Dialect and Language Variation

620 Pages·1986·43.567 MB·

by  Michael D. Linn

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ALLEN, HAROLD B. His doctorate at the University of Michigan under the late Charles
C. Fries preceded teaching at San Diego State College and then at the University of Minnesota from
1944 to 1971, when he retired as professor emeritus of English and linguistics, thereafter to accept
assignments in Canada, Iran, and Hungary. He is director of the Linguistic Atlas of the Upper
Midwest, and has been president of the National Council of Teachers of English, Teachers of English
to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and the American Dialect Society. Address: 8100
Highwood Drive, Apt. B-342, Bloomington, MN 55438.
ASH, SHARON. Better known as Sherry, she graduated from Bryn Mawr and, with two
degrees, from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently she is associate director of the language
laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and research investigator in the Graduate Hospital.
Address: 816 South 48th St., Philadelphia, PA 19143.
AVIS, WALTER. A doctoral student of the late Albert Marckwardt at the University of
Michigan, Avis, before his untimely death, served as professor of English at the royal Military
College of Canada. He had just completed his distinguished Dictionary ofCanadianisms on Historical
Principles.
BAUGH, JOHN. A linguistics graduate of Temple University, Baugh is now professor
of linguistics and anthropology at the University of Texas in Austin. Address: Department of
Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 787I2-1196.
BOTTIGLIONI, GINO. At the time of his death Professor Bottiglioni was a member
of the faculty of the Linguistic Institute of the University of Bologna, in Italy.
BUTTERS, RONALD K. His concern with practical applications of linguistics to legal
matters has followed his B.A. in English and Ph.D. in English linguistics at the University of Iowa.
As associate professor of English he chairs the committee on linguistics at Duke University and has
recently become editor of American Speech. Address: Department of English, 138 Social Sciences
Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706.
CASSIDY, FREDERIC G. A graduate of Oberlin College, and, under the late Charles
C. Fries, a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Michigan, Cassidy has distinguished himself in
dialect lexicography. Initial Wisconsin fieldwork at the University of Wisconsin, where he is professor
emeritus of English, preceded his editing the Dictionary of Jamaican English and the subsequent
undertaking of the massive project of the American Dialect Society, the Dictionary of the American
Regional English, now ready for initial publication by the Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Address: Department of English, University of Wisconsin, 6125 Helen C. White Hall, Madison,
WI 53706.
DUCKERT, AUDREY. A Wisconsin native, she earned two degrees at the University
of Wisconsin and assisted Frederic Cassidy with the Wisconsin English Language Survey before
obtaining the doctorate at Radcliffe College. A period on the staff of G. & C. Merriam Company
was followed in 1972 by her present position as professor of English at the University of Massachusetts.
She has been associated also with the Second Supplement of the Oxford English Dictionary
and the Dictionary of American Regional English, and has served as president of the
American Name Society and of the American Dialect Society. Address: One Maplewood Terrace,
Hadley, MA 01035.
FASOLD, RALPH. Fasold followed his B.A. from Wheaton College with two graduate
degrees from the University of Chicago. He is associate professor of linguistics at Georgetown
University, with particular interest in abstract syntax and the relationship between biology and
language. Address: ICC 480. Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20007.
FEAGIN, CRAWFORD. From her undergraduate work at Agnes Scott College and
graduate degrees from Georgetown University Professor Feagin has gone to a position on the adjunct
faculty of the University of Virginia in the Falls Church Regional Center. Address: 2311 North
Upton St., Arlington, VA 22207.
FORGUE, GUY JEAN. Full professor of American Studies at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle,
where he became a docteur-ès-lettres in 1967, Forgue has earned distinction for introducing France
to the study of American English, with which he became familiar during visiting assignments at
Yale, Chicago, Middlebury, and the University of California at Berkeley. He edited Mencken's
letters, and his book, H. L. Mencken, is due for immediate publication. His extra-curricular concern
is in Anglo-French lexicography. Address: 14 rue Yvart, 75015 Paris, France.
FRAZER, TIMOTHY C. Frazer is professor of English at Western Illinois University.
