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Page-Barbour Lectures
By William Labov Dialect Diversity in America: The Politics of Language Change (Page-Barbour Lectures) (Reprint) [Paperback]
The sociolinguist William Labov has worked for decades on change in progress in American dialects and on African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In Dialect Diversity in America, Labov examines the diversity among American dialects and presents the counterintuitive finding that geographically localized dialects of North American English are increasingly diverging from one another over time. Contrary to the general expectation that mass culture would diminish regional differences, the dialects of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Birmingham, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New York are now more different from each other than they were a hundred years ago. Equally significant is Labov's finding that AAVE does not map with the geography and timing of changes in other dialects. The home dialect of most African American speakers has developed a grammar that is more and more different from that of the white mainstream dialects in the major cities studied and yet highly homogeneous throughout the United States. Labov describes the political forces that drive these ongoing changes, as well as the political consequences in public debate. The author also considers the recent geographical reversal of political parties in the Blue States and the Red States and the parallels between dialect differences and the results of recent presidential elections. Finally, in attempting to account for the history and geography of linguistic change among whites, Labov highlights fascinating correlations between patterns of linguistic divergence and the politics of race and slavery, going back to the antebellum United States. Complemented by an online collection of audio files that illustrate key dialectical nuances, Dialect Diversity in America offers an unparalleled sociolinguistic study from a preeminent scholar in the field.
Unknown Binding
First published November 26, 2012
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About the author
William Labov
44 books35 followersWilliam Labov was an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics, and "one of the most influential linguists of the 20th and 21st centuries".
Labov was a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and pursued research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continued to publish research until his death in 2024.
Labov was a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and pursued research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continued to publish research until his death in 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 25, 2023
William Labov has spent decades studying dialects of English in America, and what his studies reveal are results contrary to common assumptions about dialect in America.
Among those results is that, contrary to popular assumption, broadcast television and radio, and other mass media, are not causing dialect diversity to decrease. Dialects across large regions are not changing to become more alike, but in some ways more different. This includes Northern Inland, Midland, and Southern dialects. Changes in these dialects have progressed somewhat in step with each other--but not in the direction of becoming more similar. Sound changes have arisen and are still arising that produce misunderstandings between primary speakers of one dialect and another. Thinking of language as a means of communication, it seems unexpected that dialects would move further apart when speakers of those dialects are communicating directly with each other as well as consuming the same national media. Labov looks at what seem to be the causes of this seemingly strange development.
But this is about English As She Is Spoke In America (this is me being a little flippant, not anyone's actual dialect), and race also plays a major role. Black Americans, at home and in majority-black communities, do not speak the same dialect as whites in the same geographic area. They speak a dialect that has been given a variety of names, all of which have become a subject of intense and highly political controversy. The name Labov uses is African-American Vernacular English, or AAVE.
There is disagreement about the origins of AAVE, but it is spoken by black Americans, north and south, and across the country. It's a fully developed dialect, to the degree that I'm reminded of the saying that a language is a dialect with an army. And AAVE shares most of its vocabulary with Standard English, but has pronunciations and grammatical structure that differs from Standard English and the primary white-used dialects in some significant ways.
It's not bad English. It's not lazy English. It's just a different, fully functional, dialect. It's the language black Americans speak at home and in majority-black communities, and is more common, and more advanced, i.e., more different from Standard English, the greater the degree of segregation in the areas they live in.
And this has a significant impact on reading scores in schools.
What's necessary to improve reading scores for black students is to start by recognizing that they are speaking a different dialect, and need to be taught how to understand and use Standard English. What's challenging for people steeped in Standard English and the white-used dialects is accepting that AAVE isn't lazy English, isn't bad English, isn't just emotional spewing of phrases. It's a real dialect. Kids don't need to be punished for using it; they need to be taught how to move between Standard English and AAVE, based on setting and situation. My maternal grandparents were Sicilian. They didn't arrive in this country speaking English; they didn't even speak standard Italian. They spoke a Sicilian dialect--and once they were well-established in the US, they were living in a community with people from all over Italy, and also from Poland. That resulted in my mother and her siblings speaking a dialect that was spoken literally nowhere in Italy, when they were at home, or outside in the neighborhood.
My mother and her siblings were taught English in school. For all that there was an impressive bias against Italians at the time, they were taught English, not punished for not already speaking Standard English, speaking an admittedly strange dialect of Italian.
Proposals to do the same, to acknowledge the dialect many black American children are speaking at home and in their neighborhoods, and actually teach them the differences and the situations in which they need Standard English, without eliminating AAVE from their lives, have many times been proposed, and many times been pilloried as racist,"teaching bad English," letting bad English take over.
I mentioned my mother's family and their Sicilian dialect of Italian, but I think at least equally relevant is Yiddish. It's a dialect of German. It's not "good German," if by good German you mean standard, generally accepted German. Yet there's an extensive and respected body of literature in Yiddish, and when we talk about it, we don't call it bad German.
As I was writing this review, I wondered, are there novels written in AAVE? Yes there are. And in the science fiction and fantasy that's a great deal of my leisure reading, it's starting to show up as part or all of stories written by African-American SFF writers. And yes, initially, for someone for whom it's not my native dialect, I take it slowly--but it's worth the effort. Good literature is good literature, and it's a dialect where you have to recognize some different grammatical structures and background assumptions, not a completely separate language. Being open to it has made some excellent literature available to me that I would otherwise have missed out on.
Labov talks a lot about the nitty-gritty of how linguists work out what's happening in our language, as well as the politics that have hampered recognition of AAVE and of effectively teaching spoken and written standard English. Politics I get; there was more of the nitty-gritty of linguistics than I was prepared for, and that made reading it harder work for me.
It was worth the effort.
I bought this book.
Among those results is that, contrary to popular assumption, broadcast television and radio, and other mass media, are not causing dialect diversity to decrease. Dialects across large regions are not changing to become more alike, but in some ways more different. This includes Northern Inland, Midland, and Southern dialects. Changes in these dialects have progressed somewhat in step with each other--but not in the direction of becoming more similar. Sound changes have arisen and are still arising that produce misunderstandings between primary speakers of one dialect and another. Thinking of language as a means of communication, it seems unexpected that dialects would move further apart when speakers of those dialects are communicating directly with each other as well as consuming the same national media. Labov looks at what seem to be the causes of this seemingly strange development.
But this is about English As She Is Spoke In America (this is me being a little flippant, not anyone's actual dialect), and race also plays a major role. Black Americans, at home and in majority-black communities, do not speak the same dialect as whites in the same geographic area. They speak a dialect that has been given a variety of names, all of which have become a subject of intense and highly political controversy. The name Labov uses is African-American Vernacular English, or AAVE.
There is disagreement about the origins of AAVE, but it is spoken by black Americans, north and south, and across the country. It's a fully developed dialect, to the degree that I'm reminded of the saying that a language is a dialect with an army. And AAVE shares most of its vocabulary with Standard English, but has pronunciations and grammatical structure that differs from Standard English and the primary white-used dialects in some significant ways.
It's not bad English. It's not lazy English. It's just a different, fully functional, dialect. It's the language black Americans speak at home and in majority-black communities, and is more common, and more advanced, i.e., more different from Standard English, the greater the degree of segregation in the areas they live in.
And this has a significant impact on reading scores in schools.
What's necessary to improve reading scores for black students is to start by recognizing that they are speaking a different dialect, and need to be taught how to understand and use Standard English. What's challenging for people steeped in Standard English and the white-used dialects is accepting that AAVE isn't lazy English, isn't bad English, isn't just emotional spewing of phrases. It's a real dialect. Kids don't need to be punished for using it; they need to be taught how to move between Standard English and AAVE, based on setting and situation. My maternal grandparents were Sicilian. They didn't arrive in this country speaking English; they didn't even speak standard Italian. They spoke a Sicilian dialect--and once they were well-established in the US, they were living in a community with people from all over Italy, and also from Poland. That resulted in my mother and her siblings speaking a dialect that was spoken literally nowhere in Italy, when they were at home, or outside in the neighborhood.
My mother and her siblings were taught English in school. For all that there was an impressive bias against Italians at the time, they were taught English, not punished for not already speaking Standard English, speaking an admittedly strange dialect of Italian.
Proposals to do the same, to acknowledge the dialect many black American children are speaking at home and in their neighborhoods, and actually teach them the differences and the situations in which they need Standard English, without eliminating AAVE from their lives, have many times been proposed, and many times been pilloried as racist,"teaching bad English," letting bad English take over.
I mentioned my mother's family and their Sicilian dialect of Italian, but I think at least equally relevant is Yiddish. It's a dialect of German. It's not "good German," if by good German you mean standard, generally accepted German. Yet there's an extensive and respected body of literature in Yiddish, and when we talk about it, we don't call it bad German.
As I was writing this review, I wondered, are there novels written in AAVE? Yes there are. And in the science fiction and fantasy that's a great deal of my leisure reading, it's starting to show up as part or all of stories written by African-American SFF writers. And yes, initially, for someone for whom it's not my native dialect, I take it slowly--but it's worth the effort. Good literature is good literature, and it's a dialect where you have to recognize some different grammatical structures and background assumptions, not a completely separate language. Being open to it has made some excellent literature available to me that I would otherwise have missed out on.
