Trudgill, P. (1997) Acts of Conflicting Identity: The Sociolinguistics of British Pop-Song
Pronunciation. In N. Coupland (ed.) Sociolinguistics: A Reader. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Whether or not you have an /r/ sound after your vowels or at the end of
words, you will probably find these articles of interest. Elliott’s study looks
at (r) in the speech of actors, while Trudgill examines the (r) variable in the
recorded work of The Beatles and similar bands. Note the difference in
dates on the articles. Read and compare them in terms of methodology and
data. Does one seem better argued than the other? Do they complement each
other? How might you approach a study like this in the present day?
Sultan, T. (2006) It’s Not the Sights, It’s the Sounds. The New York Times, March 17.
A non-linguist’s view of linguistic fieldwork, based on observing William
Labov.
The Language Lab website at the University of Pennsylvania is a bit
confusing and could be better organized, but there’s lots of interesting
information about studies past and present, if you dig a bit.
The Harvard American Dialect Survey will allow you to look more closely
at distributions over space.
http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/index.html.
The Dictionary of American Regional English concentrates on lexical items,
and provides very detailed background information and etymologies:
http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/132.
The Great Pop/Soda Controversy is the subject of a detailed website,
because, of course, you can never get too much sugar and caffeine.
http://popvssoda.com:2998/.
The Phonological Atlas of North America website provides detailed
information about language differentiation over space. “A National Map of
the Regional Dialects of American English” is somewhat technical, but very
interesting.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NationalMap.html.