内容简介：
This volume examines variation in vowel configurations in African American English as spoken by members of seven U.S. communities, including Roanoke Island, North Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and several parishes in rural Louisiana. The contributors argue that African American English exhibits considerable diversity, disproving the com-monly held view that it is a uniform national dialect. Although some features of African American English are universal, others vary by region. In each community, African Americans adopted variants from local vernaculars. The study finds the most assimilation in the oldest commu--nities in the rural South, where multiple races have lived together for centuries. Malcah Yaeger-Dror is a research scientist of cognitive studies at the University of Arizona. Erik R. Thomas is Professor of Linguistics at North Carolina State University.