Southern Min refers to a group of Chinese dialects spoken mainly in Southeast China and Taiwan. This group occupies a special position in the study of Chinese dialects, not only because of its large population of speakers (around 48 million) but also because of its preservation of various archaic linguistic features long lost in other dialects. In this book, B.C. Kwok applies the comparative method on new fieldwork data to reconstruct the common sound system of 'Proto-Southern Min', from which all modern Southern Min varieties emerged. The syllable initials, finals and tonal categories of Proto-Southern Min are illustrated by more than 500 examples. In addition, this book offers an alternative view on the subgrouping of 12 Southern Min varieties. It proposes that the Quanzhou dialect and the Zhangzhou dialect form the two main branches of the dialect group. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars in the fields of historical linguistics and Chinese dialectology.

This volume seeks to extend and expand our current understanding of the processes of language standardization, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine how linguistic variation plays out in various ways in everyday life in Denmark. The book compares linguistic variation across three different rural speech communities, underpinned by a transversal framework, which draws upon different methodological and analytical approaches, as well as data from different contexts across different generations, and results in a nuanced and dynamic portrait of language change in one region over time. Examining communities with varying degrees of linguistic variation with this multi-layered framework demonstrates a broader need to re-examine perceptions of language standardization as a unidirectional process, but rather as one shaped by a range of factors at the local level, including language ideologies and mediatization. A concluding chapter by eminent sociolinguist David Britain brings together the conclusions drawn from the preceding chapters and reinforces their wider implications within the field of sociolinguistics. Offering new insights into language standardization and language change, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and linguistic anthropology.

This book offers a concise introduction to synchronic English linguistics. Following an introduction to language and linguistics as such, it provides detailed descriptions of the different language levels: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and meaning in language (comprising semantics and pragmatics). Furthermore, one chapter deals with constructional approaches to English grammar. The final chapter serves as an outlook on the application of linguistic theory in various domains of language use, including historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and forensic linguistics. Every chapter contains specific exercises that help to rehearse the key concepts introduced in this book.

"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.

The origins of Basque dialects, a highly disputed area of research in Basque studies, are examined. The author, the foremost expert on Basque dialects, traces their emergence to medieval times, using: a) the profusion of features common to all dialects: b) the large number of innovations common to all dialects; and c) the fact that the only truly divergent dialects are the western and Souletin ones. In contrast, the three central dialects differ in far fewer and less important respects. The main contribution of Standard Basque and Its Dialects to the scholarly debate about the formation of Basque is that it identifies the nuclei from which the current dialects almost certainly emerged. The book explains the points of view that Basque speakers have upheld concerning their dialects, the formation of provincial standards starting in the eighteenth century, and the launch of Standard Basque in the second half of the twentieth century.

Social processes and the nature of language variation have driven sibilant variation across the Spanish-speaking world. This book explores the current state of Spanish sibilants and their dialectal variations. Focusing on different processes undergone by sibilants in Spanish (e.g., voicing, devoicing, weakening, aspiration, elision) in various geographical areas and language contact situations, each chapter offers an analysis on a unique sociolinguistic case from different formal, experimental, and data-based approaches. The opening chapter orients the reader with an overview of sibilant system's evolution, which serves as an anchor to the other chapters and facilitates understanding for readers new to the topic. The volume is organized around three thematic sections: part one, Spain; part two, United States; and part three, Central and South America. The collection includes research on dialects in both Peninsular and Trans-Atlantic Spanish such as Jerezano, Caribbean Spanish in Boston and New York City, Cuban Spanish in Miami, Colombia-Barranquilla Spanish, northern Buenos Aires Argentine Spanish, and USA heritage Spanish, among other case studies. This volume offers an original and concise approach to one of the most studied variables in Spanish phonetics, taking into account geographically-based phonetic variation, sociolinguistic factors, and various Spanish language contact situations. Written in English, this detailed synthesis of the wide-ranging geolinguistic features of Spanish sibilants provides a valuable resource for scholars in Hispanic studies, linguistics, Spanish dialectology and sociolinguistics.

Southern Min refers to a group of Chinese dialects spoken mainly in Southeast China and Taiwan. This group occupies a special position in the study of Chinese dialects, not only because of its large population of speakers (around 48 million) but also because of its preservation of various archaic linguistic features long lost in other dialects. In this book, B.C. Kwok applies the comparative method on new fieldwork data to reconstruct the common sound system of 'Proto-Southern Min', from which all modern Southern Min varieties emerged. The syllable initials, finals and tonal categories of Proto-Southern Min are illustrated by more than 500 examples. In addition, this book offers an alternative view on the subgrouping of 12 Southern Min varieties. It proposes that the Quanzhou dialect and the Zhangzhou dialect form the two main branches of the dialect group. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars in the fields of historical linguistics and Chinese dialectology.

This volume was inspired by the 9th edition of the Phonetik & Phonologie conference, held in Zurich in October 2013. It includes state of the art research on phonetics and phonology in various languages and from interdisciplinary contributors. The volume is structured into the following eight sections: segmentals, suprasegmentals, articulation in spoken and sign language, perception, phonology, crowdsourcing phonetic data, second language speech, and arts (with inevitable overlap between these areas).