He is helping in the preparation of the Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States. Address:
Department of English and Journalism, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455.
KROCH, ANTHONY S. An A.A. from Harvard and a subsequent Ph.D. from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology preceded Kroch's present assignment as assistant professor
of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Address: Department of Linguistics, 618 Williams
Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19174.
KURATH, HANS. The grand old man of American dialectology, Kurath, born in 1891,
received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and then left an Ohio State professorship
for Brown University and the directorship of what was then envisioned as the Linguistic Atlas
of the United States and Canada. Upon completion of its first unit, the Linguistic Atlas of New
England, he became editor of the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan, from
which he retired as professor emeritus of English in 1961. Address: 1123 Spring St., Ann Arbor,
MI 48103.
LABOV, WILLIAM. After ten years as an industrial chemist, he followed his interest
in language to doctoral work at Columbia University, where Uriel Weinreich guided him to his
present career as a pioneer in sociolinguistic research. The two articles in the present book suggest
his range of techniques over the years between his seminal study of New York City speech to his
recent work in Philadelphia, where he now resides as professor of linguistics at the University of
Pennsylvania. Address: Linguistics Laboratory, 3732 Locust Walk/CW, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA 19104.
LAFERRIERE, MARTHA. Her undergraduate degree in German at Bryn Mawr College
led to a doctorate in linguistics at Brown University. She currently is research scientist in speech
perception at the A.T. & T. Information Systems laboratories. Address: 33 Crane Court, Middletown,
NJ 07748.
LAKOFF, ROBIN. Professor Lakoff followed her B.A. from Harvard with an MA.
from Indiana University but returned to Harvard for her Ph.D. She is now a member of the department
of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where she pursues her interest in "women's
language" and sexism in language. Address: Department of Linguistics, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720.
LANCE, DONALD M. From Texas A. & M. Lance went to the University of Texas at
Austin for his doctorate in the English language and linguistics. He is professor of English at the
University of Missouri, where he has pursued dialect research and is greatly concerned with the
teaching of the English language and of English as a second language. Address: Department of
English, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65201.
LEAP, WILLIAM L. An associate professor of anthropology at the American University
in Washington, Leap maintains a concern with American Indian language maintenance and
renewal that began with doctoral study at Southern Methodist University and has included the
education directorship of the National Congress of American Indians, 1981-1983, and, from 1976
to 1979, the direction of the Indian education program at the Center for Applied Linguistics. Address:
Department of Anthropology, American University, Washington, D.C. 20016.
LINN, MICHAEL D. A graduate of the University of Montana, Linn received his Ph.D.
at the University of Minnesota, where he had been research assistant for the Linguistic Atlas of the
Upper Midwest. From an assistant professorship at Virginia Commonwealth University he moved
to the University of Minnesota/Duluth, where he is professor of English and anthropology and carries
on longitudinal research in the speech of Finns on the Iron Range. Address: Department of English,
University of Minnesota at Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812.
MCDAVID, RAVEN I., JR. The death of Raven McDavid on October 21, 1984, just
as this book was being readied for the press, removed from American dialectology a scholar at the
peak of his distinguished prolific and concentrated career. After McDavid's doctorate from Duke
University Kurath's influence during the Summer Linguistic Institute at Michigan led him into
fieldwork that ultimately gave him responsibility for two major linguistic atlas projects initiated by
Kurath and Marckwardt, those for the Atlantic and the North Central States. Several teaching posts
preceded his final position as professor of English at the University of Chicago, where he retired in
1977. He had served as president of the American Dialect Society and recently enjoyed a Fulbright
stint in Norway and Denmark.
MCDAVID, VIRGINIA GLENN. She developed her interest in the English language
at the University of Minnesota, where she obtained her Ph.D. after a summer of fieldwork for the
Upper Midwest atlas and her marriage to Raven McDavid. Now professor of English at Chicago
State University, she has edited the Publication of the American Dialect Society and is currently
editor of the Chicago Schools Journal and associate editor of the Linguistics Atlas of the North
Central States. She has published widely in the field and is presently attending to the areas of usage
and lexicography.
