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Labov
William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics. He is a professor emeritus in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania and pursues research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continues to publish research. Biography Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, Labov majored in English and philosophy and studied chemistry at Harvard (1948). He worked as an industrial chemist in his family’s business (1949–61) before turning to linguistics. For his MA thesis (1963) he completed a study of change in the dialect of Martha's Vineyard, which he presented before the Linguistic Society of America. Labov took his PhD (1964) at Columbia University studying under Uriel Weinreich. He was an assistant profes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by White Southerners. In terms of accent, its most innovative forms include southern varieties of Appalachian English and certain varieties of Texan English. Popularly known in the United States as a Southern accent or simply Southern, Southern American English now comprises the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. Formal, much more recent terms within American linguistics include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English. History and geography A diversity of earlier Southern dialects once existed: a consequence of the mix of English speakers from the British Isles (including largely Southern English and Scots-Irish immigrants) who migrated to the American South in the 17th and 18th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of Upstate New York westward along the Erie Canal and through much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The dialect can be heard as far west as eastern Iowa and even among certain demographics in the Twin Cities, Minnesota.Chapman, Kaila (2017). "The Northern Cities Shift: Minnesota's Ever-Changing Vowel Space". Macalester College: "The satisfaction of the three NCS measures was found only in the 35-55 year old male speakers. The three male speakers fully participating in the NCS had high levels of education and strong ties to the city" (41). Some of its features have also infiltrated a geographic corridor from Chica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of the nonstandard accent. Despite being widespread throughout the United States, AAVE should not be assumed to be the native dialect of all African Americans. As with most African-American English, African-American Vernacular English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the rural dialects of the Southe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variationist Sociolinguistics
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation ( accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax (sometimes called "grammar"). But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate with language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still (often unconsciously) sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect. Variationists study how a language changes by observing it. This is accomplished by looking at authentic data. For example, variation is studied by looking at linguistic and social environments, then the data is analyzed as the change occurs. Variation in research programs must be malleable due to the nature of language itself. This is because language i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) and/or geographical barriers (a mountain range, a desert, a river, etc.). Such studies also examine how such differences in usage and differences in beliefs about usage produce and reflect social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gillian Sankoff
Gillian Elizabeth Sankoff (born March 6, 1943) (pronounced ) is a Canadian-American sociolinguist, and professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Sankoff's notable former students include Miriam Meyerhoff. Biography She earned her PhD in 1968 from McGill University, with a dissertation entitled, "Social aspects of multilingualism in New Guinea." She is known for her work on Montréal French, on pidgin and creole languages (in particular, Tok Pisin), and on how speakers' use of language changes over the course of their lifespans. Her contributions to the development of the variationist approach to sociolinguistics are documented in interviews featured in Tagliamonte's (2015) history of the field. She was married to Canadian mathematician David Sankoff, then to Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman from 1981 to his death in 1982, and subsequently married American sociolinguist William Labov in 1993. She is the mother of sociologist Alice Goffman. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rutherford, New Jersey
Rutherford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the borough's population was 18,834. Rutherford was formed as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on September 21, 1881, from portions of Union Township, based on the results of a referendum held on the previous day.Snyder, John P''The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968'' Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 86. Accessed February 2, 2012. The borough was named for John Rutherfurd, a U.S. Senator who owned land in the area. Rutherford has been called the "Borough of Trees" and "The First Borough of Bergen County", and is known as well for its pedestrian-focused downtown area adjacent to the borough's Bergen Line (New Jersey Transit) railway station. History The ridge above the New Jersey Meadowlands upon which Rutherford sits was settled by Lenape Native Americans long before the arrival of Walling Van Winkle in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the smaller adjacent Chappaquiddick Island, which is usually connected to the Vineyard. The two islands have sometimes been separated by storms and hurricanes, which last occurred from 2007 to 2015. It is the 58th largest island in the U.S., with a land area of about , and the third-largest on the East Coast, after Long Island and Mount Desert Island. Martha's Vineyard constitutes the bulk of Dukes County, which also includes the Elizabeth Islands and the island of Nomans Land (Massachusetts), Nomans Land. The Vineyard was home to one of the earliest known deaf communities in the United States; consequently, a sign language, the Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, emerged on the island among both deaf and hearing islanders. The 2010 census report ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appalachia
Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, ''Appalachia'' typically refers only to the cultural region of the central and southern portions of the range, from the Catskill Mountains of New York southwest to the Blue Ridge Mountains which run southwest from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, and the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. In 2020, the region was home to an estimated 26.1 million people, of which roughly 80% are white. Since its recognition as a distinctive region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th century writers often engaged in yellow journalism focused on sensational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uriel Weinreich
Uriel Weinreich ( yi, אוריאל ווײַנרײַך ''Uriel Vaynraykh'', ; May 23, 1926 – March 30, 1967) was a Jewish–American linguist. Life Uriel Weinreich was born in Wilno, Poland (since 1945, Vilnius, Lithuania), the first child of Max Weinreich ( pl, Mejer Weinreich) and Regina Szabad, to a family that paternally hailed from Courland in Latvia and maternally came from a well-respected and established Wilno Jewish family. He earned his BA, MA, and PhD from Columbia University and went on to teach there, specializing in Yiddish studies, sociolinguistics, and dialectology. He advocated the increased acceptance of semantics and compiled the iconic ''Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary'', published shortly after his death. Weinreich was the son of the linguist Max Weinreich and the mentor of both Marvin Herzog, with whom he laid the groundwork for the ''Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry'' ( LCAAJ), and William Labov. Weinreich is also credit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Goffman
Alice Goffman (born 1982) is an American sociologist, urban ethnographer, and author. She was Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin and Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pomona College. Goffman wrote ''On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City'' about over-policing, poverty, and incarceration experienced by young black men and their families in Philadelphia, a best-selling book for which she received widespread praise before it was widely criticized. She was denied tenure at Wisconsin in 2019. Education Goffman attended the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD at Princeton University, both in sociology. Her doctoral dissertation committee was chaired by Mitchell Duneier and included Paul DiMaggio, Devah Pager, Cornel West, and Viviana Zelizer. Career While earning her PhD at Princeton, Goffman co-taught undergraduate courses with Mitch Duneier as a Lloyd Cotsen Gradu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
