Dialect topography of Quebec City English

Quebec City has had an anglophone community for 250 years. A representative sample of this community was surveyed using the methods known as Dialect T opography. The analysis establishes the distinctiveness of Quebec City Engl ish but at the same time shows that it is firmly planted in the Canadian En glish speech community. It is shown that there are significant correlations with three social factors: (1) Language Use Index, which allows a calculat ion of the extent of each respondent's use of English in the francophone se tting; (2) age, the principal correlate of changes in progress; and (3) Reg ionality Index, which separates indigenes, the natives of the region, from interlopers, recent arrivals. Although the results show that the distinctiv eness may be threatened by the persistence of interloper variants, in most respects Quebec City English favours the same variants as the rest of Canad a, albeit with different frequencies and often with a unique historical dev elopment.