"Penny Dyer is an inspiration to work with" Helen Mirren "An indispensible aid for actors" Bill Nighy "Penny takes away the fear of an accent for the actor" David Morrissey "Accurate, specific and enabling, these CDs are as fundamental as the use of voice itself" Michael Attenborough "Invaluable for the modern actor" Michael Sheen "Penny Dyer on a CD. What more could I want" Kelly Reilly An essential tool for actors needing to develop an accent at a moments notice. Top voice coach, Penny Dyer, voice coach to Helen Mirren on The Queen and who has worked with Nicole Kidman, Reece Witherspoon and Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Strong (Cassandra, Only Fools and Horses) present an hour long voice coaching session on CD. The audio contains examples of the accent from a locally born and bred person; a short history of the accent/dialect; a voice coaching lesson between an actor and Penny Dyer who will explain the phonetics, rhythm etc with numerous examples to listen to and then try; a short extract from a play. A small booklet will include some phonetic notes, transcripts of the accent examples, the play example, the background on the accent and an Introduction. An invaluable resource for every actor's library.

This volume unites nineteen papers on core topics in linguistics: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and phraseology of English, exploring both synchronic and diachronic aspects of the English language. The papers have been collected to honour D. J. Allerton, who has taken a keen interest in all of these fields throughout his professional life. He has just retired from his professorship at the university of Basel where he has been professor of English linguistics since 1980. The authors of the contributions are colleagues and former students, all of whom felt inspired by his way of doing linguistics. Topics covered range from the Great Vowel Shift to contemporary changes in World Englishes, and from theoretical questions on the sound system and word formation patterns of English to more applied topics in phraseology and the lexicon.

The Edinburgh Companion to Scots is a comprehensive introduction to the study of older and present-day Scots language. The aim of the volume is to explain and illustrate methods of research into Scots and Scottish English. Topics include the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of contemporary speech in Scotland, and the investigation of Older Scots written texts. There is further coverage of issues such as modern literary Scots, language planning, placenames and personal names, and the development of Scots overseas. Each chapter gives a brief overview of the topic, and provides case studies to illustrate avenues of exploration for those beginning to develop research techniques. The book is designed as an accessible introduction to key issues and methods of investigation for undergraduate students interested in the way language has developed in Scotland.

Used properly jargon can be effective, but used incorrectly it can damage communications, waste time and money, and harm public, patient and staff relations. This book will enable and encourage readers to use language that the intended audience will understand. It provides practical advice based on the author's experience of producing National Health Service documents and contains explanations of common NHS jargon, with alternatives. Plain speaking and writing techniques are included, and there are numerous examples from real NHS management communications. This is an invaluable book for Health Service managers, clinicians with management responsibilities and all those responsible for communicating information about healthcare.

Have you ever wondered about the origin of son of a gun, flotsam and jetsam, or hunky-dory? Youll find the nautical derivation of these expressions and more than 250 others in this collection of nautical metaphors and colloquialisms. In addition, this book includes thought-provoking and entertaining examples of these words drawn from literature, movies, and song, and contains sections of legends of the sea and weather lore. Fascinating reading for sailors and language enthusiasts alike.

Heres the scuttlebutt: Barge right in and swallow the anchor, and lets chew the fat and splice the main brace til were three sheets to the wind. Listen, you son of a sea cook, Im tired of minding my Ps and Qs. I tell you, Im all at sea, and this is the bitter end. Nothing I can do will keep this ship on an even keel. Hells bells! You think I didnt tell it to the old man? Delivered a broadside, I did, but he just called me a loose cannon. Maybe I caught him between wind and water. Listen, mate. Youd better bootleg a bible aboard. Were sailing under false colors, and where were headed its cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Its Davy Jones locker Im talking about. The crew was scraped from the bottom of the barrel. They dont know the ropes, and anyway theyre deserting like rats from a sinking ship. Its time to fish or cut bait, mate, or therell be the devil to pay. No use flogging a dead horse. Lets stay armed to the teeth and look for any port in a storm. Therell be nothing but flotsam and jetsam when this tub goes down the hatch.

This volume tells the story of the English language in Ireland over the first millennium. It explains how speakers of English, Scots and Irish Gaelic forged a linguistic amalgam that was carried around the world. It shows how the distilled essence of the language of the three communities provided a rich medium for writers, and suggests that this variety has contributed greatly to World English. The book traces the history of the English language in Ireland, its relationship with Irish Gaelic, its development into varieties now known as Anglo-Irish, Ulster Scots and Hiberno-English, and its spread to other parts of the world, including North America, Australia, Britain, the Caribbean and Africa. The book also includes a dictionary of Irish words in English.

Defining the geographical space of linguistic variation and drawing the areal distribution of linguistic variants are classical issues in dialectology. Over recent decades, advances in geolinguistic methods, along with new trends in the study of linguistic variation, have significantly shaped new ways of approaching limits and areas in dialectology.This volume is at the crossroads of recent methodological and conceptual developments in dialectology and brings together contributions offering an unusual panorama of case studies from Basque, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic languages. The seventeen chapters in this volume address a wide spectrum of issues exploring new approaches to the interplay of dialect areas and time and society (Part I), current quantitative methods of studying dialect limits (Part II), and linguistic geovariation focused on lexical, prosodic, syntactic or morphosyntactic topics (Part III).One of the unique features of the volume is the important collection of contributions addressing issues of dialect syntax, a recent and rapidly growing field of linguistic research.