MILROY, LESLEY. As a lecturer in speech at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Milroy pursues his interest in clinical linguistics. He has the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the
University of Manchester and the Ph.D. from Queen's University, Belfast. Address: Department of
Speech, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, England NEI 7RU.
PEDERSON, LEE. His two degrees from Northern Illinois University were followed
by his doctorate at the University of Chicago under McDavid. After three years in the English
Department of the University of Minnesota he went to Emory University, where he is professor of
English and director of the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States, soon to be ready for initial publication.
He has been president of the American Dialect Society. Address: Department of English, Emory
University. Atlanta, G A 30322.
PETYT, K. M. Now director of extramural and continuing education at the University
of Reading, Petyt received an M.A. from Cambridge University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from
Reading, as well as a diploma in public and social administration from Oxford University. He is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Address: Centre for Extramural and Continuing Education.
University of Reading, London Road. Reading, England RGI 4AQ.
PICHE, GENE. With undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of
Minnesota, Piche is currently professor of English education at the University of Minnesota. Address:
College of Education, University of Minnesota. 104 Burton Hall, 178 Pillsbury Drive Southeast.
Minneapolis. MN 55455.
PRINGLE, IAN. A graduate of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, he is now
associate professor of linguistics and English at Carleton University, where he is conducting dialect
studies in Ontario. Address: Linguistics Department, Carleton University. Ottawa. Ontario. Canada
KIS5B6.
REED, CARROLL E. His two degrees from the University of Washington were followed
by a Ph.D. in German from Brown University. While teaching German at Washington he began
work on the dialect survey of the Pacific Northwest. After a stint at the University of California.
Riverside, he became professor of German and department head at the University of Massachusetts.
from which he retired in 1982 as professor emeritus of the German language and literature. Address:
190 Shays Street, Amherst. MA 01002.
REED, DAVID W. Not related to his co-author. Reed earned his doctorate at the
University of Michigan under the late Albert H. Marckwardt. director of the Linguistic Atlas of the
North Central States. He served as chairman of the departments of linguistics at both the University
of California. Berkeley, and Northwestern University, and now is director of North western* s program
in Oriental and African languages. While in California he initiated the dialect survey of California
and Nevada. Address: 2666 C Prairie Avenue, Evanston, IL 6020I.
SHUY, ROGER W. A doctoral student of Raven McDavids at Western Reserve
University after obtaining degrees from Wheaton College and Kent State, Shuy moved from positions
at Wheaton College and Michigan State University to the post of director of the sociolinguistic
program at the Center for Applied Linguistics. He left that to become professor of linguistics and
director of the sociolinguistics program at Georgetown University. He writes that he has dedicated
his academic work to "the application of linguistics to real world problems, particularly the relation
of linguistics to the legal and medical professions and to education/' Address: Department of
Linguistics, School of Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20057.
SMITH, RILEY B. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in English from the
University of Texas, Austin, Smith has taught at Texas A. & M., the University of California at
Los Angeles, and two German universities in addition to holding a Fulbright lectureship in Leningrad.
He is now associate professor of English at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. Address:
Department of English, Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA 17185.
THOMPSON, ROGER M. His linguistics MA. at Brigham Young University was
followed by a Ph.D. in linguistics and sociolinguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. He is
professor of English and linguistics and director of the English Language Institute at the University
of Florida. He is also editor of the Southern Folklore Quarterly. Address: Department of English.
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
TRUDGILL, PETER J. He is a master of arts at both Cambridge and Edinburgh
universities and also has his Ph.D. from Edinburgh. At present he is professor of linguistics at the
University of Reading. Address: Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading,
Whiteknights, Reading, England.
VAN RIPER, WILLIAM R. The late "Bob" Van Riper had his B. A. from the University
of Arizona and an M.A. from Northwestern University, followed by his doctorate at the University
of Michigan. At the University of Oklahoma he directed the linguistic atlas project in that state. At
the time of his death in 1977 he was editing the atlas materials and serving as professor of English
at Louisiana State University. His wife has contributed the article describing the Oklahoma atlas,
which now is being completed by Oscar Southard. Address: 1125 Magnolia Road, Baton Rouge,
LA 70808.
