Contemporary English in the USA

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Published: Jul 25, 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/ijltic.9
Melissa Axelrod
University of New Mexico
Joanne Scheibman
Old Dominion University
Abstract

Indigenous and immigrant speakers from a variety of linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds have in diff erent ways contributed to the development of presentday American English, as have the geographical and social dimensions of thecountry. This paper provides a survey of contemporary usage of American English by describing and illustrating linguistic features documented for social and regional groups in the United States. The focus on variation in pronunciation, grammar, and meaning in American English highlights the diversity of dialects and styles in the U.S. as well as the centrality of sociocultural identities to language use. We group examples of variation according to the social and geographical factors that these features have been associated with in the literature: region, age, ethnicity, and gender. We note though that patterns of linguistic usage differ both within and across communities, with particular features used by diff erent social groups for shifting purposes. The examples here provide a snapshot of the kinds of variation observed in contemporary American English as we move into the 21st century.

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Author Biographies
Melissa Axelrod, University of New Mexico

Melissa Axelrod is a Professor and Regents’ Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Her work has focused on language revitalization and documentation of indigenous languages in the Americas. She is the editor of the Dictionary of Jicarilla Apache (UNM Press 2007) and the Dictionary of Koyukon Athabaskan (ANLC 2000), and is the author or co-author of many articles on morphosyntax and semantics of Native American languages and the sociolinguistics of bilingualism and language endangerment in the US. She is currently working on projects to produce grammars, dictionaries, and pedagogical materials with the Ixhil Maya of highland Guatemala, the O’odham of southern Arizona, and Nambe Pueblo of New Mexico. Her work has been supported by four grants from the National Science Foundation since 2000.

Joanne Scheibman, Old Dominion University

Joanne Scheibman is Associate Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she teaches classes in general linguistics, syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, and the history of English.Her research focuses on usage-based approaches to the analysis of language, in particular the ways in which meaning and participant interaction contribute to grammatical and lexical patterning in conversational contexts. Her book, Point of View and Grammar, proposes that speakers’ attitudes, evaluations, and metalinguistic commentaries (subjectifying elements) have a robust infl uence on the distribution of utterances found in English conversations.