Identity and Dialect Performance discusses the relationship between identity and dialects. It starts from the assumption that the use of dialect is not just a product of social and demographic factors, but can also be an intentional performance of identity. Dialect performance is related to identity construction and in a highly globalised world, the linguistic repertoire has increased rapidly, thereby changing our conventional assumptions about dialects and their usage. The key outstanding feature of this particular book is that it spans an extensive range of communities and dialects; Italy, Hong Kong, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Japan, Germany, The Sudan, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, US, UK, French Guiana, Colombia,and Libya.

This volume offers qualitative as well as corpus-based quantitative studies on three domains of grammatical variation in the British Isles. All studies draw heavily on the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus (FRED), a computerized corpus for predominantly British English dialects comprising some 2.5 million words. Besides an account of FRED and the advantages which a functional-typological framework offers for the study of dialect grammar, the volume includes the following three substantial studies. Tanja Herrmann's study is the first systematic cross-regional study of relativization strategies for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and four major dialect areas in England. In her research design Hermann has included a number of issues crucial in typological research on relative clauses, above all the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. Lukas Pietsch investigates the so-called Northern Subject Rule, a special agreement phenomenon known from Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. His study is primarily based on the Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech, but also on the FRED and SED data (Survey of English Dialects) for the North of England. Susanne Wagner is concerned with the phenomenon of pronominal gender, focussing especially on the typologically rather unique semantic gender system in the dialects of Southwest England. This volume will be of interest to dialectologists, sociolinguists, typologists, historical linguists, grammarians, and anyone interested in the structure of spontaneous spoken English.

From abdabs to zit From pillock (14th century) to couch potato (20th century) From She'll be apples (Australia) to the pits (USA) This new collection brings together some 5,000 contemporary slang expressions originating in all parts of the English-speaking world. It gives clear and concise definitions of each word, supplemented by examples of their use and information about where and when they came into being. This entertaining reference work will be of use to students of English at all levels and a source of fascination to word-lovers throughout the world.

First published in 1942, this dictionary was designed to help civilians and members of H.M. forces to make their way amid the jungle of wartime abbreviations. The preface notes that newspaper readers, sailors, soldiers and airmen had to thrust themselves, like explorers, into these abbreviations in search of truth, or the execution of their martial duty and hence, a dictionary was necessary. This book will be of interest to scholars of history and language, as well as the more general, interested reader.

This book, first published in 1933, examines the dialect of the people of Byers Green in County Durham. Orton explores the possible reasons behind why the dialect has signs of external influences, and the ways in which it differs to the dialects of other populations in County Durham. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

London Jamaican provides the reader with a new perspective on African descent in London. Based on research carried out in the early 1980s, the author examines the linguistic background of the community, with special emphasis on young people of the first and second British-born generations.

Although Cockney can be considered to be one of the most important non-standard forms of English, there had been little to no scholarly attention on the dialect prior to William Matthews's 1938 volume Cockney Past and Present. Matthews traced the course of the speech of London from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century by gathering information from many sources including plays, novels, music-hall songs, the comments of critics and the speech and recollections of living Cockneys. This book will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

First published in 1980, this book questions many of the assumptions that have accumulated around the subject of intonation as it occurs in spontaneous speech, as well as texts read aloud. The book suggests alternative ways of examining the subject and primarily uses data derived from Edinburgh speech, which is explicitly compared with descriptions of standard southern English (RP). The book critically examines many conventional assumptions made about the formal features of intonation, particularly 'tonic' or primary stress', and about the functions of intonation, specifically rising intonation. A model of intonation is presented which demonstrates that the limited resources of intonation are exploited by several different expressive systems. This approach is justified in detailed analysis of extensive stretches of speech, supported by instrumental analysis as well as by experiments which elicit judgements by both naive and phonetically trained judges. This book will be of interest to students of linguistics, English Language, speech therapy, and English as a Foreign Language, as well as historians interested in the history of language.

First published in 1987, this atlas identifies structural patterns which exist in the sound systems of the dialects of England. It regards variation, not as something to be ignored or avoided, but as a central and essential feature of dialect, which must be accounted for in a systematic way. The study identifies some of the more prominent structural boundaries between dialect areas and argues that discrete boundaries do not exist: rather there are a number of areas separated by bands of dialects in which conflicting partial systems exist.

Based on a 500,000 word corpus of early sources collected from ex-slave narratives, ex-slave recordings, and interviews with hoodoo priests, this book reconstructs the English spoken by African Americans between 1830 and 1920. By means of detailed quantitative analyses, three linguistic features (negation patterns, copula usage, and relative marker choice) are interpreted along the lines of temporal change, regional diversity, and variation across gender. Additionally, some 300 non-standard letters written by African Americans in the 19th century are compared to the main corpus in order to identify differences between speech and writing.

