TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

Dialect work is one of the actor's most challenging tasks. Need to know a Russian accent? Playing a German countess or a Midwestern farmhand? These and more accents a " from Yiddish to French Canadian a " are clearly explained in Evangeline Machlin's classic work.

Now available in a book-and-CD format, Evangeline Machlin's Dialects for the Stage is based on a method of dialect acquisition she developed during her years working with students at Boston University's Division of Theatre. During her long career, Evangeline Machlin trained such actors as Steve McQueen, Lee Grant, Suzanne Pleshette, Joanne Woodward, and Faye Dunaway.

"Word from the Mother" presents a definitive statement on African American English from the hugely respected linguist, Geneva Smitherman; and her message is clear: black American speech enriches, rather than undermines, general American English.
Written with flashes of African American language throughout, the work gives an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, and provides a vision for the future. Demonstrating the stark contrast between the perceptions of the language from those outside the community, with the views of African Americans, the author explores the relationship between language and race, and the reflection of gender in language practices.
From her discussion on rhyme and rhetoric in the black speech community, to the summary of African American idioms and expressions, Geneva Smitherman argues that 'bilingualism' is necessary for all Americans if they are to take their place in the global village.
Including cartoons, poetry and hip hop lyrics which humorously illustrate her argument, Word from the Mother is a an essential read for students of African American English, language and culture and sociolinguistics, as well as the general reader interested in the worldwide adoption of black popular culture.

Language and Region:

• provides an accessible guide to regional variation in English
• covers topical issues including loss of regional diversity and attitudes to regional accents and dialects
• examines the use of dialect in media, advertising and the tourist industry
• outlines the main linguistic characteristics of regional accents and dialects in terms of regional pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

Affording hands-on practical experience of textual analysis, this book is essential reading for students of English language studies.

This volume, composed mainly of papers given at the 1999 conferences of the Forum for German Language Studies (FGLS) at Kent and the Conference of University Teachers of German (CUTG) at Keele, is devoted to differential yet synergetic treatments of the German language. It includes corpus-lexicographical, computational, rigorously phonological, historical/dialectal, comparative, semiotic, acquisitional and pedagogical contributions. In all, a variety of approaches from the rigorously 'pure' and formal to the applied, often feeding off each other to focus on various aspects of the German language.

The 'story' of English is continually re-told and re-written, as more and more people use the language and have a part in shaping the way it develops. Varieties of Modern English provides a critical introduction to the study of regional, social, gendered, context- and medium-related varieties of the language, and explores some of the debates concerning the role and impact of English in different parts of the world today. Beginning by outlining the main types of variation in language, the book focuses on the link between language or dialect and the construction of both group and individual identities. Issues of identity are crucial to chapters on the roots of Modern English, on gender and English, on ethnicity and English and on English as an international language. As well as looking at a range of 'users' of the language, Davies also explores many of its 'uses' and modes, including the English of literary texts, advertising, newspaper reporting and commentary, political speeches, email and text messaging. Written in a discursive, student-friendly style, the book also provides: * A rich mix of illustrative material * End-of-chapter Activities and related Comments at the end of the book * Suggestions for further reading Varieties of Modern English provides a thought-provoking overview of its subject and will be invaluable reading for students of English Language and Linguistics.

"Routledge Language Workbooks "provide absolute beginners with practical introductions to core areas of language study. Books in the series provide comprehensive coverage of the area as well as a basis for further investigation. Each "Language Workbook "guides the reader through the subject using 'hands-on' language analysis, equipping them with the basic analytical skills needed to handle a wide range of data. Written in a clear and simple style, with all technical concepts fully explained, "Language Workbooks "can be used for independent study or as part of a taught class.
"Dialects":
* introduces the many dialects of English spoken in the United Kingdom
* reveals the key issues that dialectology engages with
* uses both the international phonetic alphabet and simple representations of sounds to explain pronunciations
* involves readers in collecting data
* contains numerous illustrative maps
* is written in a lively and engaging style, with information on 'posh and less-posh' dialects and spotting your dialect area.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the First International Conference on English Historical Dialectology (ICEHD), organized at the University of Bergamo in September 2003. It includes papers on fundamental aspects of English historical dialectology, from Old English to Late Modern English. The papers discuss points in two thematically distinct but related sections, 'Methods' and 'Data'. The volume also includes the transcript of a debate on methodological issues, in which the main themes are the principles of historical investigation of geographical varieties, the new approaches provided by corpus linguistics and computer technology, and the need for greater awareness of textual reliability.

