Additionally, rather than permanently relocating, the contact between the different groups at SIUC is interrupted by students leaving for three months of summer break and one month of winter break every year, thereby preventing speakers of the displaced dialects from becoming isolated from their original anchor dialects. While the groups in contact remain consistent, individual student comprising the populations of these groups come and go every year. First, the contact situation at SIUC is made up of fluid populations of highly mobile individuals-undergraduates. However, the dialect contact situation at SIUC is different from these previous studies. The dialect mixture that arises from countless single instances of interpersonal accommodation will, under many circumstances, lead to koinéization or new dialect formation. These “migrants” settle permanently in the new area and become isolated from their original anchor dialects. Previous studies of dialect contact involve situations created by migrations of large populations of settlers moving to a new area.

The linguistic contact that takes place at SIUC is unique. The speech of undergraduates at SIUC is subject to the processes of dialect contact and accommodation as a result, regional speech features are lost in favor of an overarching SIUC dialect norm or koiné. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) is a site of linguistic diversity where speakers of three major dialects of American English-Northern, Midland, and Southern-are brought into contact with one another.

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