Part I. American English: 1. American English: its origins and history Richard W. Bailey; 2. The distinctiveness of American English Edward Finegan; 3. Regional American dialects William Kretzschmar; 4. Social varieties of American English Walt Wolfram; 5. African-American vernacular English Lisa Green; 6. The dictionary of American regional English Joan Houston Hall; Part II. Other Language Varieties in the USA: 7. Multilingualism and non-English mother tongues Joshua A Fishman; 8. Creole languages in the United States: forging new identities Patricia Nichols; 9. Native American languages Akira Y. Yamamoto and Ofelia Zepeda; 10. Spanish in the northeast Ana Celia Zentella; 11. Spanish in the southwest Carmen Silva-Corvalán; 12. American sign language Ceil Lucas and Clayton Valli; 13. Asian American voices Thom Huebner and Linda Uyechi; 14. Linguistic diversity and English language acquisition Robert Bayley; Part III. The Sociolinguistic Situation in the USA: 15. Language ideology and language prejudice Rosina Lippi-Green; 16. Ebonics and its controversy John Baugh; 17. Language policy and English-only Terrence G. Wiley; 18. Language and Education Lily Wong Fillmore; 19. Adolescent language Penelope Eckert; 20. Slang Connie Eble; 21. Rap and hip hop H. Samy Alim; 22. Language, gender and sexuality Mary Bucholtz; 23. Language and identity in American literature James Peterson; 24. The language of doctors and patients Cynthia Hagstrom; 25. The language of cyberspace Denise E. Murray; 26. Language attitudes to US speech Dennis R. Preston.