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)