Labov talks a lot about the nitty-gritty of how linguists work out what's happening in our language, as well as the politics that have hampered recognition of AAVE and of effectively teaching spoken and written standard English. Politics I get; there was more of the nitty-gritty of linguistics than I was prepared for, and that made reading it harder work for me.
It was worth the effort.
I bought this book.
January 5, 2020
This book is kind of a mess, structurally, since it blends together a kind of general introduction to the sociolinguistics of American dialects with a very specific hypothesis about American politics. But in recent years I can’t stop thinking about it.
Here’s the basic deal — William Labov shows that there’s an emerging dialect he calls the “Northern Cities Vowel Shift” that’s happening among the white population in broadly speaking the Great Lakes region.
He also notes — this is a book written pre-Trump — that the parts of the country with pronounced Vowel Shift have a white population that is less Republican than otherwise demographically similar whites elsewhere. He speculates as to why this might be, and noted that Obama’s strength in the Vowel Shift Area accounted for his edge in the Electoral College and his political success.
At the time of course it was much more fashionable to talk about Obama’s strength with Latino voters. But one way of thinking about what happened in 2016 is the vowel shift region started voting just like other similarly white places, the EC advantage shifted to Trump, and the rest is history.
Here’s the basic deal — William Labov shows that there’s an emerging dialect he calls the “Northern Cities Vowel Shift” that’s happening among the white population in broadly speaking the Great Lakes region.
He also notes — this is a book written pre-Trump — that the parts of the country with pronounced Vowel Shift have a white population that is less Republican than otherwise demographically similar whites elsewhere. He speculates as to why this might be, and noted that Obama’s strength in the Vowel Shift Area accounted for his edge in the Electoral College and his political success.
At the time of course it was much more fashionable to talk about Obama’s strength with Latino voters. But one way of thinking about what happened in 2016 is the vowel shift region started voting just like other similarly white places, the EC advantage shifted to Trump, and the rest is history.
Want to read
December 26, 2016
June 27, 2023
1. You may know that African-American Vernacular English is a perfectly viable dialect, with internally consistent rules and structures. While many linguists assumed AAVE would converge with standard English over time, it's continuing to diverge.
2. Speaking of divergence, although linguists used to assume the broadcast era would eliminate accents within the United States, the Midwest accent is only growing sharper. And it correlates closely to Midwestern political voting trends!
3. I'll have you know that almost all the East Coast cities dropped their R's for a while, and all of them except New York and Boston (and Providence, of course) flipped back. The only East Coast city that never dropped the R was ... Philly! Must be something in the warter.
2. Speaking of divergence, although linguists used to assume the broadcast era would eliminate accents within the United States, the Midwest accent is only growing sharper. And it correlates closely to Midwestern political voting trends!
3. I'll have you know that almost all the East Coast cities dropped their R's for a while, and all of them except New York and Boston (and Providence, of course) flipped back. The only East Coast city that never dropped the R was ... Philly! Must be something in the warter.
September 5, 2013
This is a very interesting book about the expansion of regional dialects in the United States. In that respect, it is counterintuitive: most people think that America speech is being homogenized by exposure to television and other media. The opposite is true. The author not only discusses the changes in dialect, but also the social causes and implications of the changes. This is a really good book.
November 28, 2018
William Labov's discussion of changes in American accents ends with a political conclusion, so the politics of language is decisive to this study. A word must be said later on this point.
This book's immediate concern is that in two important ways American accents are actually diverging. First is a recent vowel change known as the Northern Cities Shift. The second is the continued isolation of African American Vernacular English, which for its part is undergoing new changes that bring it no closer to standard English. The Southern accent is evaporating, according to Labov, as part of a process of convergence one would expect in a country held together by mass communication. So why the divergence of the other two speech patterns?
In the concluding chapter the author suggests that the shift in the accent of the North -- that is, the Great Lakes region -- is the product of ideology, a commitment to "making the world a better place" that sets this region apart from other parts of the country. After all, he notes, the shift was first seen in the 1960s among liberal, educated, upwardly mobile women in that area. He tells us, "If there is a social motivation to the Northern Cities Shift, it is interesting to think that it might be connected with the better part of our human nature."
An inescapable paradox of left politics in the United States is that its discourse, expounded in the mass media and academic settings, provides so much fuel for far right extremism. What causes those two to function primarily in relation to one another is their common basis in a political system that rejects any broad-based notion of equality: It's said that the Republicans want ten people to own the nation's wealth. The Democrats object that five of those people should be women.
