| Discipline | Linguistics |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Thomas C Purnell |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1925–present |
| Publisher | Duke University Press on behalf of theAmerican Dialect Society |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| 0.800 (2009) | |
| Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt) NLM (alt) · MathSciNet (alt  ) | |
| ISO 4 | Am. Speech |
| Indexing CODEN (alt · alt2) · JSTOR (alt) · LCCN (alt) MIAR · NLM (alt) · Scopus · W&L | |
| ISSN | 0003-1283 (print) 1527-2133 (web) |
| LCCN | 27021844 |
| OCLC no. | 644323257 |
| Links | |
American Speech is a quarterlyacademic journal of theAmerican Dialect Society, established in 1925 and currently published byDuke University Press. It focuses primarily on theEnglish language used in theWestern Hemisphere, but also publishes contributions on other varieties of English, outside influences on the language, andlinguistic theory.[1]
The current editor is Thomas Purnell (University of Wisconsin–Madison).
TheChronicle of Higher Education's Lingua Franca considers it a "consistently reliable peer-reviewed source of information" and states that "though it is scholarly and research based, there’s a surprising amount of information that is intelligible to anyone, even without special training in linguistics."[2]
The journal was established in 1925 byKemp Malone,Louise Pound, andArthur G. Kennedy "to present information about English in America in a form appealing to general readers", and was inspired byH. L. Mencken.[3]
According to Mencken:
The record informs me that I was the pa ofAmerican Speech—a fact that somewhat surprises me, for I have a poor memory and I am not normally given to good works.[4]
It became the official journal of the American Dialect Society in 1970.[3]
In addition to research articles,American Speech publishes a section titled "Among the New Words", which reports on recentneologisms and provideslexicographical documentation of their uses and origins. The section was introduced to the journal in 1941 byDwight Bolinger. The section frequently discusses the words nominated for the American Dialect Society'sWord of the Year selection.[5]
This journal is indexed by the following services:
