Cover Page

Language in Society

GENERAL EDITOR

Peter Trudgill, Chair of English Linguistics, University of Fribourg

ADVISORY EDITORS

  1. Language and Social Psychology, edited by Howard Giles and Robert N. St Clair
  2. Language and Social Networks (2nd edn.), Lesley Milroy
  3. The Ethnography of Communication (3rd edn.), Muriel Saville-Troike
  4. Discourse Analysis, Michael Stubbs
  5. The Sociolinguistics of Society: Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Vol. I, Ralph Fasold
  6. The Sociolinguistics of Language: Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Vol. II, Ralph Fasold
  7. The Language of Children and Adolescents: Suzanne Romaine
  8. Language, the Sexes and Society, Philip M. Smith
  9. The Language of Advertising, Torben Vestergaard and Kim Schrøder
  10. Dialects in Contact, Peter Trudgill
  11. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Peter Mühlhäusler
  12. Observing and Analysing Natural Language: A Critical Account of Sociolinguistic Method, Lesley Milroy
  13. Bilingualism (2nd edn.), Suzanne Romaine
  14. Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition, Dennis R. Preston
  15. Pronouns and People, Peter Mühlhäusler and Rom Harré
  16. Politically Speaking, John Wilson
  17. The Language of the News Media, Allan Bell
  18. Language, Society and the Elderly, Nikolas Coupland, Justine Coupland, and Howard Giles
  19. Linguistic Variation and Change, James Milroy
  20. Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. I: Internal Factors, William Labov
  21. Intercultural Communication (3rd edn.), Ron Scollon, Suzanne Wong Scollon, and Rodney H. Jones
  22. Sociolinguistic Theory (2nd edn.), J. K. Chambers
  23. Text and Corpus Analysis, Michael Stubbs
  24. Anthropological Linguistics, William Foley
  25. American English: Dialects and Variation (3rd edn.), Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling
  26. African American Vernacular English, John R. Rickford
  27. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice, Penelope Eckert
  28. The English History of African American English, edited by Shana Poplack
  29. Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. II: Social Factors, William Labov
  30. African American English in the Diaspora, Shana Poplack and Sali Tagliamonte
  31. The Development of African American English, Walt Wolfram and Erik R. Thomas
  32. Forensic Linguistics, John Gibbons
  33. An Introduction to Contact Linguistics, Donald Winford
  34. Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation, Lesley Milroy and Matthew Gordon
  35. Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis, H. G. Widdowson
  36. Clinical Sociolinguistics, Martin J. Ball
  37. Conversation Analysis: An Introduction, Jack Sidnell
  38. Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions, John Heritage and Steven Clayman
  39. Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. III: Cognitive and Cultural Factors, William Labov
  40. Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation, Sali A. Tagliamonte
  41. Quotatives: New Trends and Sociolinguistic Implications, Isabelle Buchstaller

American English

DIALECTS AND VARIATION

Third Edition

Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling

Enhancements and Exercises by Caroline Myrick and Joel Schneier







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Companion Website

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Please visit the companion website at http://americanenglishwiley.com/ to view additional content for this title or scan this QR code.

  • Media enhancements
  • Exercises and answers
  • Glossary
  • Appendix
  • Phonetic symbols