The Handbook of Dialectology provides an authoritative, up-to-date and unusually broad account of the study of dialect, in one volume. Each chapter reviews essential research, and offers a critical discussion of the past, present and future development of the area. The volume is based on state-of-the-art research in dialectology around the world, providing the most current work available with an unusually broad scope of topics Provides a practical guide to the many methodological and statistical issues surrounding the collection and analysis of dialect data Offers summaries of dialect variation in the world's most widely spoken and commonly studied languages, including several non-European languages that have traditionally received less attention in general discussions of dialectology Reviews the intellectual development of the field, including its main theoretical schools of thought and research traditions, both academic and applied The editors are well known and highly respected, with a deep knowledge of this vast field of inquiry

While it is accepted that the pronunciation of English shows wide regional differences, there is a marked tendency to under-estimate the extent of the variation in grammar that exists within the British Isles today. In addressing this problem, Real English brings together the work of a number of experts on the subject to provide a pioneer volume in the field of the grammar of spoken English.

Examines the ways language has changed in the twentieth century. It concentrates on standard English and takes a historical rather than sociolinguistic view of the changes which have occurred.

Are you a beaver cleaver or the office bike? Would you rather pack fudge or munch carpet? Do you content yourself with paddling the pickle as you're still a cherry boy? Sex Slang will not only give you 3,000 words to talk about your favourite pastimes, but also open your eyes to practices you didn't even know existed. All words are illustrated by a reference from a variety of sources to prove their existence. This naughty book will give you a spectacular sexual vocabulary from all over the English speaking world, as well as hours of reading pleasure.

Accents and dialects are constantly undergoing small variations over time, but evidence shows that change may have become increasingly rapid in the past few decades. 'Urban Voices' presents one of the few recent surveys of this phonological variation and change in urban accents across Great Britain and Ireland. Each of the specially commissioned chapters is divided into two parts. The first provides a detailed description of accent features within one or more urban centres, including information on social and stylistic variation and ongoing change. The second discusses a range of current theoretical and methodological issues. Some chapters present wholly new data based on fieldwork carried out specifically for inclusion in 'Urban Voices', while others summarise data from well-known research, up-dated and reanalysed in accordance with new findings. Containing copious illustrative and pedagogic material, this textbook presents a clear pathway to state-of-the-art research for students of sociolinguistics, dialectology, phonetics, and phonology at advanced undergraduate and graduate level. In addition, the detailed descriptive data and the accompanying cassette constitute a valuable resource for students and teachers of English, clinicians and speech therapists, forensic phoneticians, researchers in speech recognition and speech synthesis, and actors. Contributors: Deborah Chirrey, Edge Hill University College / Beverley Collins, Rijks Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands / Gerard J Docherty, University of Newcastle, UK / Paul Foulkes, University of Leeds, UK / Nigel Hewlett, Queen Margaret College / Raymond Hickey, University of Essen, Germany / Paul Kerswill, University of Reading, UK / Anne Grethe Mathisen, University of Oslo, Norway / Kevin McCafferty, Universitetet i Tromso, Norway / Inger Mees, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark / Lesley Milroy , University of Michigan, USA / Mark Newbrook, Monash University, Australia / James M Scobbie, Queen Margaret College, UK / Jana Stoddart, Olomouc, Czech Republic / Jane Stuart-Smith, University of Glasgow, UK / Laura Tollfree, Monash University, Australia / Peter Trudgill, University of Fribourg, Switzerland / Alice Turk, University of Edinburgh, UK / Clive Upton, University of Leeds, UK / Dominic Watt, University of Leeds, UK / J D A Widdowson, University of Sheffield, UK / Ann Williams, University of Reading, UK.

Studies in Language and Linguistics General Editors- Geoffrey Leech, Department of Modern English Language, Lancaster University and Jenny Thomas, School of English and Linguistics, University of Wales, Bangor Broad-ranging and authoritative, Studies in Language and Linguistics is an occasional series incorporating major new work in all areas of linguistics. Variation in English- Multi-Dimensional Studies provides both a comprehensive view into a relatively new technique for studying language, and a diverse, exciting collection of studies of variation in English. The first part of the book provides an explanation of multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a research technique for studying language variation. MD is a corpus-based approach developed by Doug Biber that facilitates large-scale studies of language variation and the investigation of research questions that were previously intractable. The second part of the book contains studies that apply Biber's original MD analysis of English to new domains. These studies cover the historical evolution of English; specialized domains such as medical writing and oral proficiency testing; and dialect variation, including gender and British/American. The third part of the book contains studies that conduct new MD analyses, covering adult/child language differences, 18th century speech and writing, and discourse complexity. Readers of this book will become familiar with the analytical techniques of multi-dimensional analysis, with its applicability to a wide variety of language issues, and with the findings of important studies previously published in diverse journals as well as new studies appearing for the first time.

This socio-linguistic study throws new light on variation and the defining of register in Arabic political discourse. The research is based on three dialects (Egyptian, Iraqi and Libyan) and on political speeches delivered by Gamal Abdunnasir, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Al Gadhdhafi.