Jennifer Cramer is Professor of Linguistics and Affiliate Faculty of Appalachian Studies at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA. She is the author of Contested Southernness (2016), co-editor of Cityscapes and Perceptual Dialectology (2016), and co-author of Linguistic Planets of Belief (2020) and English with an Accent (2022). Allison Burkette is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA, where she currently serves as Department Chair and as the Editor of the Linguistic Atlas Project. Burkette is the author of Language and Material Culture (2015) and Language and Classification (2018).
The Social Life of Appalachian Englishes offers the most thorough and engaging portrait of the language and culture of one of America’s most distinctive and iconic regions. The work stems from one of the most ambitious undertakings in dialectology, the Linguistic Atlas Project, and contextualizes the ensuing linguistic analyses in the voices and stories of Appalachian residents. This volume examines not only the history that gave birth to the ways of speaking throughout the Appalachian region, it offers a compelling commentary on how those ways of speaking are viewed from within and outside the region and why this matters. Additionally, the authors persuasively explain why learning more about Appalachian English is essential for anyone interested in language and culture, and in doing so, pays the region the homage it deserves. Jeffrey Reaser, North Carolina State University, USA