William Labov, whose innovative research into regional variations in language -- why New Yorkers drink wahtah but Philadelphians drink warter -- won him acclaim as one of the most important linguists ...

Palin's Accent Examined Ever since she emerged on the national stage, Sarah Palin's accent has prompted many theories. William Labov, professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, says ...

Imagine looking at a map of the United States that is divided not into states but into dialects — a map that doesn’t tell you what a state’s capital is, but how a region’s residents pronounce their ...

Imagine looking at a map of the United States that is divided not into states but into dialects — a map that doesn’t tell you what a state’s capital is, but how a region’s residents pronounce their ...

Ah, but the issue of dialect is actually much too fascinating to call the whole thing off, according to linguistic research into North American dialects. People commonly assume that regional dialects ...

Our Friday feature Lost and Found Sound™, a collaboration between NPR and independent producers The Kitchen Sisters™: Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, and Jay Allison continues. This week, All Things ...

And I'm Robert Siegel. P: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. He calls it a snapshot of our rapidly changing language, mergers of sounds that used to be different, splits of sounds that used to be ...

In the 1960s, Columbia University graduate student William Labov headed into New York City’s department stores in search of something. He scoured Saks, Macy’s, and S. Klein, asking all the employees ...

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