The author does point out that in the ghettos of these same cities blacks do not share either in the accent or the privileged lifestyle it represents. He puts this down to racism. Fine. But if that's so, what makes the ideological commitments of those who speak with the Northern Cities Shift morally superior? One chapter associates the Northern commitment to fairness and equality with the region's solid backing of the Democratic Party. But that doesn't explain anything. The author seems simply to be taking sides in the culture wars between left and right. If Northern whites believe as the author says, and they very well might, then racism cannot be the fundamental reason for the inequality in Northern cities.
The book is good so far as it describes changes in American dialects. But in trying to figure out why, the author makes indefensibly partisan claims. Labov's scholarship is needlessly divisive, so much so that it left me wondering just how solid the research-based conclusions are. It is particularly questionable whether, based on the sample population, the author is justified in claiming that all speakers in the Great Lakes region have now adopted the Northern Cities Shift.
This book's immediate concern is that in two important ways American accents are actually diverging. First is a recent vowel change known as the Northern Cities Shift. The second is the continued isolation of African American Vernacular English, which for its part is undergoing new changes that bring it no closer to standard English. The Southern accent is evaporating, according to Labov, as part of a process of convergence one would expect in a country held together by mass communication. So why the divergence of the other two speech patterns?
In the concluding chapter the author suggests that the shift in the accent of the North -- that is, the Great Lakes region -- is the product of ideology, a commitment to "making the world a better place" that sets this region apart from other parts of the country. After all, he notes, the shift was first seen in the 1960s among liberal, educated, upwardly mobile women in that area. He tells us, "If there is a social motivation to the Northern Cities Shift, it is interesting to think that it might be connected with the better part of our human nature."
An inescapable paradox of left politics in the United States is that its discourse, expounded in the mass media and academic settings, provides so much fuel for far right extremism. What causes those two to function primarily in relation to one another is their common basis in a political system that rejects any broad-based notion of equality: It's said that the Republicans want ten people to own the nation's wealth. The Democrats object that five of those people should be women.
The author does point out that in the ghettos of these same cities blacks do not share either in the accent or the privileged lifestyle it represents. He puts this down to racism. Fine. But if that's so, what makes the ideological commitments of those who speak with the Northern Cities Shift morally superior? One chapter associates the Northern commitment to fairness and equality with the region's solid backing of the Democratic Party. But that doesn't explain anything. The author seems simply to be taking sides in the culture wars between left and right. If Northern whites believe as the author says, and they very well might, then racism cannot be the fundamental reason for the inequality in Northern cities.
The book is good so far as it describes changes in American dialects. But in trying to figure out why, the author makes indefensibly partisan claims. Labov's scholarship is needlessly divisive, so much so that it left me wondering just how solid the research-based conclusions are. It is particularly questionable whether, based on the sample population, the author is justified in claiming that all speakers in the Great Lakes region have now adopted the Northern Cities Shift.
September 25, 2025
What I've learned is when the federal government looks like it's on the verge of fight or flight, it might just use a freeze frame tactic from the early 80s to get what it needs. To blame the anxiety of the people on one side of the island or the other.
This book was probably progress at the time it came out. You get to know poverty albeit in a way where IT's considered charity work for African Americans. Like they were so grateful to have their language stolen from them as an ante chip to sit at the same lunch tables as the rest of the cadre. You get to know some interesting ways the system's designed to help the poor and not hold them down by means of the very same apparatus they are using to dust them off. This is the DARE era and everything so it's all above board to moralize language as much as possible. I appreciated some of the case studies despite them getting set into convoluted graphs and bureaucratic ACT style numbering systems. Certainly nothing worth lopping off one's wits over.
I have a flash bulb memory of when I realized who had won the last election. As I looked up at the frozen screen, what was immediately recognizable was that "ME2" was standing for Maine's partial role in all this. It's funny how Obama won by using social media without anyone even noticing. Then Trump in 2016 does it when people were becoming aware of their social media data exploitation and lost they minds over IT. Then Biden wins by mail in ballot, redirecting us in another politicized voter suppression direction for four years. And finally Trump wins again, this time easily by way of almost entirely social media.
Gerry was that guy who felt convoluted by walking out into the cruel world to vote. He's actually not lost, he just looks that way. Who would blame him. He spent all his time figuring out the process. And the rest of his other time on deciphering how to just do his own job without ripples.
Never has any politician in all this time broached the topic of voter suppression or linguistic marketing in any meaningful way. When a techno squirrel runs by in the feed it's just a Russian spy or something. There's an unsaid agreement that the people don't need the lecture. They're already aware enough of their economic footprints. Let the best information connector win.
