American English: Dialects and Variation

457 Pages·2015·10.89 MB·English

by  Walt Wolfram

American English
Language in Society 18 Language, Society and the Elderly, Nikolas
Coupland, Justine Coupland, and Howard Giles
GENERAL EDITOR
19 Linguistic Variation and Change, James
Peter Trudgill, Chair of English Linguistics,
Milroy
University of Fribourg
20 Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. I:
Internal Factors, William Labov
ADVISORY EDITORS
J. K. Chambers, Professor of Linguistics, 21 Intercultural Communication (3rd edn.),
University of Toronto Ron Scollon, Suzanne Wong Scollon, and
Ralph Fasold, Professor of Linguistics, Rodney H. Jones
Georgetown University 22 Sociolinguistic Theory (2nd edn.),
William Labov, Professor of Linguistics, J. K. Chambers
University of Pennsylvania 23 Text and Corpus Analysis, Michael Stubbs
Lesley Milroy, Professor of Linguistics,
24 Anthropological Linguistics, William Foley
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
25 American English: Dialects and Variation
(3rd edn.), Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling
1 Language and Social Psychology, edited by
Howard Giles and Robert N. St Clair 26 African American Vernacular English, John
R. Rickford
2 Language and Social Networks (2nd edn.),
27 Linguistic Variation as Social Practice,
Lesley Milroy
Penelope Eckert
3 The Ethnography of Communication
(3rd edn.), Muriel Saville‐Troike 28 The English History of African American
English, edited by Shana Poplack
4 Discourse Analysis, Michael Stubbs
29 Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. II:
5 The Sociolinguistics of Society:
Social Factors, William Labov
Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Vol. I,
30 African American English in the Diaspora,
Ralph Fasold
Shana Poplack and Sali Tagliamonte
6 The Sociolinguistics of Language:
Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Vol. II, 31 The Development of African American
Ralph Fasold English, Walt Wolfram and Erik R. Thomas
7 The Language of Children and 32 Forensic Linguistics, John Gibbons
Adolescents: Suzanne Romaine 33 An Introduction to Contact Linguistics,
8 Language, the Sexes and Society, Philip Donald Winford
M. Smith 34 Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation,
9 The Language of Advertising, Torben Lesley Milroy and Matthew Gordon
Vestergaard and Kim Schrøder 35 Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in
10 Dialects in Contact, Peter Trudgill Discourse Analysis, H. G. Widdowson
11 Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Peter 36 Clinical Sociolinguistics, Martin J. Ball
Mühlhäusler 37 Conversation Analysis: An Introduction,
12 Observing and Analysing Natural Jack Sidnell
Language: A Critical Account of 38 Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities,
Sociolinguistic Method, Lesley Milroy and Institutions, John Heritage and Steven
13 Bilingualism (2nd edn.), Suzanne Clayman
Romaine 39 Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. III:
14 Sociolinguistics and Second Language Cognitive and Cultural Factors, William
Acquisition, Dennis R. Preston Labov
15 Pronouns and People, Peter Mühlhäusler 40 Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change,
and Rom Harré Observation, Interpretation, Sali A.
Tagliamonte
16 Politically Speaking, John Wilson
41 Quotatives: New Trends and Sociolinguistic
17 The Language of the News Media,
Implications, Isabelle Buchstaller
Allan Bell
American English
DIALECTS AND VARIATION
Third Edition
Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling
Enhancements and Exercises by Caroline Myrick and Joel Schneier
This third edition first published 2016
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Edition History: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. (1e, 1998; 2e, 2006)
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Set in 10.5/13pt Ehrhardt by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India
1 2016
Contents
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
vi Contents
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
Contents vii
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
viii Contents
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