Date:  Thu, 29 Sep 1994 11:04:56 -0400

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." <billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU>

Subject: Re: Textbooks for Sociolinguistics



I have used Wolfram's *Dialects and American English*, and it has worked

well. There are a few places in it that I heavily supplement or orient

in class somewhat differently from the way that Walt writes (as one might

expect), but in general it works well.



I taught both volumes of Fasold one quarter, but the students were about

ready to murder me at the end. There is just too much there. I learned

alot---and that was really my purpose, because I would not have read the

books as closely as I did unless I taught them.



The new Romaine introduction to the field (Oxford, 1994) was

disappointing to me for its coverage of historical stuff and American

English, but it was good at the things that Wolfram doesn't cover

(language planning, pidgins/creoles).



For graduate students I teach mostly from articles (often recent ones

from *Language Variation and Change*).



Regards, Bill

******************************************************************************

Bill Kretzschmar         Phone:  706-542-2246

Dept. of English         FAX:   706-542-2181

University of Georgia      Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu

Athens, GA 30602-6205      Bitnet:  wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga