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Sociolinguistics

  • Sociolinguistics archive
    Bill Haddican's archive of downloadable research papers and journal articles on sociolinguistics topics. Frequently updated.
  • Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK
    Jonnie Robinson of the British Library in London has put together this excellent website which 'captures and celebrates the diversity of spoken English in the second half of the twentieth century'. Includes a clickable map of the UK linking to audio files and notes on each variety.
  • Varieties of English I
    Mouton de Gruyter's very impressive and beautifully designed site (presently in demo form only) is provided by The University of Marburg's Linguistic Engineering Team, and promises to be the most comprehensive resource of its kind on the web when the full version is released.
  • Varieties of English II
    Pages on major varieties of North American and world Englishes, with information grouped by topic (phonetics, phonology, etc.), sound files to download, and some exercises.
  • Studying Varieties of English
    Raymond Hickey's new site is intended as a resource for linguistics students at various levels who are concerned with different forms of English throughout the world. To view the phonetic symbols you must download Hickey's own X_Times.ttf font.
  • English around the World
    Descriptions of major varieties of world English, with audio samples for download, course materials, etc.
  • Speech Accent Archive
    283 samples of 'accented' English recorded from speakers of languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, with detailed transcriptions and notes on phonological features for each accent.
  • IDEA (International Dialects of English Archive)
    Created in 1998 as a resource for actors, this archive is comprised of recordings of native speakers of English from various parts of the world, and English spoken in various non-native accents.
  • BBC Voices
    Site based around the BBC's ongoing online survey of regional and social varieties of English, and other languages spoken in the UK.
  • SCOTS (Scottish Corpus of Text and Speech)
    SCOTS provides 'valuable material not only for language researchers, but also for those working in education, government, the creative arts, media and tourism, who have a more general interest in Scottish culture and identity. It would provide important data about English as used in Scotland, and also Scots, in its many varieties, Gaelic, and the principal community languages.'
  • John Wells' Estuary English site
    Articles on the history and current status of 'Estuary English'.
  • William Labov's homepage
    Links to articles and projects at the University of Pennsylvania's Linguistics Department.   
  • The Atlas of North American English
    Another of Mouton de Gruyter's demo versions, to accompany the University of Pennsylvania's survey of variation and change in US and Canadian English.
  • MLA Language Map of the USA
    The Modern Language Association's interactive linguistic map of the United States.
  • DARE (Dictionary of American Regional English) audio files
    Sample sound files exemplifying a range of US regional accents.
  • What (American) accent do you have?
    A simple online questionnaire which claims to be able to tell you (if you're American) which part of the US your accent is from.
  • EEAWW (Evaluating English Accents World-Wide)
    A project on attitudes to accentual variation in English based at the University of Otago, New Zealand.
  • Linguistic Atlas Projects at the University of Georgia
    Links to several ongoing projects mapping varieties of North American English.
  • Yorkshire Dialect pages
    A resource maintained by Barry Rawling at the College of York St. John.
  • American Dialect Society
    Dedicated to the study of the history and current nature of English in North America.
  • Language Varieties Website
    Description of dialects of English and English-based creoles around the world, with sound samples.
  • Some 'Informative and Entertaining' Linguistics Resources
    Provided by Jeanette Denton, Baylor University. Includes a lot of information on American English dialects.
  • British Library National Sound Archive: Accents and Dialects of English
    Details of materials held by the NSA. They intend to make recordings available online in the near future.