Coptic is the language of the Ancient Egyptians written in Greek letters (with some additions) and though it is no longer spoken it is still the liturgical language of the Coptic Christians of Egypt. It is thus of great interest to those learning ancient Egyptian as well as those who want to study one of the earliest Christian traditions. This well-known grammar, first published in 1977 and revised in 1983, does not pretend to be an exhaustive study of the Coptic language, but aims to provide an introduction to the basic structure of Coptic Grammar as succinctly as possible; the dialect chosen for this task being Sahidic, the principle literary tongue.

Topic of this volume is Pomattertitsch, a German dialect which is doomed to extinction. This Allemanic (Walser) dialect is spoken at Formazza, a tiny Alpine community in Italy, and after centuries of semi-secluded existence is now undergoing major transformations due to the rapidly declining number of its speakers and the limited range of its functions. Within the framework of language decay and death this analysis focuses on phenomena of linguistic variation at a morphosyntactic level. This comprehensive study includes a large body of spoken data collected from informants of different age groups and with different levels of language fluency and thus displays a unique picture of an endagered language.

The Indo-Aryan languages, spoken by at least 700 million people in the Republic of India, in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldive Islands, and in countries where immigrants from South Asia have settled, constitute a major group within the Indo-European family. They have a claim to great antiquity, with the earliest Vedic Sanskrit texts dating to the end of the second millennium B.C. This language family supplies a historical documentation of language change over a longer period than any other subgroup of Indo-European. Further, the interaction between Indo-Aryan and Dravidan, Munda, and Tibeto-Burmese languages as well as Arabic and other Indo-European languages affords a rich field of study for borrowing and adaptation. Major features of Indo-Aryan languages have been described before, but there is a need for a synoptic treatment of these languages.

The Intertext series has been specifically designed to meet the needs of contemporary English Language Studies. Working with Texts: A Core Introduction to Language Analysis (second edition 2001) is the foundation text, which is complemented by a range of 'satellite titles. These provide students with hands-on practical experience of textual analysis through special topics, and can be used individually or in conjunction with Working with Texts.
Language Change:

• examines the way external factors have influenced and are influencing language change, focusing on how changing social contexts are reflected in language use
• explores the attitudes, values and assumptions that shape the way we use language
• looks at how language change operates within different genres, such as problem pages, sports reports and recipes
• provides lively examples from everyday communication, including letters, emails, postcards and text messages
• includes a unit on how new words are formed and features a full glossary.

Series Information:
RoutledgeCurzon Arabic Linguistics Series

Polari is a secret form of language mainly used by homosexual men in London and other cities during the twentieth century. Derived in part from the slang lexicons of numerous stigmatised and itinerant groups, Polari was also a means of socialising, acting out camp performances and reconstructing a shared gay identity and worldview among its speakers. This book examines the ways in which Polari was used in order to construct 'gay identities', linking its evolution to the changing status of gay men and lesbians in the UK over the past fifty years.

eBook available with sample pages: 020316704X

This volume presents the long-anticipated results of several decades of inquiry into the social origins and social motivation of linguistic change.* Written by one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics* Features the first complete report on the Philadelphia project designed to establish the social location of the leaders of linguistic change* Includes chapters on social class, neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, and social networks that delineate the leaders of linguistic change as women of the upper working class with a high density of interaction within their neighborhoods and a high proportion of weak ties outside of it

