American English: Dialects and Variation (Language in Society)

"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) ""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")