Creating Canadian English
The Professor, the Mountaineer, and a National Variety of English

Traces the making of Canadian English, both as concept and global variety, throughout the twentieth century to the present.

Stefan Dollinger (Author)

9781108497718, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 July 2019

300 pages, 43 b/w illus. 11 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.61 kg

'… Creating Canadian English provides us with a highly competent and readable story, diligently researched in archives and by interviews, written by a scholar working in Canada, in nuanced Canadian English, that all audiences should find is a helpful introduction to its subject and a clear call for further community-involved efforts. I rate it highly.' David Douglas Robertson, LINGUIST List

This lively account of the making of Canadian English traces the variety's conceptual, social and linguistic developments from the twentieth century to the present. This book is not just another history of Canadian English; it is a history of the variety's discovery, codification, and eventual acceptance, as well as the contribution of the linguists behind it. Written by an active research linguist focusing on Canadian English, this book is an archive-based biography on multiple levels. Through a combination of new data and re-interpretations of existing studies, a new voice is given to earlier generations of Canadian linguists who, generally forgotten today, shaped the variety and how we think about it. Exploring topics such as linguistic description and codification, dictionary making, linguistic imperialism, linguistic attitudes, language and Canadian identity, or the threat of Americanisation, Dollinger presents a coherent, integrated and balanced account of developments spanning over almost a century.

1. What is Canadian English?
2. The heritage of Canadian English
3. Avis pulls it off
4. The 'technology': slips, slips, and more slips
5. 1967 – excitement and hype
6. Riding the wave of success
7. A global village and a national dictionary war
8. Decolonizing DCHP-1 and DCHP-2
9. Is there really a Canadian English?
Further reading.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF], Language: history & general works [CBX]