This sociolinguistic study of Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based contact language widely used in Nigeria alongside Standard English and nearly 500 indigenous languages, argues that though Nigerian Pidgin is lexically based on English, it is a language in its own right with a stable structure, important functions, and potential for further development.

"Bastard Tongues "is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human--what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible. The story focuses on languages so low in the pecking order that many people don't regard them as languages at all--Creole languages spoken by descendants of slaves and indentured laborers in plantation colonies all over the world. The story is told by Derek Bickerton, who has spent more than thirty years researching these languages on four continents and developing a controversial theory that explains why they are so similar to one another. A published novelist, Bickerton (once described as "part scholar, part swashbuckling man of action") does not present his findings in the usual dry academic manner. Instead, you become a companion on his journey of discovery. You learn things as he learned them, share his disappointments and triumphs, explore the exotic locales where he worked, and meet the colorful characters he encountered along the way. The result is a unique blend of memoir, travelogue, history, and linguistics primer, appealing to anyone who has ever wondered how languages grow or what it's like to search the world for new knowledge.

American lexicography has a distinguished and familiar tradition. Elwyn (1859) is intended as a corrective response to the excessive identification of Americanisms, but in fact represents what one might term the 'traditionalist' position. Fallows (1883) is significant as a treatment of Americanisms and Briticisms for a general audience. Norton (1890) is a specific application to American political life.

Part of the series on American English from 1781 to 1921, Volume VIII includes a guide to the phonetics of American English with the purpose to provide a rational method of examining pronunciation, the most important of the practical aspects of speech. Also included is American English (1921) that reflects the progressive development of the author's ideas on the subject over a forty-year period. It consists of a critical discussion of works on Americanisms, a list of 'exotic' or supposed Americanisms which appear in the primary collections of Americanisms, a list of 'real' Americanisms which do not appear in those works, a list of misunderstood Americanisms, and finally a bibliography.

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Available individually, or as part of the eight-volume set "American English: 1781-1921." For a complete list of volume titles in this set, see list for "American English: 1781-1921" [ISBN: 0-415-27964-X].

Series Information:
One World Archaeology

The sociolinguistic study presented here offers insights 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. The data of this study is based on video and audio recordings of the speeches and, in order to determine the language varieties used by the speakers, phonological, morphophonological, syntactic and lexical data is analyzed. Notions such as phonological convergence, communicative competence, prestigious versus dominant dialects, together with mechanisms of code-switching and code-mixing are examined. There is an attempt to relate language form to function in discourse, i.e. the relationship between the speaker's use of language and the subject of his discourse, and a discussion of the concept of "involvement" in Arabic political discourse. Functional and stylistic parallels in Arabic and English political oratory are also studied. Given that applicability and representativeness of the data go beyond its local stance, the work draws conclusions about the "universality" of language strategies

Archaeology and Language I represents groundbreaking work in synthesizing two disciplines that are now seen as interlinked: linguistics and archaeology. This volume is the first of a three-part survey of innovative results emerging from their combination.
Archaeology and historical linguistics have largely pursued separate tracks until recently, although their goals can be very similar. While there is a new awareness that these disciplines can be used to complement one another, both rigorous methodological awareness and detailed case-studies are still lacking in literature. Archaeology and Language I aims to fill this lacuna.
Exploring a wide range of techniques developed by specialists in each discipline, this first volume deals with broad theoretical and methodological issues and provides an indispensable background to the detail of the studies presented in volumes II and III. This collection deals with the controversial question of the origin of language, the validity of deep-level reconstruction, the sociolinguistic modelling of prehistory and the use and value of oral tradition.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203205839

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Reprint of the second (1939) edition of the work that is still the standard source-book of the Anglo-Indian language.

Containing around 17,000 headwords and detailed phonetic descriptions, this book makes available for the first time the material gathered by the historic "Survey of English Dialects," fully alphabetized. A separate section provides a systematic analysis of the syntactic patterns of various dialects. The book is an indispensable tool for dialectologists worldwide.

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

This edited book brings together experts on the sociolinguistics of immigration with a focus on the Italo-Romance dialects. Sociolinguistic research on immigrant communities in Italy has widely studied the acquisition and use of Italian as L2 by first-generation immigrants, the maintenance of immigrant languages and code-switching between Italian and the immigrant languages. However, these studies have mostly ignored or neglected to investigate immigrant speakers' use of Italo-Romance dialects, their awareness of the sociolinguistic situation of majority and minority languages, and their attitudes towards them. Given the important role of Italo-Romance dialects in everyday communication and as a marker of regional identity, this book aims to fill this gap and understand more about the role that these languages play in the linguistic repertoire of immigrants. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, minority languages, multilingualism, migration, and social anthropology.

