Language Evolution Or Dying Traditions? The State of American Dialects

http://www.languagemagazine.com/internetedition/mj00/wolfram.html

Article by Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes that discusses whether American Dialects are disappearing due to the effect of mass media and the mobility of the American population. They give the example of the current vowel shift, occurring in Northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo, to show that dialects are in the U.S are in a process of constant change. To explain the trend in American dialects they list as important factors: language contact produced by immigration; interregional movement within the U.S.; changes in the social structure and in cultural values. The surprising conclusion is that even if some dialects are receding, new ones are appearing.