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ADS ANNUAL LECTURE: I'M OFF TO PHILADELPHIA IN THE MORNING: A SCOTSMAN LOOKS AT DIALECT IN AMERICA

ADS ANNUAL LECTURE: I'M OFF TO PHILADELPHIA IN THE MORNING: A SCOTSMAN LOOKS AT DIALECT IN AMERICA American Speech, Vol. 77, No. 3, Fall 2002 Copyright © 2002 by the American Dialect Society Witherspoon remarked that “There is a greater difference in dialect between one county and another in Britain, than there is between one state and another in America” (cited by Bailey 1991, 130). In any social science the use of terminology is critical, so it is important to get our terms right. Standard language and vernacular are such loaded terms that it is important that we should agree on their definitions both for our own work and also for communication with the world outside of linguistics. The furor over the Ebonics controversy is a cautionary tale of the difficulties that linguists can run into in trying to make clear their distinctions to a lay public that is confused to begin with. I believe that one of the sources for confusion in the debate, even to the extent that it was conducted on rational grounds, lay in the uncertainty that some linguists displayed in connection with the notion of dialect. It is the definition of dialect that I would like to examine now. There are so many definitions of the term dialect that it http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage Duke University Press

ADS ANNUAL LECTURE: I'M OFF TO PHILADELPHIA IN THE MORNING: A SCOTSMAN LOOKS AT DIALECT IN AMERICA

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References (33)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by American Dialect Society
ISSN
0003-1283
eISSN
1527-2133
DOI
10.1215/00031283-77-3-227
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

American Speech, Vol. 77, No. 3, Fall 2002 Copyright © 2002 by the American Dialect Society Witherspoon remarked that “There is a greater difference in dialect between one county and another in Britain, than there is between one state and another in America” (cited by Bailey 1991, 130). In any social science the use of terminology is critical, so it is important to get our terms right. Standard language and vernacular are such loaded terms that it is important that we should agree on their definitions both for our own work and also for communication with the world outside of linguistics. The furor over the Ebonics controversy is a cautionary tale of the difficulties that linguists can run into in trying to make clear their distinctions to a lay public that is confused to begin with. I believe that one of the sources for confusion in the debate, even to the extent that it was conducted on rational grounds, lay in the uncertainty that some linguists displayed in connection with the notion of dialect. It is the definition of dialect that I would like to examine now. There are so many definitions of the term dialect that it

Journal

American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic UsageDuke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 2002

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