This study analyzed the production and perception of Portuguese and English voiceless stops by twelve heritage learners of European Portuguese. Data were collected through two pseudoword reading tasks, a cross-linguistic rated dissimilarity task, and a cross-language perceptual assimilation task. The results show that Canadian English–European Portuguese bilinguals did not perceptually distinguish between aspirated and plain voiceless stops. However, the acoustic analysis revealed that they produced a significant language-specific difference between English aspirated and Portuguese unaspirated voiceless stops. Individual variation was observed in the categorization and production of heritage Portuguese plain stops and correlated with language use and perceived accent ratings.

The functional load hypothesis predicts that phonemes with lower functional load are more likely to merge than higher functional load phonemes. Using Cantonese spontaneous speech data from the Heritage Language Variation and Change Corpus (Nagy, 2011), this chapter addresses the functional load hypothesis in a heritage language context by comparing F1/F2 production patterns of two vowel pairs (i.e., /y/~/u/ and /a/~/ɔ/) across thirty-two speakers based on generational group (i.e., Gen0, Gen1, and Gen2) and dominant language (i.e., Cantonese versus English). An analysis of Pillai score values (Nycz & Hall-Lew, 2015) shows a significant decrease in the phonetic distinctiveness of /y/~/u/ for English-dominant speakers (i.e., all Gen2). The /y/~/u/ pair also has a lower functional load. Dominant language, however, was not a significant Pillai score predictor for /a/~/ɔ/. Overall, the results support the functional load hypothesis in a heritage language context and show how it can complement accounts of heritage languages based on dominant language transfer.

This chapter includes a succinct review of World Englishes and dialect typology literature, with a focus on the main theoretical paradigms within this sphere (e.g. the Three Circles model and the Dynamic Model). We then introduce the nine regional varieties of English under study in the book: British English, Canadian English, Irish English, New Zealand English, Hong Kong English, Indian English, Jamaican English, Philippine English, and Singapore English. The discussion includes a brief summary of relevant aspects of these varieties’ sociohistories as well as their linguistic profiles.

This chapter provides a short overview of the phonemes of General American English, shared in large part with the phonemes of Canadian English. American English phonemes are comprised of the following: 6 plosives, 9 fricatives, 2 affricates, 3 nasal consonants, 4 approximants, and a non-rhotic flap, and 13 vowels. General American English, like all varieties, makes use of stress, emphasis, and intonation.

One of the most dramatic discourse–pragmatic changes in twentieth–century English has progressed under the radar of laypeople and (until recently) linguists: the rise of um as the predominant variant of the “filled pause” variable (UHM) at the expense of uh. We investigate UHM at an early stage of change to determine what triggered its rise. We employ the variationist method to examine UHM in the Farm Work and Farm Life Since 1890 corpus of oral histories (recorded in 1984 with elderly farmers in Ontario, Canada). Nearly 5,000 tokens were extracted and coded for speaker birth year, gender, region, and utterance position. The overall frequency of um among the farmers is 11 percent. We find no significant effect of gender (12 percent for women, 10 percent for men). In one region, there is an effect of birth year. Lastly, we find no effect of utterance position. Looking at the frequency of each variant per 1,000 words, however, we see that, while the rate of um remains relatively stable, the rate of uh increases rapidly with year of birth, particularly with non–initial tokens produced by female speakers. Our results indicate that this data covers the first stage of this change.

This chapter examines variation and change in the speech of performances by actors from the South, the Inland North, and Canada.

The plethora of studies dealing with the quotative systems of English-as-native-language (ENL) varieties shows that the choice for be like is influenced by several linguistic and social factors. As for gender, most studies indicate that women are the prime users of be like. However, it is still unclear whether the same applies to English varieties that have emerged in countries with gender profiles differing from those found in ENL countries. This paper presents a case study of the quotative system of Ghanaian English based on a preliminary version of ICE-Ghana. The findings reveal that be like entered a quotative system that has been reshaped by language contact. Nonetheless, the new quotative still occupies a similar linguistic niche as that found in ENL varieties. Concerning social factors, the findings point towards a decreasing probability of be like with increasing age, but do not show a female lead. An intriguing interaction term between age and gender suggests that women in the sample are less likely to use be like the older they become compared to men. I argue that these patterns of genderlectal variation may be rooted in gender inequalities in international migration that were even stronger in the past.

This chapter outlines the development of English dictionaries in Canada as expressions of the national variety of Canadian English. Four stages of dictionary development in Canadian English are identified. The role of and dependency on publishing houses in the field's development is surveyed. This dependency led, ultimately, to what is called the Great Canadian Dictionary War. A handful of less widely known dictionaries that were important in Canada’s lexicographical development are discussed in some detail, and numerical methods are used to analyse developments within the Canadian dictionary market since the late 1970s.

The many-faceted history of English in North-America has proved a challenge for accounts of the subsequent development of an old language in a new geographical setting. The complexity of the parameters involved has led researchers to engage in language theory and empirical work in various disciplinary traditions, among them dialectology, historical sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. The recent electronic resources and interest in texts written by less educated authors have enabled researchers to ask new questions and re-visit old ones from a fresh perspective. This chapter focuses on the intriguing paths of development of varieties such Anglo-American Englishes, Canadian English, and African American English. It pays attention to processes of change and the role played by e.g. contact phenomena in the life cycles of the varieties. Linguistic conservatism and innovation create tension in the new sociodemographic environment of an emerging variety, promoting or discouraging unification or diversification tendencies. The linguistic features investigated across the varieties in the chapter comprise phonetic and phonological features, morphosyntax, grammar, and vocabulary.

The final chapter goes beyond the set time frame of 1940-98 and into the present. Analyzing news coverage since the postwar period, in this chapter we identify a recurring Canadian news coverage on Canadian English, presenting the concept of "Canadian English" as either new or weird. In the light of the evidence presented throughout the book, the readers are in the position to decide for themselves whether there is a Canadian English. Canadian intellectuals are shownas often taking a rather negative stance, treating expressions of national identity as more or less akin to national jingoism, which is surprising given their generally international orientation. Attitude data are used to show that a "Canadian way of speaking" is firmly entrenched in the minds of today's Canadian residents, with 80 per cent of Canadians across all age groups positively confirming the concept. This is a radical change from only a generation or two ago, when especially younger Canadians were often sceptical. News coverage has since also seen a shift, being today exclusively positive. Such data should encourage educators to teach about Canadian English expressly, starting in elementary school. Using examples from www.dchp.ca/dchp2, it is shown that much remains to be explored about Canadian English.