VIERECK, WOLFGANG. His M.A. in English, French, and political science from the
University of Marburg was followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg and another
doctorate, in English philology, from the University of Mainz. In 1978 he left the directorship of
the English Institute at the University of Graz in Austria to become professor of English linguistics
and medieval English literature at Bamberg University in West Germany. For years he has been
actively concerned with English and American dialectology. Address: Lehrstuhl für Englische
Sprachwissenschaft, Fleischstrasse 2, Universität Bamberg. D-8600 Bamberg, West Germany.
WASHABAUGH, WILLIAM. He received his doctorate at Wayne State University and
currently is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Address:
Department of Anthropology, Bolton Hall, University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
53201.
WEINREICH, URIEL. The late professor Weinreich held the Atran chair of linguistics
and Yiddish studies at Columbia University.
Dialect and Language Variation
Edited by
Harold B. Allen
Departments of English and Linguistics
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Michael D* Linn
Department of English
University of Minnesota, Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
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Preface
Although we editors had directed a side glance at the subject matter of
this book in preparing a previous publication, Readings in Applied English
Linguistics, ed. 3 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), numerous colleagues reported their
continuing need for an anthology concerned exclusively with language variation.
Consideration of that demand did indeed indicate that none of the current
textbooks treating dialects would quite satisfy the instructor of a class in language
variation, whether the course emphasized regional or social differences or sought
a balance of emphasis. At the same time, it was clear that so much activity had
recently occurred in both of these fields that it would not suffice simply to revise
the out-of-date anthology that the senior editor, with Gary Underwood, had
prepared some 15 years earlier Readings in American Dialectology (Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1971).
The present collection actually includes only 4 of the essays of the 1971
anthology. The remaining 35, all published since 1971, deal variously with the
theoretical, general, and specific aspects of regional dialects and social dialects.
The collection, unhappily, could not be as comprehensive as was first planned.
The imperative requirement that the cost of the ultimate book be kept within
the textbook range imposed a space limitation that compelled us to reject about
250 pages of material that would have expanded several of the present sections
besides adding one on British regional speech and another on dialects and
literature.
Even so, we believe that this anthology offers a more than adequate
representation of the current scene, certainly enough to provide in one term
both a broad and an intensive view of the extent of present-day research in
language variation.
We believe, further, that somewhere in the liberal arts curriculum this
representation is invaluable in counteracting both the popular and the theoretical
view of language, even so-called standard English, as monolithic. True, primarily
we think of these essays as desirable for students in classes variously designated
as American English, The English Language, American Dialectology, Social
Dialects, Sociolinguistics, Sociology of Language, and Language Variation. But
although such courses are likely to be offered in departments of English,
American studies, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology, we would also
ix
X Preface
submit that since the content of the book is so nontechnical that, except perhaps
for the minimal use of phonetic transcription, it demands no prerequisites except
a degree of maturity, this introduction to the field of language variation is
valuable collateral reading for all upper division and graduate students.
When the predecessor of this collection appeared in 1971, theoretical
linguistics, focusing largely upon generative theory, dominated the professional
scene. Linguistic or dialect geography was emerging from a holding operation,
and concern with the social dimension of language variation was just beginning
to move in from the wings to center stage. Today, while linguistic theory about
innate universals retains a prominent place in language study, it no longer
overshadows concern with a number of other historical and contemporary
interests, including that of language variation. Renewed activity in regional
dialect projects and lexicography has been matched by research in social
dialectology stimulated by the sociopolitical problems raised by attitudes toward
Black vernacular English. But such research has reached out also into the
productive relationships being explored by William Labov and his students.
Indeed, it is probably appropriate to repeat here a declaration that appeared
in the preface to the 1971 precursor of this textbook:
Whatever universals, innate or not, contemporary theoretical linguists may eventually
settle upon as essential in human language—those underlying links that bind the facts
of linguistics with those of psychology and philosphy—the correlations of overt language
manifestations with place and social class will always prove, at the other end of the
scale, equally interesting and far from trivial. This collection focuses upon these
correlations and their significant interpretation.