This book is the first comprehensive, research-based description of the development, structure, and use of Welsh English, a contact-induced variety of English spoken in the British Isles. Present-day accents and dialects of Welsh English are the combined outcome of historical language shift from Welsh to English, continued bilingualism, intense contacts between Wales and England, and multicultural immigration. As a result, Welsh English is a distinctive, regionally and sociolinguistically diverse variety, whose status is not easily categorized. In addition to existing research, the present volume utilizes a wide range of spoken corpus data gathered from across Wales in order to describe the phonology, lexis, and grammar of the variety. It includes discussion of sociolinguistic and cultural contexts, and of ongoing change in Welsh English. The place that Welsh English occupies in relation to other Englishes in the Inner and Outer Circles is also analysed. The book is accessible to the non-specialist, but of particular use to scholars, teachers, and students interested in English in Wales, Britain, and the world. It provides an unparelleled resource on this long-standing and vibrant variety.

The starting date of the fourth volume of Julie Coleman's pioneering history marks the appearance of the most influential slang dictionary of the twentieth century, Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, produced at a time when the Depression had broken down traditional working-class communities; the United States was a still-reluctant world power; and another world war was inevitable. If the First World War unsettled combatants' minds, the second unsettled society. It challenged values around the world and, as the author shows, offered new opportunities for vibrant self-expression. Lexicographers recorded a rich harvest of words and phrases from around the world, reflecting new-found freedoms from convention, increased social mobility, and the continued rise of the mass media. Julie Coleman's account ranges across the English-speaking world. It will fascinate all those interested in slang and its reflections of social and cultural change.

"American Voices "is a collection of short, readable descriptions of various American dialects, written by top researchers in the field.
written by top researchers in the field and includes Southern English, New England speech, Chicano English, Appalachian English, Canadian English, and California English, among many others
fascinating look at the full range of American social, ethnic, and regional dialects written for the lay person

This book continues Julie Coleman's acclaimed history of dictionaries of English slang and cant. It describes the increasingly systematic and scholarly way in which such terms were recorded and classified in the UK, the USA, Australia, and elsewhere, and the huge growth in the publication of and public appetite for dictionaries, glossaries, and guides to the distinctive vocabularies of different social groups, classes, districts, regions, and nations. Dr Coleman describes the origins of words and phrases and explores their history. By copious example she shows how they cast light on everyday life across the globe - from settlers in Canada and Australia and cockneys in London to gang-members in New York and soldiers fighting in the Boer and First World Wars - as well as on the operations of the narcotics trade and the entertainment business and the lives of those attending American colleges and British public schools.
The slang lexicographers were a colourful bunch. Those featured in this book include spiritualists, aristocrats, socialists, journalists, psychiatrists, school-boys, criminals, hoboes, police officers, and a serial bigamist. One provided the inspiration for Robert Lewis Stevenson's Long John Silver. Another was allegedly killed by a pork pie.
Julie Coleman's account will interest historians of language, crime, poverty, sexuality, and the criminal underworld.

As the crow flies'', ''chunder'', ''cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'', ''three sheets to the wind'' - many terms like these are used in everyday English language conversation and writing. But how many landlubbers know that they derive from naval slang or know what the phrase originally referred to? The navy has helped to shape modern society. The navy is famous for its traditions, quirks and nuances. It is disinctly different to wider society and nowhere is this more evident than in language. The naval community once had its own language, incomprehensible to anyone who was not a sailor, which described and explained his unique world. But on shore leave these men introduced their language to the populations of bustling ports and harbours and the usage slowly spread inland. Today through the mediums of film, television and music, naval slang has been brought to the wider public and has become fully integrated into the English language to point where many phrases are used by people who have no concept of their meaning. Presenting terminology thematically, this book provides a compilation of naval slang throughout the world, from terms relating to ship-handling and seamanship through to food and drink, discipline and insults. The text is further enhanced with original black line drawings that illustrate certain technical terms, such as ''splice the mainbrace''.

In this pioneering exploration of African American slang - a highly informal vocabulary and a significant aspect of African American English - Maciej Widawski explores patterns of form, meaning, theme and function, showing it to be a rule-governed, innovative and culturally revealing vernacular. Widawski's comprehensive description is based on a large database of contextual citations from thousands of contemporary sources, including literature and the press, music, film and television. It also includes an alphabetical glossary of 1,500 representative slang expressions, defined and illustrated by 4,500 usage examples. Due to its vast size, the glossary can stand alone as a dictionary providing readers with a reliable reference of terms. Combining scholarship with user-friendliness, this book is an insightful and practical resource for students and researchers in linguistics, as well as general readers interested in exploring lexical variation in contemporary English.

Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles aims to introduce the reader to the exciting and important field of pidgin and creole studies. The book deals with the linguistic, historical and social aspects of the development of pidgin and creole languages. Detailed case studies of individual pidgins and creoles are based around texts drawn from a range of different types and contexts (mainly contemporary), with discussion and grammatical notes. Chapters are interspersed with exercises to consolidate and develop the reader's understanding.