Please sit in your study
groups.
Get a copy of The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn from the
box in the front of the room.
Take out your notebooks and
open to the Literary Concepts
section.
Vernacular
everyday spoken language
informal language
non-academic, non-standard
language
Dialect
The version of a language spoken by
people of a particular region or
cultural group.
Dialects are cultural or regional
Differs from the “standard” language
in grammar, vocabulary, and usage.
Different from an “accent.”
 LIST OF ENGLISH DIALECTS
List of dialects of the English
language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American English
Cultural
African-American Vernacular English
Chicano English
General American
New York Latino English
Pennsylvania Dutchfield English
Yeshivish
Yinglish
List of dialects of the English
language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regional
American English
 Inland Northern American English (includes western and central
upstate New York)
 Mid-Atlantic dialects
 Inland North American (Lower peninsula of Michigan, northern Ohio
and Indiana, the suburbs of Chicago, part of eastern Wisconsin and
upstate New York)
 North Central American English (primarily Minnesota, but also most
of Wisconsin, the Upper peninsula of Michigan, and parts of North
Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
 Midland American English
 Southern English
 Western English
 READ “Introduction” (pages 267-270). Answer
the following questions in writing as you read:
1.
“People…enjoy it on more than one level” (p. 267, para. 2). What are
the different levels the book can be read and enjoyed from?
2. What are the “matters of urgent concern to young Americans today”
that the book deals with?
3. PEOPLE IN ACTION: From what perspective is the book narrated?
How does this affect the reader’s perspective?
4. GAMES, LIES AND THE TRUTH: What “concern” is at the core of this
novel?
5. READING IN DEPTH: How does Twain use language differently in
this book?
6. What is VERNACULAR?
7. What did novelist Ernest Hemingway write about Huckleberry Finn
(quote)?
8. Identify and explain the two different types of IRONY.
9. What are the two main SYMBOLS in this novel?
10. VOCABULARY OF SPECIAL TERMS: What kinds of words may be
unfamiliar?
INTERNET RESEARCH HOMEWORK
Spend 30 MINUTES reading AT LEAST THREE
ACADEMIC Internet sites relating to the
controversies surrounding the book.
TYPE “HUCK FINN CONTROVERSY” or “HUCK FINN
DEBATED” or “BANNED BOOKS” into a search engine
on the Internet.
Fill out the chart (at least 10 points on each
side).
Write down your Internet sources.