Regional Variation in Written American English

This innovative text is the first to map regional grammatical variation in written Standard American English.

Jack Grieve (Author)

9781108712965, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2019

353 pages, 81 b/w illus. 35 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

'Grieve's study on AmE syntax is timely, long overdue, innovative, and thorough. He takes a fresh approach to investigating dialectology, both in terms of material and methods. The book is a well-structured and coherent description of modern AmE grammar. It introduces innovative statistical approach to the study of dialectal variation, and concentrates on written language instead of spoken language, which is typically the object of study in dialectology. … This book is excellent reading for anyone who is interested and investigates grammatical variation in English(es).' Sanna Hillberg, The Linguist List

The first study of its kind, Regional Variation in Written American English takes a corpus-based approach to map over one hundred grammatical alternation variables across the United States. A multivariate spatial analysis of these maps shows that grammatical alternation variables follow a relatively small number of common regional patterns in American English, which can be explained based on both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. Based on this rigorous analysis of extensive data, Grieve identifies five primary modern American dialect regions, demonstrating that regional variation is far more pervasive and complex in natural language than is generally assumed. The wealth of maps and data, and the groundbreaking implications of this volume, make it essential reading for students and researchers in linguistics, English language, geography, computer science, sociology and communication studies.

1. Introduction
2. Corpus
3. Grammatical analysis
4. Spatial analysis
5. Multivariate analysis
6. Sources of regional linguistic variation
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Media, information & communication industries [KNT], Sociology [JHB], Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Dialect, slang & jargon [CFFD], Sociolinguistics [CFB]