Regional Accents in the U.S.

GUESTS: WILLIAM LABOV *Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania *Director of the Atlas of North American English PENELOPE ECKERT *Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University *Senior Fellow at Institute for Research on Learning *Author of Jocks & Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School (Teacher's College Press, NY) WALT WOLFRAM *William C. Friday Professor at North Carolina State University, specializing in linguistics *Co-author, American English: Dialects and Variations (Blackwell,1998) Do you say "Car" or "Cah"? "Coffee" or "Cawfee"? Although some may worry about the homogenization of America's verbal landscape, regional dialects and accents are alive and well. Even when people take speech lessons, they can't entirely shake off their native accent. Join Melinda Penkava and guests for a discussion of regional dialects and accents in the United States.