Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 01:04:00 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: Varieties of American English
Bethany,
I had exactly the same problem with finding Walt Wolfram's book out
of print. However, I take a more historical + varieties approach in my course
just titled American English, so the gap was not so damaging. In the past
I've used Marckwardt's book for the historical part, and used the segment
on Shakespeare's English and British variants from MacNeil's The Story of
English as background grounding for the original settlement.
Thanks for sharing the information on your course. It sounds as though
you have put together quite a lot of interesting and useful material.
_MY_ big question, to anyone who may have a suggestion, is that I have
found an unusual number of English lit majors in the course this time, as a
result of having included the course in a new Literature and Language
undergraduate specialization we have just started. As a result, to help
motivate the students, and make the course more relevant to their literary
studies, I can't stay with my usual syllabus as a purely linguistic course,
but need to add some readings, and/or look at some literary selections that
relate to language variety and literature. Being illiterate as I am, I would
appreciate any suggestions as to possible inclusions, or places to look.
TIA, as the surfers say,
Rudy
--Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu)