Wallace's Dialects (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781501371134)

Mary Shapiro explores the use of regional and ethnic dialects in the works of David Foster Wallace, not just as a device used to add realism to dialogue, but as a vehicle for important social commentary about the role language plays in our daily lives, how we express personal identity, and how we navigate social relationships.

Wallace's Dialects straddles the fields of linguistic criticism and folk linguistics, considering which linguistic variables of Jewish-American English, African-American English, Midwestern, Southern, and Boston regional dialects were salient enough for Wallace to represent, and how he showed the intersectionality of these with gender and social class. Wallace's own use of language is examined with respect to how it encodes his identity as a white, male, economically privileged Midwesterner, while also foregrounding characteristic and distinctive idiolect features that allowed him to connect to readers across implied social boundaries.

Author: Mary Shapiro
ISBN-10: 1501371134
ISBN-13: 9781501371134
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Language: English
Published: 12/30/2021
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.48d