VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

The study of the English language in UCSB’s Department of Linguistics is shaped by the department’s commitment to empirically investigate the full diversity of human languages. Research on English in the department includes studies of grammatical construction types and the phonological structure of prosody. It also includes sociocultural studies of epistemic and affective stance and of the use of English varieties to construct social identities. English at UCSB is not viewed as a monolithic linguistic system or a privileged source of data for the development of linguistic theory. Rather, it is approached as a language like any other and is acknowledged as embodying a complex and diverse collection of competing linguistic systems and values. As such it provides fertile ground for posing a rich array of theoretical questions. Investigations within the department focus on many different aspects of English linguistic structure and use. One tool that has been developed at UCSB for this research is the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. Sociocultural linguistic researchers in the department examine the varieties of English spoken in the United States, such as African American English, and the California dialect, as well as situational varieties. The effects of English as a global language are also examined in departmental research on language contact, shift, and endangerment, and language ideologies.

Core Faculty: Mary Bucholtz, John W. Du Bois, Stefan Th. Gries, Sandra A. Thompson

Links

Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English