Homogeneity and Heterogeneity in American English Relative homogeneity in the 17th and 18th cc.3

--focusing on the speech areas of the Atlantic Coast down to South Carolina

--18 smaller speech areas within the 3 more general Northern, Midland, and

Southern areas

--6 regional areas + GA (Network Standard) and Black English

[NB: these last two should be viewed as social dialects!)
--R.W. Bailey, “Dialect in America” In: T. McArthur (ed.).

The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992)

--4 areas: North, Coastal South, Midland, and West

--5 areas: Eastern NE, Inland Northern, North Midland, South Midland, S-ern

--no separate Western “region of AmE”

Some General Regional Markers
When the feature is used, one can be reasonably certain about the region where the

speaker came from (“carbonated soft drinks” as coke, soda pop, cold drink, etc., and

“automobile highways” as parkway, turnpike, thruway, freeway)

Reasons for Uniformity and Variation in Am. E.
a--the mingling of settlers; mobility; the influence of the media; Noah Webster`s role

b--the diversity of the origin of the settlers; the proximity/distance from the Atlantic

seaboard

The Evolution of the Dialects of American English
3 influences:

1 Founder effect—the durable imprint of lg structures taken to an area by the earliest groups of people forging a new society in the region: Am dialects still reflect some of these influences (see A Muse of Fire / The Guid-Scots Tongue)

2 Contact—with speakers of other languages (see Loan Word Examples)

3 Innovations—continue to set various dialects of AmE apart from one another

5 stages of development (Edgar Schneider, 2003)

1 Foundation stage—English is used on a regular basis in a region where it was not used previously (not necessarily in a linguistically homogeneous way): colonization

2 Exonormative stabilization—communities stabilize politically under foreign (Br) dominance, with expatriates providing the primary norms for usage

3 Nativization—a fundamental transition towards independence (politically, culturally, and linguistically): unique linguistic usages and structures (differentiation from the homeland)

4 Endonormative stabilization—the new nation adopts its own lg norms rather than adhering to external norms

5 Differentiation—internal diversification takes over: new dialects evolve on their own: differently from how lg change is proceeding in the former homeland

The first English(es) in America: centers of irradiation

1 Jamestown (1607) and 2 Massachusetts Bay Colony (1620) > Boston

Elizabethan English / Early Modern English from Southeastern England (London)

Scots English/Irish from Ulster in the north of Ireland

Heterogeneous: English, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, French, African

French and German + Cajun (1765)

initial extension from east to west

pushing westward toward the Pacific Coast

vertical & horizontal movements on the map

the growing importance of ethnic dialects (AAE and Spanish-based variants)

R.W. Bailey’s (1992) 4 areas: North, Coastal South, Midland, and West

The Northern Dialect (from New England and NY to Oregon and Wa)
Pronunciation: rhoticity (bird; car); cot=caught; matter=madder (the “flap”)

Grammar: dive » dove (Past T.);

Vocabulary: to bitch; comforter; sub(marine); babushka + Finnish (MI), Swedish

(MN), Polish (Buffalo, Detroit) & Russian (“Nice driveway!”) influence

3—frequency of ain`t (What it is, what it ain`t)

(country)

(socio-historical & socio-cultural changes):

1. 
   changing patterns of immigration and language contact
   
2. 
   shifting patterns of population movement
   
3. 
   changing cultural centers
   
4. 
   increasing interregional accessibility
   

1 --Hispanic English (Florida, Texas, New Mexico)

--Vietnamese English (since the mid-1970s)

--desegregation and interethnic dialect contact on the increase

--two streams of northerly migration: N/SC > WDC, Philly, NYC

Deep S > St L, Chi, Detroit

--movement of AAs back to the S

--movement of EuA speakers from Midland and Northern dialect areas to the S

--from linguistic swamping towards linguistic focusing

--markers of regional speech transformed into those of social class, ethnicity, etc.

--urbanization > loss of traditional (rural) vocabulary
4 --the ever-widening network of transportation and intercommunication

--consequence: the phenomenon of dialect endangerment