And so does this collection!
DIALECT THEORY
Although the three articles in Part I need not be studied
first, they should not be omitted. It is a truism, unhappily
often ignored, that no understanding of the present is complete
without understanding the past. Implicit in the skill of the
medical doctor is an underlying awareness of the distant contribu­
tions of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, and Vesalius, as well as
of the more recent work of Harvey. Luckily for the student,
the history of linguistic geography is much shorter.
That a language exhibits variation within its geographical
limits is not, of course, a modern discovery. The Greeks knew
it; the Romans knew it; Chaucer recognized it; and Shakespeare
used it. A collection of dialect terms actually was printed in
England in 1674.
But it was in Germany that the theories stemming from the
beginning of historical and comparative linguistics led to the first
dialect research based upon a carefully planned program of collect­
ing regional variations. The concept that dialect differences
deserve scholarly study instead of being considered bizarre devia­
tions from a standard norm led Georg Wenker in 1878 to undertake
what was to become a decades-long project, Der deutsche Sprach­
atlas, the linguistic atlas of Germany. Wenker used a postal
questionnaire to elicit from more than 44,000 schoolteachers their
written dialect translations of 44 sentences in Standard High Ger­
man. Though not trained investigators, these schoolmasters did
provide a vast mine of information about vocabulary as well as
some about gross differences in pronunciation.
A quite different way to obtain dialect data requires a trained
fieldworker to interview informants in their home communities and
record their responses in a phonetic transcription that as closely
as possible represents the individual features of pronunciation.
This procedure Jules Gillie'ron initiated in France when he sent
Edmond Edmont into the field to cover the entire country with
his interviews of peasants and other rural dwellers. The result
was the monumental Atlas Linguistique de la France, published
between 1904 and 1910.
Because the practical and theoretical implications of the French
atlas are relevant to later dialect studies in North America, we
chose to open this collection with the article by the late Professor
Bottiglioni, an Italian dialectologist. He draws upon Gillieron's
data to establish various historical and current linguistic relation­
ships and makes clear the theory underlying Gillie'ron's approach
3
4 Dialect Theory
to dialect data. Although the article refers to American work
only in passing, the kind of inference it draws and other uses
of the data are like those that can be derived from the materials
of American dialect geography. Indeed, it may be desirable to
give this article only a quick once-over reading at this time and
then return to it for close study after the completion of Parts II
and III.
But none of the studies proliferating from the French and
German atlases were in the mold of the developing structuralism
of linguistic theory. Dialectologists had been dealing with item
comparison on a geographical basis only; they did not treat items
as features within an over-all system, within a structure of struc­
tures. Whether such a comprehensive comparison could indeed
be made was the tenor of much criticism of dialect geography,
particularly in the article by the late Uriel Weinreich. Although
Weinreich's examples are from Yiddish, his seminal approach opened
the door to subsequent American research, notably by his one-time
student, William Labov, whose own recent studies are represented
in this book.
American structuralism, however, was rather abruptly checked
when Noam Chomsky's Linguistic Structures appeared in 1957.
It was not long before some linguiists sought to apply Chomsky's
generative grammatical theory to the study of dialect. This
development K. M. Petyt follows in some detail in the third article.
He describes the effort to fit dialect variation into a system,
perhaps a "diasystem," but with a new theoretical underlying
structure as the base from which rule-governed variations or
transformations develop surface structure.
Petyt continues with a discussion of developments caused by
greater attention to variation than to structural uniformity, that
is, to a dynamic approach recognizing change rather than to the
quantitative or static approach of the generativists. David De-
Camp, Charles-James Bailey, and Derek Bickerton are among the
innovating scholars whose work in this frontal area of research
demands discussion.
Students desirous of a more comprehensive treatment of the
background and progress of dialect theory may profitably read
Chapter 7 of W. N. Francis's Dialectology: An Introduction, New
York and London, Longman, 1983. Also valuable is Wolfgang
Viereck's article, "The growth of dialectology," Journal of English
Linguistics 7 (1973):69-86.