ABSTRACT
[In 1981 James J.Kohn became one of the first American scholars allowed back into China after the Cultural Revolution. He taught English for a year at Shandong University and studied Mandarin. As Kohn notes, much American literature, particularly ethnic literature, routinely represents accents and dialects. Asian American literature continues this tradition. Kohn—not only a Mandarin speaker but a Columbia graduate with a specialty in linguistics—points out that the literary representation of dialects, so characteristic of American literature, has philosophic implications and problematic overtones. He reviews half a century of research and offers conclusions of his own.— Eds.]
Perhaps, also, in America, since the period of national independence, there has always been in the literary consciousness a background of hope that the popular native style might turn out to be the prince in disguise after all, that America might have in its immediate possession an original and unique literary medium of expression which when illustrated by the writinngs of genius would take its place among the perfected languages of the world. Certain it is that few American authors have been able to resist the temptation to experiment in the literary possibilities of the popular speech.—George Philip Krapp, The English Language in America, Vol. 1., p. 225 (New York: Ungar Publishers, 1966).