List of Figures

Figure 1.1 A continuum of standardness
Figure 3.1 Position of the tongue in the production of the fleece vowel [i]
Figure 3.2 Position of the tongue in the production of the goose vowel [u]
Figure 3.3 Spectrogram of glided tide as produced by a Northern speaker (Vermont)
Figure 3.4 Spectrogram of unglided tide as produced by a Southern speaker (North Carolina)
Figure 3.5 A chart of American English vowels according to tongue position
Figure 3.6 An illustration of chain shifting in the low vowels of American English
Figure 4.1 Traditional regions of r-lessness and r-fulness in American English
Figure 4.2 Traditional view of dialect areas of the Eastern United States
Figure 4.3 The major dialect areas of the United States: a revised perspective
Figure 4.4 Summary map from the Atlas of North American English
Figure 5.1 Traditional Linguistic Atlas map of pail and bucket in the Eastern United States
Figure 5.2 Probability map for the occurrence of pail
Figure 5.3 Comparison of DARE map and conventional map of dialect variants
Figure 5.4 Traditional view of dialect areas of the Eastern United States (repeated from Figure 4.2)
Figure 5.5 An example of dialect layering in the Northwestern United States
Figure 5.6 An example of dialect layering in the West, represented hierarchically
Figure 5.7 The Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Figure 5.8 The Southern Vowel Shift
Figure 5.9 The Northern California Vowel Shift
Figure 5.10 Distribution of the cot-caught (lot vowel-thought vowel) merger
Figure 5.11 Distribution of positive anymore and needs + past participle
Figure 5.12 Wave model of dialect diffusion
Figure 5.13 Hierarchical or cascade model of dialect diffusion
Figure 5.14 Perceptual map of American English dialects, Southeastern Michigan respondents
Figure 5.15 Home sites of the nine voices played in the identification task
Figure 5.16 Responses of Michigan and Indiana listeners to regional voices
Figure 6.1 Third-person singular -s absence
Figure 6.2 Postvocalic r-lessness
Figure 7.1 Syllable-timing, Latinos
Figure 8.1 Trajectory of language change for African Americans in Hyde County
Figure 8.2 The use of vernacular African American English over the early lifespan
Figure 9.1 /æ/ (trap) raising and /ɑ/ (lot) fronting in Detroit, by social class and sex
Figure 9.2 The cross-generational and cross-sex patterning of Ocracoke price-vowel backing
Figure 10.1 Stylistic and social class differences in [t] for th usage in New York City English
Figure 10.2 Class and style stratification for postvocalic r
Figure 10.3 Style as audience design
Figure 12.1 Percentage of -s suffix absence in the speech and writing of European Americans and African Americans
Figure A.1 The Northern Cities Vowel Shift (repeated from Figure 5.7)
Figure A.2 The Southern Vowel Shift (repeated from Figure 5.8)
Figure A.3 The Northern California Vowel Shift (repeated from Figure 5.9)

Preface

The third edition of American English: Dialects and Variation offers yet another episode in the ongoing narrative of language variation in American English. It started for the first author more than four decades ago, with Walt Wolfram and Ralph W. Fasold’s The Study of Social Dialects in American English (1974), and passed through Wolfram’s Dialects and American English (1991) on the way to the first (1998) and second (2006) editions of American English: Dialects and Variation. The current edition is a thoroughly revised and updated version, but we hope that it is more than that. In addition to chronicling some of the breakthrough developments in the field, we have added a greatly expanded discussion of language and ethnicity, now its own chapter, and radically restructured a couple of other chapters. We now include separate sections on Jewish English and Asian American English to complement our coverage of African American English, Latino English, Cajun English, and Native American Indian English. The chapter on stylistic variation outlines the exciting new turns which the study of variation in the speech of individual speakers has taken since the publication of the second edition, including a sharpened focus on how individuals use language variation to shape themselves, their interactions, and their social worlds.

We have also continued to adapt our style of presentation for an audience that includes the full range of the students who enroll in a “course on dialects.” This extends from the curious student with no background at all in linguistics, students in allied disciplines who seek information about language diversity, and the student who may wish to specialize in sociolinguistics or the study of American English. For example, we now use a standard set of “keywords” (Wells 1982) to refer to vowel productions rather than the International Phonetic Alphabet for clarity of presentation in discussing the ever-shifting pronunciations and pronunciation patterns that are characteristic of American English dialects. Keywords appear in small caps. When we do use traditional ipa symbols, they are surrounded by phonetic brackets brackets [ ] when they refer to particular productions of sounds. They are surrounded by phonemic slashes // when they refer to phonemes, or units of meaning. For example, the vowel sound in words like nice and time, the price vowel, is represented by the phonemic symbol /ɑi/, but may be produced differently in different dialects, for example, as an elongated lot vowel [ɑ] in Southern dialects, or almost like an [ɔi] sound in the dialect of Ocracoke, North Carolina. In the text, small caps are also used in the first mention of a technical term that can be found in the glossary. The glossary also includes some additional terms that readers might encounter in their reading about American English and language variation. In addition, we have constructed a useful website where readers can find illustrative audio and video clips, and answers to exercises. The clips allow readers to experience language and dialect rather than imagine it. The appendix of linguistic structures and the glossary are also located on the website, as well as in the book. Readers can access the website through a QR code on their smart phone or any device with a QR reader and then navigate to the audio/video vignettes and other material on the website.

