LINGUIST List 11.2518

Wed Nov 22 2000

Books: English Language/Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Benjamin Fortson, English Lang/Ling: How We Talk: American Regional English Today

	
If you are looking for an inexpensive book on American Regional English
that contains the latest scholarship but is written for a popular audience,
look no further.
	
Announcing
	
	How We Talk: American Regional English Today
	
	by Allan Metcalf
	(Professor of English at MacMurray College
	and Executive Secretary of the American Dialect Society)
	
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000)
208 pages
cloth ISBN 0-618-04363-2 $24.00
paperback ISBN 0-618-04362-4 $14.00
	
Allan Metcalf takes us on a tour of American English, beginning in the
South, home of the most easily recognized of American dialects, and
traveling north to New England, west to the Midwest, and on to the far
West, including Alaska and Hawaii. Along the way the author examines such
phenomena as Louisiana Cajun and New Orleans Yat, Appalachian
pronunciations and vocabulary, New York talk, "dahntahn" Pittsburgh,
"Bawlmerese," the Northern Cities Shift, the Northern Midwest "Fargo"
accent, California Surfer Slang, and much much more.
	
How We Talk also has a historical introduction, a chapter on ethnic
dialects, and a chapter on dialects in the movies.
	
How We Talk is a sustained celebration of the language Americans all know
and don't understand. Written in a witty and engaging style, the book is
ideally suited for students with little or no linguistic training.
	
Even the proofreader said it was hard to put down.