Methodological Approaches

Using the theoretical tools presented in the preceding chapters, Chapter 15 explains how a systematic analysis and comparison of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British and American English data – drawing on English orthoepists on one hand and New England and New York town records on the other – can identify a host of features showing signs of linguistic convergence which are revealed in Part III (Chapters 16–24). These detailed descriptions are complemented by a study of Franklin, Barlow, and Dwight’s poetry, particularly the analysis of thousands of rhymes. To my knowledge, this systematic comparative analysis of British and American sources has never been attempted on such a scale (cf. Beal 1999).The similarities between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American and British English data contribute to a more refined identification of the colonial New England English “feature pool” and the phonetic ranges of Wells lexical sets and other key words that have been added to this study. Systematic comparisons with conservative British and North American dialects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provide additional, often surprising, evidence that has rarely been investigated (Ihalainen 1994). These data are particularly revealing when British and American dialectal features are similar or identical.The ultimate objective is to identify, as precisely as possible, the multiple pronunciations that characterized the colonial New England koine and American koines more generally. This includes presenting the phonetic ranges of Wells lexical sets and other key words. More specifically, Part III aims to reconstruct Franklin’s native Boston accent – shaped in part by Philadelphia influences – by studying sources predating his long stay in England. Additionally, the study explores how English sources of linguistic transmission in the motherland contributed to the development of colonial American varieties. I believe this represents one of the major contributions of this book.The diachronic approach adopted here is inspired by Mazarin’s four-phase breakdown of the phonological history of English between 1500 and 1800.