How to Speak Midwestern

How to Speak Midwestern PDF Author: Ted McClelland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997774276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pittsburgh toilet, squeaky cheese, city chicken, shampoo banana, and Chevy in the Hole are all phrases that are familiar to Midwesterners but sound foreign to anyone living outside the region. This book explains not only what Midwesterners say but also how and why they say it and covers such topics as: the causes of the Northern cities vowel shift, why the accents in Fargo miss the nasality that's a hallmark of Minnesota speech, and why Chicagoans talk more like people from Buffalo than their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin. Readers from the Midwest will have a better understanding of why they talk the way they do, and readers who are not from the Midwest will know exactly what to say the next time someone ends a sentence with "eh?".

How to Speak Midwestern

How to Speak Midwestern PDF Author: Ted McClelland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997774276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pittsburgh toilet, squeaky cheese, city chicken, shampoo banana, and Chevy in the Hole are all phrases that are familiar to Midwesterners but sound foreign to anyone living outside the region. This book explains not only what Midwesterners say but also how and why they say it and covers such topics as: the causes of the Northern cities vowel shift, why the accents in Fargo miss the nasality that's a hallmark of Minnesota speech, and why Chicagoans talk more like people from Buffalo than their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin. Readers from the Midwest will have a better understanding of why they talk the way they do, and readers who are not from the Midwest will know exactly what to say the next time someone ends a sentence with "eh?".

The Virtual Linguistics Campus

The Virtual Linguistics Campus PDF Author: Jürgen Handke, Peter Franke
Publisher: Waxmann Verlag
ISBN: 383096689X
Category : Internet in education
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Atlas of North American English

The Atlas of North American English PDF Author: William Labov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110206838
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Atlas of North American English provides the first overall view of the pronunciation and vowel systems of the dialects of the U.S. and Canada. The Atlas re-defines the regional dialects of American English on the basis of sound changes active in the 1990s and draws new boundaries reflecting those changes. It is based on a telephone survey of 762 local speakers, representing all the urbanized areas of North America. It has been developed by Bill Labov, one of the leading sociolinguists of the world, together with his colleagues Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg. The Atlas consists of a printed volume accompanied by an interactive CD-ROM. The print and multimedia content is also available online. Combined Edition: Book and Multimedia CD-ROM The book contains 23 chapters that re-define the geographic boundaries of North American dialects and trace the influence of gender, age, education, and city size on the progress of sound change; findings that show a dramatic and increasing divergence of English in North America; 139 four color maps that illustrate the regional distribution of phonological and phonetic variables across the North American continent; 120 four color vowel charts of individual speakers. The multimedia CD-ROM supplements the articles and maps by providing a data base with measurements of more than 100,000 vowels and mean values for 439 speakers; the Plotnik program for mapping each of the individual vowel systems; extended sound samples of all North American dialects; multimedia applications to enhance classroom presentations. Online Version: Book and CD-ROM content plus additional data The online version comprises the contents of the book and the multimedia CD-ROM along with additional data. It presents a wider selection of data, maps, and audio samples that will be recurrently updated; proffers simultaneous access to the information contained in the book and on the multimedia CD-ROM to all users in the university/library network; provides students with easy access to research material for classroom assignments. For more information, please contact Mouton de Gruyter: [email protected] System Requirements for CD-ROM and Online Version Windows PC: Pentium PC, Windows 9x, NT, or XP, at least 16MB RAM, CD-ROM Drive, 16 Bit Soundcard, SVGA (600 x 800 resolution) Apple MAC: OS 6 or higher, 16 Bit Soundcard, at least 16MB RAM Supported Browsers: Internet Explorer, 5.5 or 6 (Mac OS: Internet Explorer 5.1)/Netscape 7.x or higher/Mozilla 1.0 or higher/Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or higher PlugIns: Macromedia Flash Player 6/Acrobat Reader

Do You Speak American?

