Product Description: Since its initial publication, English with an Accent has provoked debate and controversy within classrooms through its in-depth scrutiny of American attitudes towards language. Rosina Lippi-Green discusses the ways in which discrimination based on accent functions to support and perpetuate social structures and unequal power relations...read more

Product Description: When did English become American? What distinctive qualities made it American? What role have America's democratizing impulses, and its vibrantly heterogeneous speakers, played in shaping our language and separating it from the mother tongue?A wide-ranging account of American English, Richard Bailey's Speaking American investigates the history and continuing evolution of our language from the sixteenth century to the present...read more

Product Description: In this bestselling textbook, Rosina Lippi-Green scrutinizes American attitudes towards language. Using examples drawn from a variety of contexts: the classroom, the court, the media and corporate culture, she exposes the way in which discrimination based on accent functions to support and perpetuate social structures and unequal power relations...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Admiring colleagues have called Edwin Newman an antipollutant, sensibly sardonic, a rare bird, a genial intellect, a man nobody is going to fool anywhere, anytime, anyway. Here, in his first book, these qualities are joined. Newman focuses on the sorry state of the English language as a reflection of the sorry state of the society...read more

Product Description: This lively introduction to the study of language explores American English and its place within contemporary society, highlighting the role of language in our daily lives. Beginning with a definition of language, the text unpacks the basic concepts used in linguistics, placing them in the context of real-life situations...read more

Product Description: Migration, Accommodation, and Language Change: Language and the Intersection of Regional and Ethnic Identity marries qualitative ethnographic methods to quantitative acoustic methods. The analysis describes the differences between internal and external factors in phonological change and demonstrates how these two forces interact in structuring the phonological systems of Appalachian and African American Southern Migrant speakers in the Detroit, Michigan area...read more

Product Description: While the 'Kings English' has typically been the language of power, popular culture has given way to new forms of power in language. In modern times, fashion designers, liquor labels, and the like prosper from the exposure they receive within the lyrics of rap music...read more

Product Description: Written by the hugely respected linguist, Geneva Smitherman, this book presents a definitive statement on African American English. Enriched by her evocative and inimitable prose style, the study presents an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, as well as providing a vision for the future...read more

Product Description: Written by the hugely respected linguist, Geneva Smitherman, this book presents a definitive statement on African American English. Enriched by her evocative and inimitable prose style, the study presents an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, as well as providing a vision for the future...read more

A comprehensive translation reference to British and American idiomatic terms and expressions offers coverage of differences in English-language vocabulary, usage, pronunciation, and spelling; sharing additional information about how differences in American and British language evolved. Original.

Product Description: The current state of knowledge of African American language is examined from a broad, multidisciplinary perspective that includes its structure, history, social role and educational implications, as well as the linguistic scholarship from which it derives, as a case study of language planning...read more

Product Description: 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...read more

In a companion volume to the PBS series, the authors of The Story of English offer a witty and insightful look at the origins, history, and current state of American spoken and written language, looking at the linguistic quirks and traditions that exist in diverse regions of the country and assessing the influence of e-mail, ethnic boundaries, and other factors on the language. Reprint.

Product Description: Readings in African American Language: Aspects, Features, and Perspectives, Volume 2 brings together scholars who research various theoretical approaches of the origin, characteristics, and development of African American Vernacular English (AAVE)...read more

Product Description: This book provides a very readable, up-to-date description of language variation in American English, covering regional, ethnic, and gender-based differences.contains new chapters on social and ethnic dialects, including a separate chapter on African American English and more comprehensive discussions of Latino, Native American, Cajun English, and other varieties,includes samples from a wider array of US regionsfeatures updated chapters as well as pedagogy such as new exercises, a phonetic symbols key, and a section on the notion of speech communityaccessibly written for the wide variety of students that enrol in a course on dialects, ranging from students with no background in linguistics to those who may wish to specialize in sociolinguistic...read more

In a companion volume to the PBS series, the authors of The Story of English offer a witty and insightful look at the origins, history, and current state of American spoken and written language, looking at the linguistic quirks and traditions that exist in diverse regions of the country and assessing the influence of e-mail, ethnic boundaries, and other factors on the language. 50,000 first printing.

Encourages readers to establish a boundary between an acceptable evolution of language and outright language misuse, predicting the consequences of the overuse of street English in today's writing, music, and society. By the author of The Power of Babel. 50,000 first printing.

Product Description: Chicano English in Context is the first modern, comprehensive study of Chicano English, a variety spoken by millions of Latinos in the U.S. It is also one of the first studies of ongoing sound change within an ethnic minority community...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This study examines the effect of race-consciousness upon the pronunciation of American English and upon the ideology of standardization in the 20th century. It shows how the discourses of prescriptivist pronunciation, the xenophobic reaction against immigration to the eastern metropolises - especially New York - and the closing of the western frontier together constructed an image of the American West and Midwest as the locus of proper speech and ethnicity...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This work explores the sociocultural and historical contexts of African American English. Many issues that were raised but went unexplored in the 1970s are now receiving in-depth analyses; the relationship between enslavement practices and the language of the enslaved; capitalizing on the linguistic "root culture" in literacy and schooling; linguistic-cultural norms of reprimand; gender, age and popular culture manifested in African American language; and the role and perspective of the Black community relative to language issues...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in New World English examines acoustical variations in vowel configurations in a wide variety of dialects of English found in the Western Hemisphere. While the work opens with an introduction on the methods and aims of the study, the following chapter immediately moves to a detailed discussion of distinctive vowel sounds called phonemes, characterizing each variant of sound listed within the cited reference literature...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Though there is a contingent of linguists who fight the fact, our language is always changing--not only through slang, but sound, syntax, and words' meanings as well. Debunking the myth of "pure" standard English, tackling controversial positions, and eschewing politically correct arguments, linguist John McWhorter considers speech patterns and regional accents to demonstrate just how the changes do occur...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

The author of American in So Many Words provides a close-up study of the distinctive characteristics, dialects, cultural innovations, and ethnic eccentricities of American regional English, discussing the unique qualities of language in the South, New England, Midwest, and more. Simultaneous. (view table of contents)