Walter Spencer Avis

Walter Spencer Avis (B.A. 1949 Queen's University, M.A. 1950 Queen's University and PhD 1955 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) was one of the foremost Canadian linguists of his day.[1] Throughout the 1950s to his death at age 60,[2] Avis' mission has been described as "plant[ing] into the minds of his compatriots the notion of Canadian English (CanE) as related but different from other "Englishes"."[3]

Avis was the editor-in-chief of the first edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Born in Toronto in 1919, Avis belonged to the first generation of PhD-level trained linguists in Canada.[4] He published as of 1950 in the areas of historical linguistics, dialectology, linguistic variation, Canadian English and the budding field of sociolinguistics.

Positions and Honours

From 1952 to his death in 1979, Avis was professor of English at Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario. He was a long-term secretary of the Canadian Linguistic Association, President from 1968–70, and was slated to become president-elect of the American Dialect Society in January 1980;[5] however, he died suddenly in December 1979.

Death

Avis died in December 1979 from a heart attack.[6]

Major works
  • Avis, Walter S., Patrick D. Drysdale, Robert J. Gregg, Victoria E. Neufeldt and Matthew H. Scargill (eds). 1983. Gage Canadian dictionary. Toronto: Gage.
  • Avis, Walter S. (ed.-in-chief), Charles Crate, Patrick Drysdale, Douglas Leechman, Matthew H. Scargill and Charles J. Lovell (eds). 1967. A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Toronto: Gage.
  • Avis, Walter S. and A. M. Kinloch (eds). [1978]. Writings on Canadian English, 1792-1975. An annotated bibliography. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1973. The English language in Canada In Current trends in linguistics. Vol. 10/1, Thomas Sebeok (ed.), 40-74. The Hague: Mouton.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1972. So Eh? is Canadian, Eh? Canadian Journal of Linguistics 17(2): 89-104.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1956. Speech differences along the Ontario-United States border. III: Pronunciation. Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association 2(1, Mar.): 41-59.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1955. Speech differences along the Ontario-United States border. II: Grammar and syntax. Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association 1(1, Mar.): 14-19.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1954. Speech differences along the Ontario-United States border. I: Vocabulary. Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association 1(1, Oct.): 13-18.
  • Avis, Walter S. 1950. The speech of Sam Slick. MA Thesis, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

Notable Canadian dialectologists and historical linguists

References
  1. Drysdale, Patrick (1980). "Walter S. Avis - A Tribute". English World-Wide. 1 (1): 125–128. doi:10.1075/eww.1.1.11dry.
  2. Peck, Frances (21 November 2017). "The Story of Canadian English". Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  3. Dollinger, Stefan. "How old is 'eh'? On the early history of a (Canadian) shibboleth". Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  4. Dollinger, Stefan. The Professor and the Mountaineer: Inventing Canadian English. ?. p. 18.
  5. Kinloch, Murray (1980). "Walter S. Avis: 1919 - 1979". Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  6. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-linguistics-revue-canadienne-de-linguistique/article/walter-s-avis-1919-1979/DEB17A60CF70919837446B33CBB5BB19
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