For a little amusement on this issue, I just had the Word software grammar
check tell me that I needed "whom" in this construction: "we know who you
are."

Edith Wollin

-----Original Message-----
From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: who or whom


Thanks, Jeff, you've nicely depicted how messy it is to try to delimit
and label dialects. Finding social features that consistently align with
dialect features is probably impossible, especially if you want a
fine-grained analysis.

Perhaps objectively and scientifically class isn't a correct defining
parameter for dialect differences in  our society. When we consider
language attitudes, however,  I think class is an important social
construct precisely because of the superior/inferior values that are
attached to it. In a Hairston-like survey that I did with a class of
mine, we found that dialect features associated with less-educated
speakers (such as double negation and third-person 'don't') elicited far
more consistently negative responses than dialect features that are
nonstandard (that is, incorrect from the trad. grammar point of view)
but appear in the dialect of educated speakers (such as 'between you and
I' or failure to use 'whom' in an object position). Judging from their
self-idenitifications, most of our respondents held positions that would
be considered middle to upper-class. So the kinds of 'mistakes' that
they themselves might make were judged much more acceptable than the
kinds of 'mistakes' that people from less-successful groups might make.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  *  Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept. Phone.  756-2596
* E-mail: [log in to unmask] *  Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/