Despite the advances of radio and television and increasing mobility and urbanization, spoken English is by no means becoming more like the written standard. English dialect grammar, however, is still a new and relatively undeveloped area of research, and most studies to date are either restricted regionally, or based on impressionistic statements. This book provides the first thorough empirical study of the field of non-standard negation across Great Britain.


eBook available with sample pages: 0203167503

This book studies the differences of pronunciation and grammar that exist within the Spanish-speaking world, and traces their origins in the frequent mixing of dialects in Spanish-speaking communities from the Middle Ages to the present day. It emphasizes the subtlety and seamlessness of language variation, both geographical and social, and shows how the constant process of mixing has rendered Spanish particularly subject to leveling of its linguistic irregularities and to simplification of its structures, both in Europe and later in the Americas.

What determines whether we say She gave him a book instead of She gave a book to him? The author views this 'dative alternation' as a sociolinguistic variable and explores its distribution across different British English dialects, registers and time frames. It thereby offers a novel, language-external explanation of the choice of one construction over the other and sheds new light on British dialect syntax.

Creolization of Language and Culture is the first, fully revised, English edition of Robert Chaudenson's landmark text Des îles, des hommes, des langues.
Referring to the main varieties of creole French, Chaudenson argues against the traditional account of the origins of creoles for a more sophisticated view which takes account of the peculiar linguistic and social factors at play in colonial societies.
This is an accessible book which makes an important contribution to the study of pidgin and creole language varieties, as well as to the development of contemporary European languages outside Europe.
Key features include:
*Analysis of current debates on the development of creoles
*Discussion of many aspects of human culture including music, medicine, cooking, magic and folklore
*Translation into English of all French sources from which Chaudenson quotes extensively

Multi-Dimensional studies (MD) is a new statistical approach to language variation developed by Doug Biber. The methodology involved in this approach means that for the first time, using corpora of spoken and written language from different periods, we can demonstrate how language varies from one type of text to another, for example, how American style varies from British. Doug Biber begins Variation in English: Multi-Dimensional Studies with a discussion of the methodology required and emphasizes the new insights into language variation and use that can be gained from the MD approach.

In response to the flood of interest in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) following the recent controversy over "Ebonics," this book brings together sixteen essays on the subject by a leading expert in the field, one who has been researching and writing on it for a quarter of a century.

Rickford's essays cover the three central areas in which questions continue to come in from teachers, students, linguists, the news media, and interested members of the public:
What are the "features" of AAVE/Ebonics and how is it used?
What is its "evolution" and where is it headed?
What are its "educational" implications?

The answers to these questions are sometimes matters of controversy even within linguistics, the scientific study of language, but Rickford's essays - written between 1975 and 1998 - provide an informed commentary on them based on systematic research rather than the opinionated misinformation that dominated media commentary on Ebonics.

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

The book series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie, founded by Gustav Groeber in 1905, is among the most renowned publications in Romance Studies. It covers the entire field of Romance linguistics, including the national languages as well as the lesser studied Romance languages. The editors welcome submissions of high-quality monographs and collected volumes on all areas of linguistic research, on medieval literature and on textual criticism. The publication languages of the series are French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian as well as German and English. Each collected volume should be as uniform as possible in its contents and in the choice of languages.

We rarely speak or even write in the complete sentences that are often held to be the ideal form of linguistic communication. Language is, in fact, full of gaps, because speakers and writers operate in contexts which allow bits of language to be understood rather than expressed. This book systematically analyses this inherent gappiness of language, known as ellipsis, and provides an account of the different contexts, both linguistic and situational, which affect its use. Peter Wilson draws on a wide variety of examples of spoken and written English, and both literary and non-literary to present a comprehensive classification of elliptical language that ranges from the conversational fragment and the advertisement to the dialogue of Shakespeare and imagist poetry. Mind the Gap shows how ellipsis is a feature of major structural and stylistic importance to our understanding of spoken and written language, and will be of interest to undergraduate students of linguistics, literature, communication and the interrelations between them..