Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- Preface -- PART 1 American English -- 1 American English: its origins and history -- Editors' introduction -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 2 American English and its distinctiveness -- Editors' introduction -- National varieties of English -- Vocabulary -- Pronunciation -- Consonants -- Intervocalic /t/ and /d/ -- Postvocalic /r/ -- Initial /h/ -- WH-words - when, which, where, why -- The Asian, Persian class -- Vowels -- The half, fast, path class -- The tune, duty class -- The mobile, missile class -- Diphthongs -- Vowel mergers -- Vowel shifts -- Stress patterns and vowel reduction -- Pronunciation variation -- Across regional groups -- Across socioeconomic groups -- Across ethnic groups -- Grammar and sentence structure -- Agreement rules -- Verb agreement with collective nouns -- Ellipsis in conversation -- Auxiliaries in questions and replies -- Relative clauses and the relative pronouns which and that -- But neither, but nor -- Parts of speech -- Verbal forms -- Past tense and past participle of get -- Omitting the infinitive marker to -- Negation -- Modals -- Noun phrases -- Compound nouns -- Definite articles -- Complex noun phrases in journalistic prose -- Pronouns -- Terms of address -- Adverbs -- Unmarked adverbs and the amplifier real -- The amplifiers pretty, quite and rather -- The adverbs immediately and directly -- Prepositions -- Idioms and slang -- Semantics -- Word senses -- Sports metaphors -- Discourse markers and miscellaneous -- Discourse markers -- Miscellaneous -- Interjections -- Greetings -- Polite expressions -- Hedges -- Expletives -- Spelling -- Prospects for the future -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References.

3 Regional dialects -- Editors' introduction -- Background -- Regional dialects at mid-twentieth century -- American regional dialects for the twentieth-first century -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 4 Social varieties of American English -- Editors' introduction -- The patterning of social differences in language -- The social dimension of dialect differences -- Systematic variability in social dialect differentiation -- The social evaluation of linguistic features -- Conclusion -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 5 African American English -- Editors' introduction -- Views of the origins of AAE -- The system of African American English -- Words and phrases -- General words and phrases -- Verbal markers -- Current slang -- Sentence patterns -- Sound patterns -- Representations of AAE in film -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- Discography -- 6 The Dictionary of American Regional English -- Editors' introduction -- The fieldwork for DARE -- The DARE Maps -- Earlier Work in American Dialect Geography -- Social dialects -- Age distinctions -- Gender differences -- Racial differences -- Distinctions based on education -- Urban/rural differences -- Folk language -- Natural science entries -- DARE in the classroom -- Uses of DARE materials -- Appendix -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- PART 2 Other language varieties -- 7 Multilingualism and non-English mother tongues -- Editors' introduction -- America, America: spendthrift and gravedigger on the multilingualism front -- God shed his grace on thee: local and periodic ups and downs versus straight-line theories -- And crown thy good: intergenerational non-English mother-tongue transmission.

With brotherhood: non-English languages in the national interest -- From sea to shining sea: making the USA safe (or at least safer) for cultural democracy -- Permissive language defense -- Active language defenses -- Preventive ("proactive") defenses of threatened multilingualism -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 8 Creole languages: forging new identities -- Editors' introduction -- Definitions -- Gullah -- Hawaiian Creole -- Louisiana Creole -- Acts of identity -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 9 Native American languages -- Editors' introduction -- Diversity in Native American Languages -- Language and worldviews: Kickapoo people's animate and inanimate categories -- Language and worldviews: Navajo people's perspective on the world -- Possession relationships -- Kinship terms -- Beyond kinship terms: animals and things -- How are sentences put together? -- Tohono O'odham: flexible word order -- Hualapai: relatively fixed word order with case-marked nouns -- Kickapoo: an SVO language with flexible word order -- Words are made up of many parts -- Person and number -- Gender -- Shape, substance, and manner -- Position -- Instrument -- Language situations in Native American communities -- General questions -- Why did it happen? -- Native American Languages Acts -- Why consider Native American languages and their diversity? -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- Selected websites -- References -- 10 Spanish in the Northeast -- Editors' introduction -- Spanish speakers in the Northeast -- Spanish language in the Northeast -- The velar R in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS): arrastrar la doble rr -- Syllable final /r/ and /1/ in Dominican Spanish: hablar con la i -- Cuban Spanish gemination -- Mixtecan Mexican Spanish vowels.

"Nuyoricans," "Dominican Yorks," and "Spanglish" -- The Latino century? -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 11 Spanish in the Southwest -- Editors' introduction -- Census data -- Colonial Spanish -- Southwest Spanish in the twentieth century -- Linguistic aspects of Southwest Spanish -- Attitudes toward Spanish and English -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 12 American Sign Language -- Editors' introduction -- What is American Sign Language? -- A historical sketch of ASL -- What ASL is not -- ASL and its users -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 13 Asian American voices: language in the Asian American community -- Editors' introduction -- Asian American voices: history of immigration -- The first wave: entry, exploitation, and exclusion -- The second wave: diversity and pan-ethnic Asian American identity -- Language in the Asian American community: contemporary issues -- Linguistic diversity, language maintenance, and language shift -- "Yellow English" and accent discrimination -- Language variation and the influence of African American English -- Interpersonal style: Eastern vs. Western? -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 14 Linguistic diversity and English language acquisition -- Editors' introduction -- Language diversity -- Immigrant bilingualism and shift to English -- The difficulty of minority language maintenance: an example -- Acquisition of English -- The scope of the problem -- Barriers to participation in ESL classes -- Untutored English acquisition -- Conclusion -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- PART 3 The sociolinguistic situation -- 15 Language ideology and language prejudice -- Editors' introduction.

A model of the language subordination process -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 16 Ebonics and its controversy -- Editors' introduction -- Orientation -- The birth of Ebonics -- Inherent international implications -- Educational considerations -- Shifting definitions of Ebonics -- The Oakland Ebonics resolutions -- The continuing quest for greater Standard English fluency -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 17 Language planning, language policy, and the English-Only Movement -- Editors' introduction -- Defining language planning and language policy -- Official versus implicit and covert policies -- Dominance of the ideology of English monolingualism -- Classifying language policies according to intents and consequences -- The current English-Only Movement -- Recent developments: Propositions 227 and 203 -- Conclusion: prospects and questions for the twenty-first century -- Acknowledgments -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 18 Language in education -- Editors' introduction -- Conflict: community interests, American ideals and individual rights -- The advent of federally sponsored bilingual education -- Lau v. Nichols, Lau Guidelines, and mandate for bilingual education -- The debate over bilingual education -- Immigration and the focus on Hispanics -- Language in education: conflict in California -- Conclusion -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 19 Adolescent language -- Editors' introduction -- Making a world for themselves -- The power of age -- Linguistic movers and shakers -- Conclusion: raging hormones or not? -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References -- 20 Slang -- Editors' introduction -- Suggestions for further reading and exploration -- References.

21 Hip Hop Nation Language.