Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change [Hardcover]

William Labov (Author), Sharon Ash (Author), Charles Boberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 3110167468 | ISBN-13: 978-3110167467 | Publication Date: December 2005 | Edition: Book and CD ROM

"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. Starting January 2006, the print and multimedia content will also be available online. It is a combined Edition: Book and Multimedia CD-ROM. The printed volume 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 colour maps that illustrate the regional distribution of phonological and phonetic variables across the North American continent; and 120 four colour vowel charts of individual speakers. The interactive multimedia CD-ROM supplements the printed 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; and interactive applications to enhance classroom presentations. The Online only version provides print and multimedia content. The online only version offers: simultaneous access to the print and multimedia content to all users in the university/library network; a wider selection of interactive data, maps, and audio samples that will be recurrently updated; students with concurrent access to research material for classroom assignments.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"ANAE is very much a standalone piece. [...] But such splendid isolation is the privilege of the giants of a discipline, and giants in the world of scholarship is definitley what the authors of this volume are. This is a landmark study, a unique reference point of dialectological scholarship for decades to come and an inspiration for generations of linguistics."Edgar W. Schneider in: English World-Wide 1/2008 "The ANAE is a massive collection of dialect data and an unprecedented accomplishment in North American English dialectology."Joshua Wilbur in: English Language and Linguistics 1/2007 "ANAE is a landmark study that will shape research trends for years to come."Matthew J. Gordon in: Linguist List 17.2299 Coverage in the press: Talking the Tawk The New Yorker Sound Decision: New Atlas Divides the US by Dialect The Chicago Tribune and CubaNow.net Continental Drift The Pennsylvania Gazette Is there a Rocky Mountain Accent New West North American Dialects National Geographic Mayor 's A

About the Author

William Labov is Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Sharon Ash is Associate Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Charles Boberg is Assistant Professor at McGill University, Montreal, Canada and Director of the McGill Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Laboratory.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Mouton de Gruyter; Book and CD ROM edition (December 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3110167468
• ISBN-13: 978-3110167467
• Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 12 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth waiting for: a magnificent achievement, February 7, 2006

By 

Richard W. Bailey (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change (Hardcover)

In the 1960s, William Labov went to New England to discover what had happened to English there since it had been surveyed in the 1930s. What he found opened his eyes to the speed at which linguistic change takes place, and the trip set him on a course that culminates in this Atlas, a survey of English in cities across the U. S. and Canada.

Beautifully produced in a boxed set (the other "volume" contains a CD-Rom), this is an expensive book but filled with beautiful color maps and displays, also in color, of the shifting vowels of English. The clearly-written narrative explains the mechanisms of sound change in progress and the regions of distinctive varieties.

Everyone interested in the pronunciation of English in America must consult this masterpiece.

Richard W. Bailey
Fred Newton Scott Professor of English
The University of Michigan

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tracking American Accents and Pronunciation, March 9, 2007

By 

Virginia Allain "(retired librarian)" (Poinciana, FL) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change (Hardcover)

This is fascinating to see the regional dialects mapped for the United States. My husband studied linguistics, so we take an interest still even though he is retired. I've lived in Baltimore, after growing up in the midwest. I was amazed at the differences in speech. Baltimore residents say am-BU-lance, for example. Even after being away from the mid-atlantic for 15 years now, I still recognize a Virginia accent by the way they say "house." It's actually very similar to one area of Canada.