U.S. Regional Variation in the English Language

 

      With everyone spekaing the same language, we can usually tell where people are from based on how they talk and their accents. Hearing somone talk from down South or even the East coast, like a Boston accent, are obvious differences people can hear through their dialect. According to The Study of Social Dialects in American English, migration of early settlers that came from different parts of England are part of the reason for dialect differences in areas of the United States. Another factor effecting regional varieties of English is the pattern of population movement. The major movement of white population in America has been from East to West which means that dialect boundaries are more likely to run horizontally than vertically. "Althoughit is our main purpose to deal with the interaction of social forces with language variation, we must always bear in mind that social dialects exist in the context of regional variation" (Wolfram 73). Therefore, the regions throughout the United States do exist and can be seen through dialect, accents, pronunciations, or vocabulary.