English in North America: Accounting for its Evolution
This chapter surveys the history of American English through the lenses of the Dynamic Model (DM) of the evolution of Postcolonial Englishes and the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces (EIF) Model. Proceeding chronologically through the five phases of the Dynamic Model as described in Schneider (2007), it identifies the most important forces which affected the evolution of the variety in each phase. Canadian English is also covered briefly. A summary section compares the two approaches. It finds that while the DM works well, the EIF Model highlights causes of developments. The paper suggests that socio-psychological forces (notably, identities and attitudes) need to be considered prominently and that apparently extra-territorial forces operate more strongly in early developmental phase while intra-territorial forces gain in importance in later phases.