Thanks, Nancy!
     I've got the book on my "to read" shelf -- maybe I should bump it up on the priority list! I haven't had a chance to look at the videos, so I'll have to do that as well.
     Also, just to let everyone else know, I've gotten one response off-list about the work of Michael Montgomery. It has been a very fruitful lead to follow up on! Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
      Jed

"[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
        John,
   
  A nice non-academic book to start with would be _The Story of English_ by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil, Penguin: New York,1992 (ISBN: 0140154051). A series of videos accompanied their original version, but I don't know if they were revised. Although dated for some topics (e.g., slang), they would be helpful for your nonperishable topic.
   
  Nancy Burkhalter, Ph.D.
   
  

   
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John E. Dews-Alexander 
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Sent: 7/10/2006 5:53:26 PM 
  Subject: Sources for History of Southern American English
  

  Hi again, ATEGers!
      I already have a question for you! Perhaps I should have sent this to a dialectology listserv, but I trust this group to have more than one person who knows this subject matter better than most.
     I'm working on a project over the summer that I want to use with local secondary schools (11th and 12th graders) here in north Alabama to initiate conversations about language variety, dialects, etc. I want to eventually convey the idea of what many of these students speak (Southern American English, African American English, Chicano English, etc) is in no way bad, lazy or any other prescriptive nonsense, but just different varieties of English with their own structures and rich histories. Basically, I need a way to quickly debunk their own insecurities about their language competence and get them thinking descriptively (this part of a larger project to teach grammar within this context).
     The best way I've found to break down language myths is to expose them for what they are using 1) examples of systematicity within dialects and 2) tidbits of historical linguistic accounts of the language variety in question.
    Systematicity I'm comfortable with, but historical linguistics is a relatively new field for me. Thanks to lots of great, easily accessible materials on African American English and Chicano English, I've had no problems pulling together some highlights of the language history, the processes of sound and syntactic change, etc. However, with Southern American English, I'm having more of a problem. 
     I want to be able to tell the students where their language variety comes from, where their non-standard grammatical features can be traced to, etc. I've got a couple of leads on the Scots-Irish immigrants, especially in north Alabama, but my searches aren't turning up much.
    Is there a particular author(s) that someone can recommend for this topic or some particular works? Herb, based on your posts, I thought you might have some ideas of what I should be looking for to unravel the history of Southern American English. Is there a standard work to consult?
    I would be glad to provide more specific examples of the kind of questions I have, but I thought it might be easier to start out with just a broad question and see if any references come up.
    Thanks for any help you can provide! 
       Jed
    
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