The Detroit Dialect Study: Accessing a foundational study on the social stratification of American English

The Detroit Dialect Study (DDS) is one of the earliest foundational studies of social stratification in American English and the most expansive survey of an urban area ever undertaken in sociolinguistics. The DDS, led by Dr. Roger Shuy, systematically gathered and analyzed data to determine the linguistic patterns at play across race, sex, social class, and age, and the results of this study have informed work on educational policy regarding vernacular American English dialects. At the same time, the DDS allows for deeper insights into the development of African American Language and the spread of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift at a much greater time-depth than current digitized collections, essential for linguists interested in the mechanisms of language variation and change over time. In this audio feature, we discuss the newly digitized and publicly available Detroit Dialect Study with original audio from the DDS to highlight linguistic patterns and important stories. We also include audio interviews with sociolinguists Roger Shuy, Walt Wolfram, and Ralph Fasold, who were all involved with the DDS. We hope to highlight the rich data available within, as well as different ways the dataset can be used today.