The Sociolinguistics of Ethnicity in Pittsburgh

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing interest in regional variation within African American English. This study reviews a work done on local speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, discussing trends for both African American and White ethnic groups. Just as scholars have found in other geographic regions, in Pittsburgh, African Americans and Whites share a number of feature characteristics of the local dialect, but remain distinct in a number of other ways. Research in Pittsburgh, as elsewhere, highlights the complexity, rather than the homogeneity, of African American speech across the country, as speakers exhibit alignment to both regional and supraregional ethnic linguistic norms.