A Word Geography Of The Eastern United States

"This pioneering book is the first systematic geographical treatment of American vocabulary. Hans Kurath identifies the major dialect areas of the Eastern United States, cites key words which characterize each region, and discusses the historical significance of regional speech patterns. A Word Geography of the Eastern United States is a unique and original study of the American language. It is invaluable not only for linguists but also for historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and the general reader interested in why people talk as they do." --

This volume explores the linguistic complexities and critical issues of the Midland dialect area of the USA, and contains a unique data-based set of investigations of the Midlands dialect. The authors demonstrate that the large central part of the United States known colloquially as the Heartland, geo-culturally as the Midwest, and linguistically as the Midland is a very real dialect area, one with regional cohesiveness, social complexity, and psycho-emotional impact. The individual essays problematize historical origins, track linguistic markers of social identity over time and across social spaces, frame dialect issues within the linguistic marketplace, account for extra-linguistic influences on changing patterns of linguistic behaviors, and describe maintenance strategies of non-English languages. This book is an important move forward in the understanding of American English. Sociolinguists, dialectologists, applied linguists, and all those involved in the statistical and qualitative study of language variation will find this volume relevant, timely, and insightful.

In this volume, the renowned linguist Nicoline van der Sijs glosses over some 300 Dutch loan words that travelled to the New World between the 17th and the 20th century.

"Filled with brilliant insights and tantalizing leads."--

The publication in the past ten years of linguistic atlases of England and Scotland has not only advanced our knowledge of the lexical and morphological variety inherent in the English language, but has made it possible to establish a number of methodological principles for the study of language both in its contemporary distribution and in its historical evolution. The essays in this volume, by contributors to the linguistic atlases and other dialectologists, describe some of the problems that bedevil the study of dialect and the methodological solutions employed to minimise them. They also survey the contributions that linguistic cartography can make to the study of English and of language in general. The considerations it embodies are of major importance for the student of language and, in addition, the book is an invaluable companion to the Atlases.

A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States, like the recent Word Geography of the Eastern United States by Hans Kurath, is an outgrowth of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada--an undertaking that can truly be called the first large-scale attempt to determine the facts of American linguistic usage by means of direct investigation. Atlas field records covering the entire Eastern United States and representing persons of varying degrees of sophistication have been made available to the writer, and have enabled him to trace not only the geographical spread but also the social distribution of the linguistic features that are treated. This study, which confines itself to verb inflection, does more than differentiate "standard" from "vulgar" usages. It also demonstrates how the early culture centers and the principal migration areas are reflected in the dissemination of grammatical forms. Thus it makes clear that our "Vulgate" grammar, often thought to be uniform throughout the country, is in reality highly varied and regional in its character.

This anthology emphasizes dialects of American English and language variation in America. The editors present original essays by today's leading investigators, including articles by some of Europe's best dialectologists, obtained expressly for this work. Important topics featured in Dialect and Language Variation include:**Dialect theories: linguistic geography, structural and generative dialectology, and language variation.**The nature of social dialects and language variation, with attention to women's speech.**Overview of regional dialects and area studies.**The nature and study of the relationship between ethnicity and dialects, including Black, Italian, Irish, Chicano, and Jewish ethnic groups.**The application of dialect studies to education.**Of special interest to dialectologists, sociolinguists, and English language educators and specialists, this work provides original insight into**a general background and history of dialect theory**an overview of regional geography and area studies**the principles of social dialects and language variation from several perspectives**an exploration of the relationship between ethnicity and dialects o explanations of the relationship between historical and language change**a section on how dialects and language variation can contribute to effective language instruction.