Language variation and change in the American midland : a new look at "heartland" English / / edited by Thomas E. Murray, Beth Lee Simon

• Pubblicazione: Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, : John Benjamins Pub., c2006
• Edizione: 1st ed.
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xii, 319 p. : ill.)
• Disciplina: 427/.977
• Soggetto topico: English language - Variation - Middle West; English language - Dialects - Middle West; English language - Middle West
• Soggetto geografico: Middle West Languages
• Altri autori: MurrayThomas E <1956-> (Thomas Edward) SimonBeth Lee
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Language Variation and Change in the American Midland -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- Introducing the Midland -- The Midland: What is it? -- The Midland: Where is it? -- The Midland: How do we know? -- Notes -- What is dialect? -- Introduction -- Background of the Midland controversy -- Defining the Midland -- Midland grammar -- Conclusions -- Notes -- I. The Evolving Midland -- The North American Midland as a dialect area -- Introduction -- Dialect regions of the United States -- Settlement -- Methods and results -- Conclusion -- Tracking the low back merger in Missouri -- Introduction -- The low back merger in American English -- Methods -- Results and discussion -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Appendix -- Excerpts from the Written Questionnaire -- Evidence from Ohio on the evolution of /æ/ -- /æ/ and the Midwest -- /æ/ and social history -- Methods of acoustic analysis -- /æ/ patterns across Ohio -- Implications for the history of /æ/ -- Conclusions -- Notes -- II. Defining the Midland -- On the use of geographic names to inform regional language studies -- Note -- On the eastern edge of the Heartland -- Introduction -- Scholarly accounts -- Popular accounts from the Web -- Discussion -- Why an industrial city dialect forms: Conflict theory explanations -- Why an industrial city dialect forms: Dialectology and sociology of language explanations -- Where are the dialects going? Youngstown shifts -- Other evidence -- The current Pittsburgh dialect -- Broader significance of this study -- Dialects reflect, and are formed within, a cultural division of labor -- Note -- Appendix -- The final days of Appalachian Heritage Language* -- Introduction -- Qualitative analysis -- Subject-verb concord -- Demonstrative and pleonastic pronouns -- Quantitative analysis: Monophthongization of /aj/ -- Conclusion. ; Notes -- It'll kill ye or cure ye, one -- History -- Elicitations -- Four hypotheses -- Discussion and conclusion -- Notes -- III. Power and Perception -- Standardizing the Heartland -- Notes -- How to get to be one kind of Midwesterner -- Notes -- Midland(s) dialect geography -- Note -- Drawing out the /ai/ -- Introduction -- Dialect areas and variants of /ai/: Hans Kurath and Raven McDavid -- Distribution of monophthongal /ai/: William Labov et al. -- /ai/ in Illinois: Timothy Frazer -- Vowel plots: Erik Thomas -- LAGS: Regional and social variation -- Attitude study: Alabama and Texas sorority project -- Conclusion: Sociolinguistic and regional boundaries of /ai/ -- Notes -- IV. Other Languages, Other Places -- Learning Spanish in the North Georgia Mountains -- The Midland above the Midland -- Introduction -- Model selection for individual items -- Lexical forms -- Phonological forms -- Grammatical forms -- Correspondence Analysis -- Conclusions -- Portable community -- Strawberry runners, portable community, and linguistic homogeneity -- Regional variation in the Deitsch of Southeastern Pennsylvania -- The spread of Deitsch across the Midwest -- The notion and practice of portable community -- Evidence for linguistic homogeneity of Midwestern Deitsch -- The psychological reality of Midwestern Deitsch -- Conclusion -- Notes -- The English of the Swiss Amish of Northeastern Indiana -- The speech community -- The Swiss Amish use of English -- Contexts for the use of English -- Results of English use survey -- Possible explanations for the shift to English -- Interference and borrowing from English to German -- Amish and non-Amish varieties of English -- Amish intercommunity variation -- Amish to non-Amish variation -- Impressionistic observations -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Index -- The series Varieties of English Around the World.
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.
• Titolo autorizzato: Language variation and change in the American midland
• ISBN: 1-282-15584-9; 9786612155840; 90-272-9354-6
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910812588803321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
• Serie: Varieties of English around the world. . -General series ; ; v. 36.