Readers will notice that two emergent sociolinguists have been added as collaborators on this book: Caroline Myrick and Joel Schneier. They were primarily responsible for compiling the audio and video vignettes, assembling the answer keys, and revising the glossary and references; in addition, they provided invaluable assistance with just about everything else. They read and commented on the entire text, created new figures when needed, and proactively did what was necessary to complete the manuscript with a generous, supportive spirit. Perhaps most importantly, they added the perspective of the current, or “early-career,” generation of sociolinguists. We think that the text profits from the authentic collaboration of three generations of sociolinguists who view language variation and American English in somewhat different but complementary ways.

Given the diverse backgrounds and interests of students who end up in a course on dialects, as well as the fact that the book is also used by established scholars around the world as a valuable source of information on American English, the challenge is to fashion a text that can meet the needs of a varied audience without oversimplifying the full complexity of language variation study or of the theoretical, empirical, and technological advances that have been made in the study of language variation over the past couple of decades. Such a text should combine an informed approach to the nature of dialect variation, descriptive detail about particular varieties, clear explication of a range of theoretical views, and a discussion of the broader cultural, political, and educational implications of language diversity in English. We integrate research from our current studies on regional and sociocultural varieties, as well as our ongoing investigation of stylistic variation across a range of varieties to balance and personalize the study of American English.

From our perspective, underlying principles of language variation are much more significant than their formal representation. There are, however, times when technical terms are needed to convey important constructs in the field. To help readers in this regard, the glossary of terms should be helpful. Students also should be aided by exercises that are incorporated into the text at relevant points in the discussion rather than at the conclusions of chapters. Answers to the exercises are available on the website, and the glossary is also available there in a searchable format as well as in the text. The text should be appropriate for both upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of fields. At the same time, we recognize the book’s utility as a reference work on American English for established scholars, and we hope that our concise encapsulation of developments in and the current state of the art in each topic area will continue to prove useful to students and professional researchers in this regard.

Conceptually, the text is divided into four major sections. The first three chapters introduce students to basic notions about the nature of dialectal variation. The next chapter, Chapter 4, gives an overview of the history and development of American English dialects. Chapters 5 through 9 offer a descriptive account of some of the major social factors that relate to variation in American English, including region, social status, ethnicity, and gender. In Chapter 10, we discuss how language variation is used – and shaped – by individuals in interaction, since after all, it is in everyday interactions that larger, enduring patterns of variation, and their social meanings, are forged. We have tried to balance approaches from traditional dialectology with advances in the quantitative study of language variation while minimizing detailed discussion of the technicalities associated with current methods of analysis. The final section, chapters 11 and 12, considers the applications of dialect study beyond its scientific value – and its inherent interest to scholars and non-scholars alike as a fascinating area of inquiry. We focus on dialects and education but also discuss a variety of ways in which researchers can work collaboratively with communities from which they gather data for dialect study.

An updated summary of many of the grammatical and phonological structures that serve to distinguish various social and regional dialects from one another is included in an appendix to the book and in searchable online format on the companion website.

