An Analysis and Comparison on the Northern and Southern Dialectal Variations of the American English

Abstract

The scope of this paper is the comparison of two English dialects located on the United States of America: the North and South. Both dialects were chosen by their main defining feature chain shift. In the North, the Northern Cities Shift is fully operative and widely extended among the territory. Meanwhile, in the South, the Southern Shift and the Backing Upglide may seem completed but there are no evidences on the correlation of all the stages as it happens in the North. It worth reminding that Chain Shifts are common in the English language as it happened at the end of Middle English; this peculiarity marked the beginning of the Modern English era. Chain shifts in this paper are also treated as important material which shoul d be included in the learning language process, because they increase the acceptable phonetic chart for those learners who have difficulties with the two main taught branches: British English and American English