Dialect literature and English in the USA
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Lisa Cohen Minnick
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the role of literary dialect in attempts to establish a distinctly American language and especially to authorize and enforce a preferred standard. The roles of gender, race, and linguistic diversity are key considerations to the analysis in light of popular nineteenth-century assumptions that conflated ideas about a preferred national language variety with developing ideologies about national identity. This chapter outlines the ways that these assumptions found voice in the national discourse, including via the deployment of literary dialect, which both documented and participated in that discourse.
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the role of literary dialect in attempts to establish a distinctly American language and especially to authorize and enforce a preferred standard. The roles of gender, race, and linguistic diversity are key considerations to the analysis in light of popular nineteenth-century assumptions that conflated ideas about a preferred national language variety with developing ideologies about national identity. This chapter outlines the ways that these assumptions found voice in the national discourse, including via the deployment of literary dialect, which both documented and participated in that discourse.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
- Linguistic evaluation of earlier texts 1
- Non-standard language in earlier English 15
- Assessing non-standard writing in lexicography 43
- Northern English in Writing 61
- Southern English in writing 81
- The distinctiveness of Scots 99
- Irish English in early modern drama 121
- ‘ [H]ushed and lulled full chimes for pushed and pulled ’ 139
- Dialect literature and English in the USA 163
- Written sources for Canadian English 197
- Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in writing 223
- Earliest St Helenian English in writing 245
- An abundant harvest to the philologer’? 263
- A peculiar language’ 295
- Describing and complaining 349
- Feature index 365
- Name index 367
- Subject index 371
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
- Linguistic evaluation of earlier texts 1
- Non-standard language in earlier English 15
- Assessing non-standard writing in lexicography 43
- Northern English in Writing 61
- Southern English in writing 81
- The distinctiveness of Scots 99
- Irish English in early modern drama 121
- ‘ [H]ushed and lulled full chimes for pushed and pulled ’ 139
- Dialect literature and English in the USA 163
- Written sources for Canadian English 197
- Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in writing 223
- Earliest St Helenian English in writing 245
- An abundant harvest to the philologer’? 263
- A peculiar language’ 295
- Describing and complaining 349
- Feature index 365
- Name index 367
- Subject index 371
