Sociolinguistic Constructs of Ethnic Identity: The Syntactic Delineation of an American Indian English (Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 87)

Sociolinguistic Constructs of Ethnic Identity examines ethnic language boundaries displayed in the various uses of the verb be in a multiethnic community in Robeson County, North Carolina. Clare J. Dannenberg demonstrates that ethnic identity is a dynamic process that shifts over time and social space. Ethnic groups that have been stripped of their ancestral source language, like the Lumbee Indians, may be quite resilient and able to carve out unique language varieties in their replacement language.