"An Introduction to American English" explores American English in the context of American history and institutions, while also making comparisons with British English.

List of Figures.List of Tables.Preface.Introduction.Recommended Reading.Part I: Writing it and Saying it:1. Introduction.2. Writing American or British..3. The Pronunciation of American English.Individual Sounds.Stress.Recommended Reading.Dictionaries.Part II: American History for Language Students:1. Introduction.2. Geography: Background.3. Before English.4. The Colonial Period.5. From Independence to Civil War.Territorial Expansion.The Civil War 1861 - 5.6. After the Civil War.Reconstruction in the South 1865 - 77.The Situation of African Americans.Further Territorial Expansion.Industrial and Financial Expansion; Immigration.Social Problems and Labor Relations.The Women's Movement.Religious Movements and Fundamentalism.Foreign Politics.Domestic Politics in the Twentieth Century.Recommended Reading.Websites.Part III: Running America: Government and Education:1. Introduction.2. Government According to the US Constitution.The Amendments.Governmental Institutions.3. Political Parties.4. Elections.5. State and Local Government.6. Education.Public Schools.Higher Education.Recommended Reading.Website.Part IV: Life and Language in the United States:1. Introduction.2. Holidays.3. Eating in America, Shopping and Paying.4. Living Quarters.5. What to Wear.6. Getting Around.7. Names in North America.Place Names.Personal Names.8. Life and Language.Recommended Reading.Part V: American English Vocabulary: A Systematic View:1. Introduction.2. What is an Americanism?.3. How Can we Find Out About Differences between American and British English?Dictionaries.Corpora.4. A Typology of Differences.A Form-Based Classification.A Classification Based on Semantic Categories.5. Slang.6. Enlarging and Changing the Vocabulary.Combining.Blends.Shifting.Shortening.Loanwords.Creations and Words of Unknown Origin.Recommended Reading.Some Useful Dictionaries.Corpora.Part VI: Caught Out or Caught Off Base? Metaphors in American English:1. Introduction.2. Money and Business Metaphors.3. Food Metaphors.4. Sports Metaphors.5. Transportation Metaphors: Trains, Cars, and Highways.6. Gun Metaphors.7. Political Metaphors.8. Spatial Metaphors: Where It's At.Recommended Reading.Part VII: The Grammar of American English:1. Introduction.2. Nouns and Articles.Articles.The Genitive.Number.Concord/Agreement.3. Verbs and Auxiliaries.Verb Forms (Morphology).Verb Complementation.Aspect and Tense.Phrasal Verbs.Activo-Passives.The Mandative Subjunctive.Tag Questions.Questions with How Come? 4. Pronouns.Personal Pronouns.Demonstrative Pronouns.Relative Pronouns and Other Relative Markers.Indefinite Pronouns.5. Adjectives.6. Adverbs and Adverbials.Adverb or Adjective?Indefinite Adverbs: Someplace, Anyplace, Noplace. Special Uses of Adverbs: Sure, Enough, Ever. Adverb Placement.7. Prepositions.8. Conjunctions.9. Concluding Remarks.Recommended Handbooks.Part VIII: Using English in the United States.1. Introduction.2. Spoken Interaction.What Can you Talk About?Openings and Closings.Making the Right Noises: Vocalizations and Marginal Words Backchannels.Discourse Markers and Hedges.Verbs of Saying, "Quotatives".Telephone Calls.3. Politeness in Interaction: Talking to Others.Thanking.Excuses and Apologies.Forms of Address.Compliments.Self-Assertiveness in Conversation.Expressions of Emotions, Swearing and Cursing.4. Politeness and Political Correctness: Talking About Others.Gender and Language.Ethnic Minorities.Sexual Minorities.Other Minorities.Political Correctness.Recommended Reading.Corpus. Part IX: Varieties of American English:1. Introduction: Regional and Social Variation in Language.2. Dialectology and Sociolinguistics.3. Regional Dialects.The North-East.The South.Features of Other American Dialects.4. Social Varieties (Sociolects).Sociolinguistic Variation in New York City.Widespread Non-Standard Features.5. Ethnic Varieties.Black English/African American Vernacular English.Chicano English.Other Ethnic Varieties.6. Varieties and StandardsRecommended Reading.Websites. Part X: Language Politics in the United States: English and Other Languages:1. Introduction.2. Population Structure and Linguistic Diversity.3. Native American Languages.4. Immigrant Languages.5. Language Politics in the United States.Language and Education: A Historical Survey.For "Official English".Against "English Only".English Language Laws.Bilingual Education: The Case of California.6. American English in the United States and in the World.Recommended Reading.Websites.Bibliography.Linguistic Glossary. Index of Alphabetisms and Acronyms.Index of Zip Codes for States. Subject Index.Word Index.