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This volume explores the linguistic complexities and critical issues of the
Midland dialect area of the USA, and contains a unique data-based set of
investigations of the Midlands dialect. The authors demonstrate that the
large central part of the United States known colloquially as the
Heartland, geo-culturally as the Midwest, and linguistically as the Midland
is a very real dialect area, one with regional cohesiveness, social
complexity, and psycho-emotional impact. The individual essays problematize
historical origins, track linguistic markers of social identity over time
and across social spaces, frame dialect issues within the linguistic
marketplace, account for extra-linguistic influences on changing patterns
of linguistic behaviors, and describe maintenance strategies of non-English
languages. This book is an important move forward in the understanding of
American English. Sociolinguists, dialectologists, applied linguists, and
all those involved in the statistical and qualitative study of language
variation will find this volume relevant, timely, and insightful.
Table of contents
Introducing the Midland: What is it, where is it, how do we know?
Beth Lee Simon ix–xii
1. What is dialect? - Revisiting the Midland
Thomas E. Murray and Beth Lee Simon 1–30
The Evolving Midland
1. The North American Midland as a dialect area
Sharon Ash 33–56
2. Tracking the low back merger in Missouri
Matthew Gordon 57–68
3. Evidence from Ohio on the evolution of /ae/
Erik R. Thomas 69–89
Defining The Midland
4. On the use of geographic names to inform regional language studies
Edward Callary 93–104
5. On the eastern edge of the Heartland: Two industrial city dialects
Thomas Donahue 105–127
6. The final days of Appalachian Heritage Language
Kirk Hazen 129–150
8. It'll kill ye or cure ye, one: The history and function of alternative
one - antecedents of the Midland
Michael Montgomery 151–161
Power and Perception
7. Standardizing the Heartland
Richard W. Bailey 165–178
10. How to get to be one kind of Midwesterner: Accommodation to the
Northern Cities Chain Shift
Betsy E. Evans, Jamila Jones, Norikazu Ito and Dennis R. Preston 179–197
11. Midland(s) dialect geography: Social and demographic variables
Timothy C. Frazer 199–207
12. Drawing out the /ai/: Dialect boundaries and /ai/ variation
Cynthia Bernstein 209–232
Other Languages, Other Places
13. Learning Spanish in the North Georgia Mountains
Ellen Johnson and David Boyle 235–243
14. The Midland above the Midland: Dialect variation by region, sex, and
social group in the linguistic atlas of the Upper Midwest
Mike Linn and Ronald Regal 245–262
15. Portable Community: The linguistic and psychological reality of
Midwestern Pennsylvania German
Steven Hartman Keiser 263–274
16. The English of the Swiss Amish of Northeastern Indiana
Chad Thompson 275–292
References 293–311
Subject Index 313–319
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