This book discusses words used in the Southeast and how they have changed
during the 20th century. It also describes how the lexicon varies according
to the speaker's age, race, education, sex, and place of residence
(urban versus rural; coastal versus piedmont versus mountain). Data collected
in the 1930s as part of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic
States project were compared with data collected in 1990 from similar speakers
in the same communities.

The results show that region was the most important
factor in differentiating dialects in the 1930s but that it is the least
important element in the 1990s, with age, education, race, and age all
showing about the same influence on the use of vocabulary. An appendix
contains a tally of the responses given by 78 speakers to 150 questions
about vocabulary items, along with speakers' commentary. Results
from the 1930s may be compared to those from 1990, making this a treasure
trove for anyone interested in regional terms or in how our speech is changing
as the South moves from an agricultural economy through industrialization
and into the information age.

 

Ellen Johnson teaches English at Piedmont College and Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University. She serves as an editor of the Linguistic Atlas of the
Middle and South Atlantic States.

"Presents a comparison of data collected by the author in 1990 with data collected in the 1930s as part of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States project (LAMSAS), and is concerned with lexical change within the fields of dialectology and sociolinguistics, as well as historical and anthropological linguistics to a lesser extent.. . . This carefully conducted study is an important contribution to the study of lexical variation and change. I strongly recommend this book as essential reading."

—Eduardo Faingold, Canadian Journal of Linguistics

"This is a valuable study, characterized by a creative and ingenious project design. . . . From a traditional point of view, a great body of data is solidly documented and honestly interpreted. . . . From a sociolinguistic point of view, a few hunches on lexical change are seriously tested and, in part, convincingly documented, and a few really novel results are presented as well."

—Edgar Schneider, English World Wide