Language Variety In The South Revisited

Top linguists from diverse fields address language varieties in the South. Language Variety in the South Revisited is a comprehensive collection of new research on southern United States English by foremost scholars of regional language variation. Like its predecessor, Language Variety in the South: Perspectives in Black and White (The University of Alabama Press, 1986), this book includes current research into African American vernacular English, but it greatly expands the scope of investigation and offers an extensive assessment of the field. The volume encompasses studies of contact involving African and European languages; analysis of discourse, pragmatic, lexical, phonological, and syntactic features; and evaluations of methods of collecting and examining data. The 38 essays not only offer a wealth of information about southern language varieties but also serve as models for regional linguistic investigation.

An outgrowth of the Language Variety in the South III symposium, New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches comprises forty-five original essays on a range of topics regarding the languages and dialects of the American South. Book jacket.

Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines to assess the use and meaning of language in the South, a region rich in dialects and variants, this comprehensive edited collection reflects the cutting-edge research presented at the fourth decennial meeting of Language Variety in the South in 2014. Focusing on the ongoing changes and surprising continuities associated with the contemporary South, the contributors use innovative methodologies to pave new pathways for understanding the social dynamics that shape the language in the South today. Along with the editors, contributors to the volume include Agnes Bolonyai, Katie Carmichael, Phillip M. Carter, Becky Childs, Danica Cullinan, Nathalie Dajko, Catherine Evans Davies, Robin Dodsworth, Hartwell S. Francis, Kirk Hazen, Anne H. Charity Hudley, Neal Hutcheson, Alex Hyler, Mary Kohn, Christian Koops, William A. Kretzschmar Jr., Sonja L. Lanehart, Andrew Lynch, Ayesha M. Malik, Christine Mallinson, Jim Michnowicz, Caroline Myrick, Michael D. Picone, Dennis R. Preston, Paul E. Reed, Joel Schneier, James Shepherd, Erik R. Thomas, Sonya Trawick, and Tracey L. Weldon.

This volume brings together work by linguists and linguistic anthropologists not only on southern varieties of English, but also on other languages spoken in the region. The contributors, who often draw from their own involvement in language maintenance or linguistic heritage movements, engage several of the fields’ most pressing issues as they relate to the southern speech communities: tension between linguistic scholarship and linguistic activism; discourse genres; language contact; language ideology; and the relationship between language shift, language maintenance, and cultural reproduction. Acknowledging the role of immigration and settlement in shaping southern linguistic and cultural diversity, the volume covers a range of Native American, African American, and Euro-American speech communities. One essay explores the implementation of “dialect awareness programs” and the ethics of the relationship between researchers and North Carolina’s Lumbee and Ocracoke communities. Another essay focuses on a single Appalachian community to explore the interplay between linguistic variables commonly associated with Appalachian speech and others commonly associated with African American speech. Other essay topics include Creek language preservation efforts by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the history of language contact and linguistic diversity in the Carolinas, and the changing relationship between English and Mvskoke in Oklahoma. Also covered are the stereotypes, varied realities, and language ideologies associated with Appalachian speech communities; the mobilization of dialect by Cajun English speakers for creating humor, expressing solidarity, and setting boundaries; and the creative use of academic and religious discursive models in the construction of Melungeon and Appalachian Scotch-Irish discourses and identities.

The English of the Southern United States is possibly the most studied of any regional variety of any language. However, most, if not all, books about Southern American English have been directed almost exclusively toward scholars already working in the field. Written by a team of experts, many of them internationally known, this volume provides a broad overview of the foundations of, and current research on, language variation in the Southern United States.

The fifth volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture explores language and dialect in the South, including English and its numerous regional variants, Native American languages, and other non-English languages spoken over time by the region's immigrant communities. Among the more than sixty entries are eleven on indigenous languages and major essays on French, Spanish, and German. Each of these provides both historical and contemporary perspectives, identifying the language's location, number of speakers, vitality, and sample distinctive features. The book acknowledges the role of immigration in spreading features of Southern English to other regions and countries and in bringing linguistic influences from Europe and Africa to Southern English. The fascinating patchwork of English dialects is also fully presented, from African American English, Gullah, and Cajun English to the English spoken in Appalachia, the Ozarks, the Outer Banks, the Chesapeake Bay Islands, Charleston, and elsewhere. Topical entries discuss ongoing changes in the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar of English in the increasingly mobile South, as well as naming patterns, storytelling, preaching styles, and politeness, all of which deal with ways language is woven into southern culture.

New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 5: Language

Brings together a multiplicity of voices on the complex politics, challenges, and strategies of educating students - in North America and worldwide - who are speakers of diverse or nonstandard varieties of English, and hybrid varieties of English, such as African American Vernacular English, Caribbean Creole English, Tex Mex, among others.