Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Suzanne Romaine's main concern is to show how language and discourse play key roles in understanding and communicating gender and culture. In addition to linguistics--which provides the starting point and central focus of the book--she draws on the fields of anthropology, biology, communication, education, economics, history, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The text covers the "core" areas in the study of language and gender, including how and where gender is indexed in language, how men and women speak, how children acquire gender differentiated language, and sexism in language and language reform. Although most of the examples are drawn primarily from English, other European languages and non-European languages, such as Japanese are considered. The text is written in an accessible way so that no prior knowledge of linguistics is necessary to understand the chapters containing linguistic analysis. Each chapter is followed by exercises and discussion questions to facilitate the book's use as a classroom text.
The author reviews scholarly treatments of gender, and then uses her own data material from the corpora of spoken and written English usage. Special features include an examination of contemporary media sources such as newspapers, advertising, and television; a discussion of women's speculative fiction; a study of gender and advertising, with special attention paid to the role played by language in these domains; and a review of French feminist thought, particularly as it relates to the issue of language reform.

Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Suzanne Romaine's main concern is to show how language and discourse play key roles in understanding and communicating gender and culture. In addition to linguistics--which provides the starting point and central focus of the book--she draws on the fields of anthropology, biology, communication, education, economics, history, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The text covers the "core" areas in the study of language and gender, including how and where gender is indexed in language, how men and women speak, how children acquire gender differentiated language, and sexism in language and language reform. Although most of the examples are drawn primarily from English, other European languages and non-European languages, such as Japanese are considered. The text is written in an accessible way so that no prior knowledge of linguistics is necessary to understand the chapters containing linguistic analysis. Each chapter is followed by exercises and discussion questions to facilitate the book's use as a classroom text.
The author reviews scholarly treatments of gender, and then uses her own data material from the corpora of spoken and written English usage. Special features include an examination of contemporary media sources such as newspapers, advertising, and television; a discussion of women's speculative fiction; a study of gender and advertising, with special attention paid to the role played by language in these domains; and a review of French feminist thought, particularly as it relates to the issue of language reform.

This volume deals with the history of the English language from 1776 to the present day. An extensive introduction details the changing socio-historical setting in which English has developed in response to a continuing background of diversity as it was transplanted to North America and beyond. Separate chapters on pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary chronicle the core linguistic features of the language during this period. In addition, there are chapters on English as a literary language, English grammar and usage, and place names. A separate volume on North American English is in preparation.

This book defines and describes the linguistic features of these languages and considers the dynamic developments that bring them into being and lead to changes in their structure.

Suzanne Romaine defines and describes the linguistic features of Pidgin and Creole languages. Ongoing development places the study of these languages within the context of current issues of linguistic theory: language acquisition, and universals of change.

Synchronic sociolinguistics has been particularly convincing in its use of quantitative models to demonstrates how 'the present might explain the past'. However, the relevance of sociolinguistics to historical linguistics 'using the past to explain the present', has been largely ignored. In this volume Dr Romaine lays the foundation for a field of research encompassing both historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, which aims to investigate and account for language variation within a particular speech community over time. The socio-historical approach is illustrated here by a detailed analysis of the development of relative clause formation strategies in Middle Scots. This case study raises fundamental questions about the epistemological status of sociolinguistic theory and in particular its claims to an empirical foundation. Her own preliminary suggestions for a truly integrative sociolinguistic theory will be of interest to sociolinguists, historical linguists and general linguists.

Language in Australia provides a wide-ranging account of the present linguistic situation in Australia, primarily from a sociolinguistic perspective. The focus is mainly descriptive, and the chapters aim to provide a comprehensive overview and summary of what is known about Australia's languages as well as a guide to current areas of research interest. Throughout the volume, the contributors pay special attention to issues arising from the socio-historical situation in which Australia??'s languages and language varieties coexist. The volume covers both indigenous and non-indigenous languages, and contains a section specifically on ???community??? languages, and also one on public policy and social issues relating to English. No other book offers such a broad survey of the language situation in Australia. Linguists as well as non-linguists will find in this volume, which is a companion to Language in the USA and Language in the British Isles, a guide and reference source to the rich linguistic heritage of Australia.

Suzanne Romaine and Daniel Nettle argue that the loss of linguistic diversity is just as threatening as the loss of global biodiversity. Approximately half of all known languages have disappeared in the last five hundred years, and with the advent of global communication, the rate of extinction is accelerating to the level that, according to some, 90% of all languages are in danger of becoming extinct during the next century. The loss of both linguistic and biological diversity is part of a much larger and more serious problem - the near-total collapse of our worldwide ecosystem. Languages are enmeshed in social and geographical matrix just as animals and plants, and their demise is symptomatic of the illness and dealth of cultures and ways of life different from our own. Romaine and Nettle describe the background of this situation, how the current catastrophe occurred, and what can be done about it. They argue for the importance of maintaining diverse, localized responses to the environment, and show how the maintenance of different languages is necessarily linked to the diversity of human beings.

Papua New Guinea's struggle for development is intimately bound up with the history of Tok Pisin, an English-based pidgin that is the product of nineteenth-century colonialism in the Pacific. The language has since become the most important lingua franca in the region, being spoken by more than a million people in a highly multilingual society. In this book, Romaine examines some of the changes that are taking place in Tok Pisin as it becomes the native language of the younger generation of rural and urban speakers. These linguistic processes, which are by no means complete, have to be understood in the socio-historical context of colonial expansion and strategies for socio-economic development in the post-colonial era.

Half of all known languages have disappeared in the last five hundred years and 90% of all languages are in danger of becoming extinct during the next century. The loss of both linguistic and biological diversity is part of a much larger and more serious problem - the near-total collapse of our worldwide ecosystem. Romaine and Nettle describe the background of this situation, how the current catastrophe occurred, and what can be done about it.

Language in Society provides a clear, lively, and accessible introduction to the field of sociolinguistics, emphasizing the constant interaction between society and language. The text discusses both traditional and recent issues such as language and social class, language and gender, language and education, pidgins and creoles, and language change, and it shows how our linguistic choices are motivated by social factors and how certain ways of speaking come to be vested with symbolic value. Examples draw on studies of cultures and languages all over the world, including Romaine's own extensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Hawai'i, and the UK.