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Abstract:

The study examines regional lexical variation in written Standard California English. The frequencies of 45 continuous lexical alternation variables are gathered through site-restricted web searches in 334 online newspaper websites based in 273 locations in California and then calculated as proportions. Statistical techniques analyze global and local spatial autocorrelation values. The results of the analysis, represented in 90 maps, confirm the regional distribution of the variables in California. The 45 lexical variables are then analyzed with multivariate techniques to identify the linguistic relations between the surveyed California cities. Factor analysis, which accounts for 50.5% of the variation in the data, highlights three dimensions in the regional lexical distribution: north/south, urban/rural, central and lower southern/upper southern and northern areas. The cluster analysis also distinguishes six major dialect regions in California: the North dialect region, the Sacramento-Santa Cruz dialect region, the San Francisco Bay Area dialect region, the Central dialect region, the Upper Southern dialect region, and the Lower Southern dialect region. Five multivariate maps summarize the findings. The explanation of the results is based both on historical settlement patterns and on socio-cultural factors, which are reflected in the language in California.