University, and has authored numerous books including The Development of African American English (with Erik Thomas, Blackwell, 2002) and American Voices (co-edited with Ben Ward, Blackwell, 2006). His most recent book is Talkin’ Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina (2014).
Natalie Schilling is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She is co-editor of
The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, second edition (with J. K. Chambers, 2013, Wiley), and author of
Sociolinguistic Fieldwork (2013).
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