We are particularly grateful to our village of colleagues who provided invaluable insight into and feedback on topic areas covered in the text. These include North Carolina State University colleagues Agnes Bolonyai, Robin Dodsworth, Jeff Mielke, Jeffrey Reaser, and Erik R. Thomas, and Georgetown University colleagues Deborah Tannen, Jennifer Scalfani, Minnie Quartey Annan, Patrick Callier, Caitlin Elizondo, Sakiko Kajino, Jinsok Lee, Sinae Lee, and Anastasia Nylund. We would also like to thank our colleagues Kellam Barta, Kara Becker, Sara Bunin Benor, Phillip Carter, Katie Carmichael, Elaine Chun, May Chung, Carmen Fought, Jon Forrest, Michael Fox, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Angela Reyes, and Tracey Weldon for providing input on some of the new sections on language and ethnicity and ethnolinguistic repertoire, as well as Allan Bell for his inspiration and insight in revising the chapter on stylistic variation. Reviewers’ comments were invaluable during the process of writing this new edition, even when we haven’t shown enough sense to follow their advice. We also are indebted to those who guided us in other ways along our sociolinguistic path, from the first author’s initial teacher in linguistics as an undergraduate student, Roger W. Shuy, to our current classes of students at North Carolina State University and Georgetown University. We have been fortunate enough to associate with a group of people who have taught us that professional colleagues can also be good friends: Carolyn Adger, Bridget Anderson, John Baugh, Robert Bayley, Allan Bell, Renee Blake, Charles Boberg, Erin Callahan-Price, Jack Chambers, Anne Charity Hudley, Becky Childs, Patricia Cukor Avila, Donna Christian, Clare Dannenberg, Sylvie Dubois, Stephany Dunstan, Connie Eble, Penny Eckert, Charlie Farrington, Ralph W. Fasold, Janet Fuller, Cynthia Gordon, Matthew Gordon, Lisa Green, Gregory Guy, Heidi Hamilton, Kirk Hazen, Tyler Kendall, Scott Kiesling, Mary Kohn, Bill Kretzschmar, Bill Labov, Sonja Lanehart, Jason MacLarty, Christine Mallinson, Michael Montgomery, Jennifer Nycz, Otto Santa Ana, Dennis Preston, Paul Reed, John Rickford, Deborah Schiffrin, Edgar Schneider, Dani Schreier, Mark Sicoli, John Singler, Arthur Spears, Sali Tagliamonte, Ben Torbert, Anna Marie Trester, Peter Trudgill, Tracey Weldon, Alicia Wassink, Janneke Van Hofwegen, and Karissa Wojcik, among many others who should have been named as well. Thanks for your support and friendship. This cast of characters has made academic inquiry much more fun than we ever thought it could be. If students can catch just a little bit of enthusiasm for research into and respect for language diversity, then we are satisfied.

As we said in previous editions of this text, the writing of a good book is never done – and this is no exception. We hope, however, that this is a convenient time to pause and reflect once again on the rich diversity of American English and how much we’ve learned about it over the years. Who’da thunk it woulda came this far – and remain such an exciting linguistic adventure?

Walt Wolfram
North Carolina State University
Natalie Schilling
Georgetown University

References

  1. Wells, J. C. (1982) Accents of English, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Wolfram, Walt (1991) Dialects and American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  3. Wolfram, Walt, and Ralph W. Fasold (1974) The Study of Social Dialects in American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Phonetic Symbols

Consonants

Symbol Keywords Phonetic description
[p] pit, spit, tip voiceless bilabial stop
[b] bat, rabbit, rib voiced bilabial stop
[t] tip, stop, put voiceless alveolar stop
[d] doom, under, bud voiced alveolar stop
[D][ɾ] butter, buddy voiced alveolar flap
[k] cap, skate, bake voiceless velar stop
[g] go, buggy, bag voiced velar stop
[ʔ] kitten, button voiceless glottal stop
(in some dialects)
[f] fee, after, laugh voiceless labiodental fricative
[v] vote, over, love voiced labiodental fricative
[θ] thought, ether, both voiceless interdental fricative
[ð] the, mother, smooth voiced interdental fricative
[s] so, fasten, bus voiceless alveolar sibilant
[z] zoo, lazy, fuzz voiced alveolar sibilant
[š][ʃ] shoe, nation, bush voiceless palatal sibilant
[ž] [ʒ] measure, closure voiced palatal sibilant
[h] hat, behind voiceless glottal fricative
[č] [tʃ] chew, pitcher, church voiceless palatal affricate
[ǰ] [ʤ] judge, ranger, dodge voiced palatal affricate
[m] my, mommy, bum bilabial nasal
[n] no, funny, run alveolar nasal
[ŋ] singer, long velar nasal
[l] look, bully, call lateral liquid
[r] run, bury, car retroflex (bunched tongue) liquid
[w] way, quack labiovelar glide
[y] yes, feud palatal glide

Vowels

Symbol Wells’ keywords Examples Phonetic description
[i] fleece beet, leap high front tense
[ɪ] kit bit, rip high front lax
[e] face bait, grade mid front tense
[ɛ] dress bet, step mid front lax
[æ] trap cap, bat low front tense
[ə] comma about, afford mid central tense
[ʌ] strut shut, was mid central lax
[ɑ] lot father, stop low central
[u] goose boot, through high back tense
[ʊ] foot book, put high back lax
[o] goat no, toe mid back tense
[ɔ] thought oral, taught low back tense
[ɑu] mouth crowd, bout low central back gliding diphthong
[ɑi] price buy, lie low central front gliding diphthong
[ɔi] choice boy, coin low back front gliding diphthong
[ɝ] nurse mother, bird mid central retroflex