Background
Kretzschmar, William Addison was born on September 13, 1953 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Son of William Addison and Audrey June (Krauss) Kretzschmar.
( Who uses "skeeter hawk," "snake doctor," and "dragonfly...)
Who uses "skeeter hawk," "snake doctor," and "dragonfly" to refer to the same insect? Who says "gum band" instead of "rubber band"? The answers can be found in the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS), the largest single survey of regional and social differences in spoken American English. It covers the region from New York state to northern Florida and from the coastline to the borders of Ohio and Kentucky. Through interviews with nearly twelve hundred people conducted during the 1930s and 1940s, the LAMSAS mapped regional variations in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation at a time when population movements were more limited than they are today, thus providing a unique look at the correspondence of language and settlement patterns. This handbook is an essential guide to the LAMSAS project, laying out its history and describing its scope and methodology. In addition, the handbook reveals biographical information about the informants and social histories of the communities in which they lived, including primary settlement areas of the original colonies. Dialectologists will rely on it for understanding the LAMSAS, and historians will find it valuable for its original historical research. Since much of the LAMSAS questionnaire concerns rural terms, the data collected from the interviews can pinpoint such language differences as those between areas of plantation and small-farm agriculture. For example, LAMSAS reveals that two waves of settlement through the Appalachians created two distinct speech types. Settlers coming into Georgia and other parts of the Upper South through the Shenandoah Valley and on to the western side of the mountain range had a Pennsylvania-influenced dialect, and were typically small farmers. Those who settled the Deep South in the rich lowlands and plateaus tended to be plantation farmers from Virginia and the Carolinas who retained the vocabulary and speech patterns of coastal areas. With these revealing findings, the LAMSAS represents a benchmark study of the English language, and this handbook is an indispensable guide to its riches.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226452832/?tag=2022091-20
(This insightful study proposes a unified theory of speech...)
This insightful study proposes a unified theory of speech through which conflicting ideas about language might be understood. It is founded on a number of key points, such as the continuum of linguistic behaviour, extensive variation in language features, the importance of regional and social proximity to shared linguistic production, and differential frequency as a key factor in linguistic production both in regional and social groups and in text corpora. The study shows how this new linguistics of speech does not reject rules in favour of language use, or reject language use in favour of rules; rather, it shows how rules can come from language as people use it. Written in a clear, engaging style and containing invaluably accessible introductions to complex theoretical concepts, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, dialectology and corpus linguistics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521887038/?tag=2022091-20
Kretzschmar, William Addison was born on September 13, 1953 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Son of William Addison and Audrey June (Krauss) Kretzschmar.
English instructor Mundelein College, Chicago, 1977-1982, summer school director, 1979-1981. Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, Wisconsin, 1982-1986, U. Georgia, Athens, 1986-1989, associate professor, 1989-1995, professor 1995, director linguistics program, 1996. Editor, Linguistic AtlasMiddle and South Atlantic States, Linguistic Atlas North-Central States, 1984.
Director, 1979-1981; assistant Professor of English, U. Wisconsin Editor, Linguistic AtlasMiddle and South Atlantic States, Linguistic Atlas North-Central States, 1984. Editor: Dialects in Culture (Rhode Island McDavid, Junior.
Editor, Journal English Linguistics, 1983-1999, Empirical Linguistic Series, 1996.
( Who uses "skeeter hawk," "snake doctor," and "dragonfly...)
(This insightful study proposes a unified theory of speech...)
Member Modern Language Association (regional delegate 1983-1986), American Dialect Society, Linguistic Society American, Medieval Academy American, Association Computers Humanities (board directors 1999).
Married Claudia Suzanne Miller.nglish, University of Chicago, 1980.