Chapter 1.1 A Multi-Dimensional analysis of regional variation in American English

Abstract

This paper analyzes regional linguistic variation in a corpus of letters to the editor from across the United States. However, unlike most regional dialect studies, which analyze linguistic alternation variables, this study analyzes the relative frequency of parts-of-speech using a Multi-Dimensional approach, which allows for patterns of regional functional linguistic variation to be identified in this corpus. In particular, this analysis identifies three basic patterns of regional functional linguistic variation in American letters to the editor: letters from the East tend to exhibit an elaborate style, letters from the Central States tend to exhibit a narrative style, and letters from South tend to exhibit an opinionated style, when compared to letters originating from the rest of the United States.