SOURCE: Woolley, Lisa. “Dialect is a Virus: Chicago's Literary Vernacular Amid Linguistic Purity Movements.” In American Voices of the Chicago Renaissance, pp. 16-38. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Woolley discusses the issues surrounding the use of dialect and immigrant speech in the writings of the authors of the Chicago Renaissance, noting that although these practices seem somewhat racist due to the stereotypes they represent, the use of linguistic dialect in the writing of the time was in fact a response to prejudice in language and expression.

[T]h' best way to masther th' language iv anny furrin' counthry is to inthrajooce ye'er own. … Faith, whin us free born Americans get through with th' English language we'll make it look as though it had been run over be a musical comedy.

—Mr. Dooley, in “Mr. Dooley on Slang,” by Finley Peter Dunne, 39

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