Language Variation and Change in Rural Communities

Despite the difficulty of delineating the rural from the urban according to economic or demographic criteria, this distinction has powerful cultural resonances, and language plays a key role in constructing the cultural divide between rural and urban. Sociolinguists have generally devoted more attention to urban communities, but substantial research has explored language variation and change in rural areas, and this scholarship complements the perspective gained from studies of metropolitan speech. This article reviews research on rural speech communities that examines the linguistic dimensions of the urban/rural divide as well as social dynamics driving language variation and change in rural areas. One theme emerging from this literature is the role of dialect contact and how its effects are shaped by material as well as attitudinal factors.