American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society) [Paperback]

Walt Wolfram (Author), Natalie Schilling-Estes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0631204873 | ISBN-13: 978-0631204879

This book provides an up-to-date description of language variation in American English, covering regional, ethnic, and gender-based differences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"American English is an indispensable tool for studying how literary uses of language pertain to a communicative system which is already inherently variable, and whose variability is in turn deeply bound up with issues of identity, race, gender, power, privilege and prestige. Beyond this, the book demonstrates that focusing more attention on the formal profile of literary works, not less, is our best hope of understanding how literature is iembedded in the culture it both represents and helps shape."
--David Herman, North Carolina State University

"In this exciting revision of Wolfram's classic 'Dialects and American English', Wolfram and Schilling-Estes not only attempt to provide a detailed account of the geographical and sociocultural distribution of certain kinds of American English, through distinct dialects, grammar, and usage, but also attempt to dispel a number of urban (and not-so-urban) myths common amoung native American English speakers.... The work of Schilling-Estes places her in a unique position to comment on language variation and the social issues involved in linguistic minorities." (Linguist)

"The text provides a better delineated yet simple understanding of the real world importance of dialect variation than any other text available.... Anyone who plans to teach an undergraduate course for nonlinguists would be well advised to use this text, and one would be hard pressed to find as good a dialectology text for linguistic majors!"
--Malcah Yaeger-Dror, University of Arizona

"This is an indispensable book, not just for students but for anyone who wants to know how the English language varies in the United States and how this variation has been studied...It is comprehensive, comprehensible and dense with detail.... Just to list the riches of this book would take all the allotted space for this review."
--Allan Metcalf, MacMurray College, Illinois

"The new book covers a lot more territory [than the earlier text by Wolfram], benefiting greatly from the addition of a second author. The book goes far beyond traditional descriptions of American English in the depth of its multicultural approach. Those who have used the earlier version will be pleased at the way the book has been brought up to date with recent research. For classroom use, I have found this book comprehensible and informative, with excellent definitions of terms." (English World Wide)

"This is a very comprehensive account which, in spite of the great amount of detail it contains, never loses sight of the really important data and methods and explains complex facts in clear, succinct and very readable exposition. It was time for such a survey for use in class, and the authors have succeeded in making the subject matter appear both relevant and manageable; this is a book which will be of profit to academic teachers, students and many others interested in the linguistic variation around them." (Anglia)

Book Description

This up-to-date description of language variation in American English, covers regional, ethnic, and gender-based differences. The second edition includes new chapters on social and ethnic dialects. Updates to existing chapters and exercises as well as new features such as a phonetic symbols key, and a section on the notion of speech community, combine to make the new edition a valuable resource for students and specialists alike. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 398 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (June 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631204873
• ISBN-13: 978-0631204879
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,482,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than just a description of American English, March 29, 2000

By 

Joachim GRZEGA (Eichstätt, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society) (Paperback)

The book offers much more than the title suggests. It is not only an up-to-date presentation of American English and its varieties ("white varieties," African American Vernacular English, Native American Vernacular English, and even Creole varieties). These varieties rather serve as sources of examples for a volume that covers virtually every branch of sociolinguistics, including even political issues and suggestions for dialect teaching and language reforms. The titles of the chapters are: "The Reality of Dialects," "Why Do Languages Have Dialects," "Levels of Dialect," "Dialects in the United States: Past, Present, and Future," "Regional Dialects," "Social and Ethnic Dialects," "Gender and Language Variation," "Dialects and Style," "The Patterning of Dialect," "On the Application of Dialect Studies," "Dialect Awareness in the School and Community"). The authors juxtapose a series of definitions, theories, and other issues in a fresh and sometimes untraditional manner, never forgetting to take the historical perspective into account. They are conscious of the problems inherent in generalizations and have managed to find the right middle course between a too simplistic and a too complicating presentation. At the end of each section the reader will find suggestions for further research and activities as well as further reading recommendations (including addresses of Internet sites, too). Another plus of the book is that the reading recommendations are accompanied by critical annotations. The main body is followed by an "Inventory of Socially Diagnostic Structures," which consists of a very informative list of linguistic structures and their correspondent variants in a number of American English dialects. At the end of the book the reader will also find a valuable glossary of (socio)linguistic terms. As already mentioned, it is very interesting to find out that some of the authors' statements break with the content, or structure, of many traditional works of this kind, such as the sub-definitions of 'standard,' or the observations on language use and pragmatics, much too often neglected elsewhere. The book is written in a very readable style and can warmly be recommended not only to teachers and students of languages and linguistics, but to everyone interested in sociolinguistic problems in the United States.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid, not exhaustive, November 21, 2001

By 

D. Bowie (Winter Park, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society) (Paperback)

A good, solid semi-introductory work on American Englishes. Not really intended for someone with absolutely no background in Linguistics, but a minimal introduction to the field should be enough. Its only real flaws are that there's a danger someone could take it to be exhaustive (I've even seen linguists who seem to believe this), and it's not quite as lively as Mencken's _The_American_language_, which may be dated but is still the best introduction to American Englishes that a non-linguist could read. (I should say, though, Wolfram and Schilling-Estes do a *much* better job than Mencken when dealing with socially marginalized varieties.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended Gem, October 28, 2009

By 

Rheazblaze (New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society) (Paperback)

It is an extremely interesting book that is completely informative about the history of the English language and how it not only came to be what it is today but predictions about what it will become in the future. The prose is very easy to read and you find yourself pronouncing dialects out loud to just get a good idea of what it would sound like if you were from that part of the world. This was a recommended book by my professor and I was not going to purchase it but I'm glad I did considering the other two required texts are not as interesting!