The Handbook of Language Variation and Change

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change

Author: J. K. Chambers

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 0470756500

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The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, written by a distinguished international roster of contributors, reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline in its multifaceted pursuits. It is a convenient, hand-held repository of the essential knowledge about the study of language variation and change. Written by internationally recognized experts in the field. Reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline. Discusses the ideas that drive the field and is illustrated with empirical studies. Includes explanatory introductions which set out the boundaries of the field and place each of the chapters into perspective.


Speaking of Alabama

Speaking of Alabama

Author: Thomas E. Nunnally

Publisher: University Alabama Press

Published: 2018-12-18

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 081731993X

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Informative and entertaining essays on the accents, dialects, and speech patterns particular to Alabama Thomas E. Nunnally’s fascinating volume presents essays by linguists who examine with affection and curiosity the speech varieties occurring both past and present across Alabama. Taken together, the accounts in this volume offer an engaging view of the major features that characterize Alabama’s unique brand of southern English. Written in an accessible manner for general readers and scholars alike, Speaking of Alabama includes such subjects as the special linguistic features of the Southern drawl, the “phonetic divide” between north and south Alabama, “code-switching” by African American speakers in Alabama, pejorative attitudes by Alabama speakers toward their own native speech, the influence of foreign languages on Alabama speech to the vibrant history and continuing influence of non-English languages in the state, as well as ongoing changes in Alabama’s dialects. Adding to these studies is a foreword by Walt Wolfram and an afterword by Michael B. Montgomery, both renowned experts in southern English, which place both the methodologies and the findings of the volume into their larger contexts and point researchers to needed work ahead in Alabama, the South, and beyond. The volume also contains a number of useful appendices, including a guide to the sounds of Southern English, a glossary of linguistic terms, and online sources for further study. Language, as presented in this collection, is never abstract but always examined in the context of its speakers’ day-to-day lives, the driving force for their communication needs and choices. Whether specialist or general reader, Alabamian or non-Alabamian, all readers will come away from these accounts with a deepened understanding of how language functions between individuals, within communities, and across regions, and will gain a new respect for the driving forces behind language variation and language change.


A Dictionary of Varieties of English

A Dictionary of Varieties of English

Author: Raymond Hickey

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-02-03

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 0470656417

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A Dictionary of Varieties of English presents a comprehensive listing of the distinctive dialects and forms of English spoken throughout the contemporary world. Provides an invaluable introduction and guide to current research trends in the field Includes definitions both for the varieties of English and regions they feature, and for terms and concepts derived from a linguistic analysis of these varieties Explores important research issues including the transportation of dialects of English, the rise of ‘New Englishes’, sociolinguistic investigations of various English-speaking locales, and the study of language contact and change. Reflects our increased awareness of global forms of English, and the advances made in the study of varieties of the language in recent decades Creates an invaluable, informative resource for students and scholars alike, spanning the rich and diverse linguistic varieties of the most widely accepted language of international communication


Legacies of Colonial English

Legacies of Colonial English

Author: Raymond Hickey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-02-24

Total Pages: 742

ISBN-13: 9781139442381

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As a result of colonization, many varieties of English now exist around the world. Originally published in 2005, Legacies of Colonial English brings together a team of internationally renowned scholars to discuss the role of British dialects in both the genesis and subsequent history of postcolonial Englishes. Considering the input of Scottish, English and Irish dialects, they closely examine a wide range of Englishes - including those in North and South America, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand - and explain why many of them still reflect non-standard British usage from the distant past. Complete with a checklist of dialect features, a detailed glossary and set of general references on the topic of postcolonial Englishes, this book will be an invaluable source to scholars and students of English language and linguistics, particularly those interested in sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology.


New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South

New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South

Author: Michael D. Picone

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2015-03-15

Total Pages: 824

ISBN-13: 0817318151

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An outgrowth of the Language Variety in the South III symposium, New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches comprises forty-five original essays on a range of topics regarding the languages and dialects of the American South. Book jacket.


Old Northumbrian Verbal Morphosyntax and the (Northern) Subject Rule

Old Northumbrian Verbal Morphosyntax and the (Northern) Subject Rule

Author: Marcelle Cole

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-07-15

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9027269912

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This volume provides both a quantitative statistical and qualitative analysis of Late Northumbrian verbal morphosyntax as recorded in the Old English interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels. It focuses in particular on the attestation of the subject type and adjacency constraints that characterise the so-called Northern Subject Rule concord system. The study presents new evidence which challenges the traditional Early Middle English dating attributed to the emergence of subject-type concord in the North of England and demonstrates that the syntactic configuration of the Northern Subject Rule was already a feature of Old English. By setting the Northumbrian developments within a broad framework of diachronic and diatopic variation, in which manifestations of subject-type concord are explored in a wide range of varieties of English, the author argues that a concord system based on subject type rather than person/number features is in fact a far less local and more universal tendency in English than previously believed.


English Around the World

English Around the World

Author: Jenny Cheshire

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1991-04-26

Total Pages: 708

ISBN-13: 9780521395656

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The social development of English as a world language emerges from a comprehensive account of our current knowledge of it as well as the gaps in understanding which future research can remedy.


Functionalist and Usage-based Approaches to the Study of Language

Functionalist and Usage-based Approaches to the Study of Language

Author: K. Aaron Smith

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-03-15

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9027264481

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The contributions to this volume honor Joan Bybee’s 2005 LSA Presidential address “Grammar is Usage and Usage is Grammar,” as a cumulative articulation of Professor Bybee's long and influential career in linguistics. The volume begins with a functional examination of child language acquisition of ergative languages. The next three contributions successively investigate the grammaticalization of Greek postural verbs, Spanish third person pronouns, and American Sign Language topicalization constructions. The two following papers report on usage-based phonological studies of Spanish /s/ and /d/, respectively. The book concludes with four papers that address usage-based effects concerning the grammatical status of ain’t in African American English, Spanish verbs of “becoming”, and English lexis and prefabs. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience of functional and cognitive linguistic researchers.