Do You Speak American? PDF Author: Robert Macneil
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
ISBN: 0307423573
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
Is American English in decline? Are regional dialects dying out? Is there a difference between men and women in how they adapt to linguistic variations? These questions, and more, about our language catapulted Robert MacNeil and William Cran—the authors (with Robert McCrum) of the language classic The Story of English—across the country in search of the answers. Do You Speak American? is the tale of their discoveries, which provocatively show how the standard for American English—if a standard exists—is changing quickly and dramatically. On a journey that takes them from the Northeast, through Appalachia and the Deep South, and west to California, the authors observe everyday verbal interactions and in a host of interviews with native speakers glean the linguistic quirks and traditions characteristic of each area. While examining the histories and controversies surrounding both written and spoken American English, they address anxieties and assumptions that, when explored, are highly emotional, such as the growing influence of Spanish as a threat to American English and the special treatment of African-American vernacular English. And, challenging the purists who think grammatical standards are in serious deterioration and that media saturation of our culture is homogenizing our speech, they surprise us with unpredictable responses. With insight and wit, MacNeil and Cran bring us a compelling book that is at once a celebration and a potent study of our singular language. Each wave of immigration has brought new words to enrich the American language. Do you recognize the origin of 1. blunderbuss, sleigh, stoop, coleslaw, boss, waffle? Or 2. dumb, ouch, shyster, check, kaput, scram, bummer? Or 3. phooey, pastrami, glitch, kibbitz, schnozzle? Or 4. broccoli, espresso, pizza, pasta, macaroni, radio? Or 5. smithereens, lollapalooza, speakeasy, hooligan? Or 6. vamoose, chaps, stampede, mustang, ranch, corral? 1. Dutch 2. German 3. Yiddish 4. Italian 5. Irish 6. Spanish

The Northern Cities Shift

The Northern Cities Shift PDF Author: Misja Dam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : da
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description


Dialect Diversity in America

Dialect Diversity in America PDF Author: William Labov
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813933277
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
The sociolinguist William Labov has worked for decades on change in progress in American dialects and on African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In Dialect Diversity in America, Labov examines the diversity among American dialects and presents the counterintuitive finding that geographically localized dialects of North American English are increasingly diverging from one another over time. Contrary to the general expectation that mass culture would diminish regional differences, the dialects of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Birmingham, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New York are now more different from each other than they were a hundred years ago. Equally significant is Labov's finding that AAVE does not map with the geography and timing of changes in other dialects. The home dialect of most African American speakers has developed a grammar that is more and more different from that of the white mainstream dialects in the major cities studied and yet highly homogeneous throughout the United States. Labov describes the political forces that drive these ongoing changes, as well as the political consequences in public debate. The author also considers the recent geographical reversal of political parties in the Blue States and the Red States and the parallels between dialect differences and the results of recent presidential elections. Finally, in attempting to account for the history and geography of linguistic change among whites, Labov highlights fascinating correlations between patterns of linguistic divergence and the politics of race and slavery, going back to the antebellum United States. Complemented by an online collection of audio files that illustrate key dialectical nuances, Dialect Diversity in America offers an unparalleled sociolinguistic study from a preeminent scholar in the field.

Standards of English

Standards of English PDF Author: Raymond Hickey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521763894
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 445

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first book-length exploration of 'standard Englishes' with contributions by the leading experts on each major variety of English discussed.

Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 3

Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 3 PDF Author: William Labov
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405112158
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 451

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints. Explores the major insights obtained by combining sociolinguistics with the results of dialect geography on a large scale Examines the cognitive and cultural influences responsible for linguistic change Demonstrates under what conditions dialects diverge from one another Establishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community and diffusion across communities Completes Labov’s seminal Principles of Linguistic Change trilogy

Linguistic Atlas of New England

Linguistic Atlas of New England PDF Author: Hans Kurath
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description


English in New York City - An Empirical Case Study

English in New York City - An Empirical Case Study PDF Author: Maria Dziekonska
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656102651
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: "To the delight of linguists and to the chagrin of almost everyone else, language is forever changing" (Gordon 2001: 2). Generally, change may occur in all parts of language, e.g.in its phonology, morphology, syntax or semantics. Traditionally, however, the linguistic focus has been placed on sound change whose progress can be observed by studying language in its social context and the realization by its natives (cf. Labob 1971a). While staying in New York City for a long period of time earlier this year, my original topic of interest for a thesis was special grammatical features or words typical of New York City English (NYCE). However, my supervisor, Prof. Glauser, informed me that empirical research, in order to obtain useful, representative data, would take too much time with one of the chosen topics. Furthermore, he introduced me to the Northern Cities Chain Shift, i.e. to sound change, which is much easier to analyze. The Northern Cities Chain Shift (NCS) strongly influences the order of six short vowels in the vowel system of General American (GA), which have not been changed much by other important chain shifts, e.g. the Great Vowel Shift (GVS), in the historical development of English. The NCS has been in progress for several centuries, but still has not been completed. In addition, although the vowel changes triggered by the NCS are severe, only a few linguists have conducted empirical research on that topic. The present thesis will contribute its share to the empirical data collected with respect to the NCS, by analyzing speech samples taken of eight different speakers during a stay in New York City, N.Y. with respect to the occurrence of the NCS in the dialect of New York City. Since the term dialect, according to Francis (1958: 43), denominates "the variety of