This project investigates the questions of whether urbanization leads to linguistic convergence or divergence, whether it affects all social groups in the same way, and whether it leads to the loss, maintenance, or reanalysis of rural dialect features. Moreover, it asks whether language change (specifically grammatical change) requires language contact or whether it can take place in situations of insularity and isolation, and if so, how such changes can be spread. The study is based on interview material recorded in four communities in Texas: a large metropolitan area, a medium-sized city, a small town, and a rural village; and involves analysis of a number of features that correlated with rural/urban residence study in a pilot study.
