More sociolinguistics in the news … the AAE Vowel Shift

This piece from the Raleigh Public Record reports on work on African-American English in the capitol of North Carolina by Erik Thomas, Robin Dodsworth and others. Thomas is a leading figure in sociophonetics, including important research on the African-American English Vowel Shift. It's striking how little the AAE Shift has been discussed in the media to date. Here's hoping this is the beginning of a wave of journalism to fill that gap.