Language Variation and Change in the American Midland

A New Look at ‘Heartland’ English

Editors

Thomas E. Murray | Kansas State University

Beth Lee Simon | Indiana University - Purdue University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027248961 | EUR 130.00 | USD 195.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027293541 | EUR 130.00 | USD 195.00

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.

[Varieties of English Around the World, G36] 2006. xii, 320 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 1 July 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g36

Table of Contents

Introducing the Midland: What is it, where is it, how do we know?

Beth Lee Simon | pp. ix–xii

1. What is dialect? — Revisiting the Midland

Thomas E. Murray and Beth Lee Simon | pp. 1–30

The Evolving Midland

1. The North American Midland as a dialect area

Sharon Ash | pp. 33–56

2. Tracking the low back merger in Missouri

Matthew Gordon | pp. 57–68

3. Evidence from Ohio on the evolution of /ae/

Erik R. Thomas | pp. 69–89

Defining The Midland

4. On the use of geographic names to inform regional language studies

Edward Callary | pp. 93–104

5. On the eastern edge of the Heartland: Two industrial city dialects

Thomas Donahue | pp. 105–127

6. The final days of Appalachian Heritage Language

Kirk Hazen | pp. 129–150

8. It’ll kill ye or cure ye, one: The history and function of alternative one — antecedents of the Midland

Michael Montgomery | pp. 151–161

Power and Perception

7. Standardizing the Heartland

Richard W. Bailey | pp. 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 | pp. 179–197

11. Midland(s) dialect geography: Social and demographic variables

Timothy C. Frazer | pp. 199–207

12. Drawing out the /ai/: Dialect boundaries and /ai/ variation

Cynthia Bernstein | pp. 209–232

Other Languages, Other Places

13. Learning Spanish in the North Georgia Mountains

Ellen Johnson and David Boyle | pp. 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 | pp. 245–262

15. Portable Community: The linguistic and psychological reality of Midwestern Pennsylvania German

Steven Hartman Keiser | pp. 263–274

16. The English of the Swiss Amish of Northeastern Indiana

Chad L. Thompson | pp. 275–292

Subject Index | pp. 313–319

“Language Variation and Change in the American Midland serves as aconsiderable contribution to the growing body of literature on Midland English and, secondarily, is a worthy successor to Fraser's 'Heartland English'. The volume is a must-read book for anyone interested in the state of Midland English in the 21st century.”

Lamont D. Antieau, University of Georgia, on Linguist List 17.2319, 2007

Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Order by:

Reed, Paul E.

2020. Inter- and intra-regional variation in intonation: An analysis of rising pitch accents and rootedness. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 147:1 ► pp. 616 ff.

Schneider, Edgar W.

2019. English in the United States. In The Handbook of World Englishes, ► pp. 35 ff.

Etman, A. & A. A. Louis Beex

2015. 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Signal Processing and Information Technology (ISSPIT), ► pp. 516 ff.

Benson, Erica J.

2012. Need + Prepositional Adverb in the Midland. Journal of English Linguistics 40:3 ► pp. 224 ff.

Benson, Erica J., Michael J. Fox & Jared Balkman

2011. THE BAG THAT SCOTT Bought: THE LOW VOWELS IN NORTHWEST WISCONSIN. American Speech 86:3 ► pp. 271 ff.

Thomas, Erik R.

2010. A Longitudinal Analysis of the Durability of the Northern-Midland Dialect Boundary in Ohio. American Speech 85:4 ► pp. 375 ff.

[no author supplied]

2013. Reference Guide for Varieties of English. In A Dictionary of Varieties of English, ► pp. 363 ff.

[no author supplied]

2018. References. The Publication of the American Dialect Society 103:1 ► pp. 191 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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