The Dictionary of American Regional English or (DARE) is a multi-volume reference tool that records the thousands of words, phrases, and pronunciations that vary from one part of our country to another. Four volumes have been published by Harvard University Press, with a fifth expected in 2008. DARE is used by teachers, writers, librarians, physicians, forensic linguists, journalists, and historians, as well as by readers who simply delight in the variety, wit, and wisdom found in the quotations that illustrate each entry in the Dictionary.
For the first time, the World Congress of Applied Linguistics will be held in the United States, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The theme of the conference is "The Future is Now" – a future where language is a means to express ideas that were unthinkable, to cross boundaries that seemed to be unbridgeable, and to share our local realities with people who live continents away. English Professor Richard Young is chairing this year's conference.
(rev. 8/2004)
news from the English department