This book was probably progress at the time it came out. You get to know poverty albeit in a way where IT's considered charity work for African Americans. Like they were so grateful to have their language stolen from them as an ante chip to sit at the same lunch tables as the rest of the cadre. You get to know some interesting ways the system's designed to help the poor and not hold them down by means of the very same apparatus they are using to dust them off. This is the DARE era and everything so it's all above board to moralize language as much as possible. I appreciated some of the case studies despite them getting set into convoluted graphs and bureaucratic ACT style numbering systems. Certainly nothing worth lopping off one's wits over.
I have a flash bulb memory of when I realized who had won the last election. As I looked up at the frozen screen, what was immediately recognizable was that "ME2" was standing for Maine's partial role in all this. It's funny how Obama won by using social media without anyone even noticing. Then Trump in 2016 does it when people were becoming aware of their social media data exploitation and lost they minds over IT. Then Biden wins by mail in ballot, redirecting us in another politicized voter suppression direction for four years. And finally Trump wins again, this time easily by way of almost entirely social media.
Gerry was that guy who felt convoluted by walking out into the cruel world to vote. He's actually not lost, he just looks that way. Who would blame him. He spent all his time figuring out the process. And the rest of his other time on deciphering how to just do his own job without ripples.
Never has any politician in all this time broached the topic of voter suppression or linguistic marketing in any meaningful way. When a techno squirrel runs by in the feed it's just a Russian spy or something. There's an unsaid agreement that the people don't need the lecture. They're already aware enough of their economic footprints. Let the best information connector win.
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August 7, 2021Philosophers have not really addressed the question that is central to this book, namely: why don't languages converge so that communication between people is maximally easy? There are hints at answers here, with a focus on sound change (and some syntactic differences between AAVE and standard English), with the rough explanation being that language doesn't just serve as a neutral medium of communication but as a powerful signal of identity. So the long-term residents on Martha's Vineyard in Labov's study who identify with the traditions of the island and are opposed to the rich people moving in from the mainland have a more pronounced version of the island pronunciation then those who don't identify with those traditions; the "burned-out burnout" girls in Penny Eckert's Jocks and Burnouts study display a more pronounced version of the Northern Cities vowel shift than the Jocks (or even the burnout boys). So there is pressure for differentiation rather than convergence. But it's more complicated than that: there are also long-term historical trends that push sounds apart, and Labov makes an argument that it is Northern abolitionists moving into the Great Lakes cities in the mid-19c, bringing elements of their previous speech sounds with them that also accounts for the Northern Cities Vowel shift.
I wish there were clickable links to hear samples of people using the different sounds—in some of Penny Eckert's online work, you can listen to samples of kids saying things in the Northern California vowel shifty way, and it's just endlessly enjoyable.
I wish there were clickable links to hear samples of people using the different sounds—in some of Penny Eckert's online work, you can listen to samples of kids saying things in the Northern California vowel shifty way, and it's just endlessly enjoyable.
February 28, 2024
I pitter pattered my way through this highly specialized linguistics monograph over the span of a year+. And, for the most part, it is perfectly fine. There are a few dialectal tidbits that will make your eyes pop, and Bill Labov is obviously a luminary in the field (if not THE luminary).
But it never coheres, the whole never feels greater than the sum of its parts, and I'm really just not sure what I'm supposed to take away from the whole thing. That may be on me for leaving months in between spates of reading. But, I read the last third comparatively quickly--over a matter of a few days--including the last chapter, "Putting It all Together."
It did not all come together.
I'd say read up on Labov's principle works and stick to his linguistics, and feel free to skip his political science + history (i.e., Dialect Diversity in America: The Politics of Language Change).
But it never coheres, the whole never feels greater than the sum of its parts, and I'm really just not sure what I'm supposed to take away from the whole thing. That may be on me for leaving months in between spates of reading. But, I read the last third comparatively quickly--over a matter of a few days--including the last chapter, "Putting It all Together."
It did not all come together.
I'd say read up on Labov's principle works and stick to his linguistics, and feel free to skip his political science + history (i.e., Dialect Diversity in America: The Politics of Language Change).
June 8, 2023
This book was extremely interesting as far as linguistics goes. He discusses what influences our dialect, what causes the change in dialects across the country, and how AAVE is not "uneducated" as many people tend to believe when hearing it.
March 3, 2017
If you're into data, this is your book. This held some interest, but would have served better as a lecture.
April 9, 2024
~2 stars~
Read for class
Read for class
March 20, 2023
My biggest takeaway from this book: an understanding of the consistent grammar rules of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), examples of which I am now able identify in practical use.
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