The Names of Us English: Valley Girl, Cowboy, Yankee, Normal, Nasal, and Ignorant

A commonplace in United States (hereafter US) linguistics is that every region supports its own standard; none is the locus (or source) of the standard. Historically that is a fair assessment, for no long-term centre of culture, economy and government has dominated in the US

Precision alignment and mounting apparatus

An alignment and mounting apparatus for mounting two modules (10,12) includes a first portion having a cylindrical alignment pin (16) projecting normal to a module surface, a second portion having a three-stage alignment guide (18) including a shoehorn flange (34), a Y-slot (42) and a V-block (22) which sequentially guide the alignment pin (16) with successively finer precision and a third portion in the form of a spring-loaded captive fastener (20) for connecting the two modules after alignment is achieved

L1 and L2 dialects : where the action is

Este estudio analiza una situación de inmigración internacional y\ud nacional en la que hablantes de español mexicanos y sus\ud descendientes se han trasladado a zonas del sur de Michigan, en la\ud región de los grandes lagos de los Estados Unidos. Se trata, en su\ud mayor parte, de migrantes agricultores, procedentes de México o de\ud Texas y que se han asentado en Michigan.This study considers such contact in an international/national\ud immigration situation in which Mexican Spanish speakers and their\ud descendents have moved ro areas in southern Michigan, in the Great\ud Lakes area of the United States. They are migrant agricultural\ud workers, from Mexico or Texas, who have settled in Michigan

"It's Too Hat in Here?" The Perception of NCS a-Fronting

What is the role of specific items in carrier phrases in promoting or demoting an advantage in understanding words that contain advanced tokens of change-in-progress sounds? Labov and Ash (1997) and Plichta (2004) note such an advantage for local speakers, but they do not provide evidence about individual features. In Labov and Ash (1997), carrier phrases contain other tokens of Northern Cities Shift (NCS) and Southern Yowel Shift (SYS) vowels. For the NCS test, had and sandals occur along with the test item socks; for the SVS test, I and knew occur along with the test item guy. In the NCS test, therefore, another vowel of the shift occurs (re), but not the same vowel as that of the test word socks. In the SVS test, however, I occurs, the same vowel as in the test item (guy). Additionally, the potential misunderstanding is a real word in the NCS test (socks) but not in the SVS test (gah). Finally, the NCS test gives a semantic/pragmatic clue to the identity of the word; the SVS test does not

A LANGUAGE ATTITUDE ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL US SPEECH: IS NORTHERN US ENGLISH NOT FREINDLY ENOUGH?

In a number of publication in the area of 'perceptual dialectology' (e.g., Preston 1989), 1have complained that ‘classical' language attitude surveys do not take into consideration the Respondent’s folk linguistic awareness of varies (neither of the identificational strategies they use in 'locating ' speakers nor of the 'mental maps ' they have of regional speech areas). In this study I show how previous findings from perceptual dialectology may he used in an attitude research study and discuss the results of such a study of young Northern US (Michigan) respondents with regard to their own and to 'Southern' US speech. In conclusion, I suggest that such linguistically 'secure' speakers may be assigning even greater affective value to stigmatized areas than similar speakers from such areas have in past surveys.En diversos trabajos del área de la 'dialectología perceptiva ' (ej. Preston 1989) me he quejado de que los estudios 'clásicos' sobre actitudes 1ingüísticas no prestan atención a la conciencia lingüística popular de variedad de los encuestados (ni a las estrategias de identificación que utilizan para 'localizar' a los hablantes ni a los 'mapas mentales' que tienen sobre las áreas de tabla regional). En el presente estudio muestro cómo emplear las conclusiones anteriores de la dialectología perceptiva en un estudio de investigación sobre actitudes de encuestados jóvenes estadounidenses 'norteños' (Michigan) frente a su propia tabla y al de los 'sureños ' y discuto sus resultados. Como conclusión, sugiero que los hablantes lingüísticamente 'seguros' pueden estar asignando a las áreas estigmatizadas un valor efectivo incluso mayor que lo que han hecho en estudios anteriores hablantes de características similares de dichas Áreas

Métodos en Lingüística Popular (aplicada): ¿qué piensa la gente?

Este artículo trata sobre la recopilación e interpretación de datos en lingüística popular, pero, como sugiere el título entre paréntesis, no se limita a ninguna noción preconcebida de qué enfoques o técnicas pueden ser más relevantes para la amplia variedad de preocupaciones en el campo de la lingüística. aplicado. Concebiré la lingüística popular ampliamente aquí, incluyendo no solo los comentarios que los no lingüistas hacen sobre temas lingüísticos, sino también las reacciones que tienen ante las variedades de lenguaje y el uso del lenguaje, incluidas las respuestas abiertas y subconscientes. En otras palabras, los descubrimientos en la psicología social del lenguaje (es decir, los estudios de actitudes) se consideran parte de la lingüística popular, junto con los datos derivados de funciones operativas o del habla más consciente. Esta es una posición diferente de la que da la etiqueta de “lingüística popular / popular” a las respuestas más conscientes y las “actitudes del lenguaje” hacia otras que son relativamente más inconscientes (NIEDZIELSKI; PRESTON, 2003: xi).Este artigo trata da coleta e interpretação de dados em linguística popular, mas, como o título entre parênteses sugere, não se limita a qualquer noção pré-concebida de quais abordagens ou técnicas podem ser mais relevantes para a ampla variedade de preocupações no âmbito da linguística aplicada. Vou conceber a linguística popular amplamente aqui, incluindo não apenas os comentários que os não linguistas fazem sobre os tópicos linguísticos, mas também, as reações que eles têm a variedades de linguagem e uso da linguagem, incluindo respostas abertas e subconscientes. Em outras palavras, as descobertas da psicologia social da linguagem (ou seja, estudos de atitude) são consideradas parte da linguística popular, juntamente com dados derivados de um discurso mais consciente ou de funções operacionais. Esta é uma posição diferente daquela que atribui o rótulo de “linguística folk/popular” a respostas mais conscientes e “atitudes de linguagem” a outras relativamente mais inconscientes (NIEDZIELSKI; PRESTON, 2003, p. xi).This paper deals with data gathering and interpretation in folk linguistics, but, as the parenthetical title suggests, it is not limited to any prejudged notion of what approaches or techniques might be most relevant to the wide variety of concerns encompassed by applied linguistics. I will conceive of folk linguistics broadly here, including not only the comments that non-linguists make about linguistic topics but also the reactions they have to varieties of language and language use, including overt as well as subconscious responses. In other words, findings from the social psychology of language (i.e., attitude studies) are taken to be a part of folk linguistics, along with data derived from more conscious discourse or from operational tasks. This is a different position from one that assigns the label “folk linguistics” to more conscious responses and “language attitudes” to relatively more unconscious ones (e.g., NIEDZIELSKI; PRESTON, 2003, p. xi)