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NEW ENGLAND DIALECTS Analyzing dialect variation in northern New England and southern Quebec. (This project was described in U.S. News and World Report.) The Dialects of Northern New England OverviewWe examine dialect variation in New Hampshire, Vermont, and the bordering region of Quebec, looking particularly at variation that can be attributed to patterns of migration of various ethnic groups. One valuable, but often overlooked, source of information about language change is the speech of children. We will incorporate this aspect into our fieldwork methodology, making this body of research different from previous dialectology work. We will record speech patterns of people who live throughout the region, and then see what sorts of patterns there are which relate phonological, syntactic, etc. patterns to where people live, where they (or their ancestors) came from, as well as differences according to age, sex, class, and attitude, which would help us determine the direction and rate of any changes in progress. Specific Aims• To update the base of knowledge concerning the phonological dialect features, which have not been thoroughly examined since publication of the Linguistic Atlas of New England (1937), map out current isoglosses and dialect regions and compare them to those of LANE, where possible. • To examine the effect of geographic features (i.e., barriers such as mountains and rivers) and compare them with that of political borders. • To examine children’s and adolescents’ participation in their speech community by virtue of their acquisition of Vermont and New Hampshire dialect features as compared with that of their parents and other adults. • To explore children’s participation in dialect change by examining their acquisition of new dialect features as opposed to those which appear to be becoming obsolete. • To examine the effect of various ethnic influences characteristic of speakers in the region: Abenaki, English and French. We are particularly interested in exploring the influences on English of Abenaki and French, both of which died out in this region in the 1950's. French was spoken for a relatively short period of time, beginning in the mid 1800's, whereas Algonquian was spoken for 4000 years • To determine the influence of expanding urban culture on older rural dialects. Some of our findingsPapers and presentations
Principal investigators
Domain of the original surveyTo date, we have collected and entered survey data from the following locations (# of responses is approximate): Map of regions surveyed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
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| Please address questions or comments to Naomi Nagy. Modified October 22, 2007 2:59 PM |
