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Notes on Montreal English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2016

Donald E. Hamilton
Donald E. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Collége Militaire Royal, St-Jean
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Extract

The following notes are based on findings obtained in a pilot study of the speech of English-speaking residents of Montreal, which was carried out from 1957 to 1958. The data was obtained by circulating a questionnaire designed to elicit information on vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar and syntax. In general, the choice of items for inclusion in this questionnaire was restricted to those which illustrate differences between British and American usage. In the vocabulary section, a further restriction was made in that no items pertaining exclusively to rural life were included.

With respect to the selection of informants there were several deviations from the established methods of linguistic surveys. In most surveys it is usual to insist that informants belong to families which have been established in the area under investigation for several generations, and that they speak no other language but English.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Fall 1958 , pp. 70 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association. 1958

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References

* Paper presented the Canadian Linguistic Association on June 12th 1958, at Edmonton.

1 Cassidy, Frederic W., “A Method of Collecting Dialect”, Publication of the American Dialect Society. XX, (Nov. 1953) : 10 Google Scholar.

2 Avis, W. S., “Speech Differences Along the Ontario-United States Border : Pronunciation”, JCLA. II. 2, (Oct. 1956) : 43 Google Scholar.

3 Munroe, Helen C., “Montreal English”, American Speech, V, (Oct. 1929) : 21 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 21.

5 McLay, W. S. W., “A Note on Canadian Speech”, American Speech, V, (Apr. 1930) : 329 Google Scholar.

6 Unless otherwise indicated the term American refers to the Northern variety of American speech.

7 Also used around Philadelphia according to Kurath, Hans, A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, p. 62.

8 Figures quoted for Ontario vocabulary are from : Avis, W. S., “Speech Differences Along the Ontario-United States Border; Vocabulary”, JCLA, I. 1 (Oct. 1954) : 13–18 Google Scholar.

9 Kurath, Hans, op. cit., p. 52.

10 Ibid., p. 56.

11 References to Ontario usage are from : Avis, W. S., “Speech Differences Along the Ontario-United States Border : Pronunciation”, JCLA, II. 2, (Oct. 1956) : 41–59 Google Scholar.

12 Also standard In British English.