Sociolinguistic Constructs of Ethnic Identity

The Syntactic Delineation of Lumbee English

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Journals Linguistics

by Clare J. Dannenberg

Duke University Press

Due/Published September 2002, 144 pages, cloth

ISBN 0822365464

An Issue of PADS (Publication of the American Dialect Society)

Sociolinguistic Constructs of Ethnic Identity examines ethnic language boundaries displayed in the various uses of the verb be in a multiethnic community in Robeson County, North Carolina. Dannenberg demonstrates that ethnic identity is a dynamic process that shifts over time and social space. Ethnic groups that have been stripped of their ancestral source language, like the Lumbee Indians, may be quite resilient and able to carve out unique language varieties in their replacement language.