Print Publication Year: 2004
Print ISBN: 9780521821797
Online Publication Date: September 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511486685
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486685
Paris became the largest city in the Western world during the thirteenth century, and has remained influential ever since. This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through various phases of immigration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from the Middle Ages to the present. It reveals how new urban modes of speech developed during periods of expansion, how the city's elites sought to distinguish their language from that of the masses, and how a working-class vernacular eventually emerged with its own "slang" vocabulary.
Print Publication Year: 2002
Print ISBN: 9780521814492
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511800306
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511800306
This authoritative introduction to African American English (AAE) is the first textbook to look at the grammar as a whole. Clearly organized, it describes patterns in the sentence structure, sound system, word formation and word use. It examines education, speech events in the secular and religious world, and the use of AAE in literature and the media to create black images. It includes exercises to accompany each chapter and is essential reading for students in linguistics, education, anthropology, African American studies and literature.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 11)
Print Publication Year: 1995
Print ISBN: 9780521454636
Online Publication Date: December 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511597879
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597879
Conversations between AIDS counselors and their clients bring delicate and potentially threatening issues into play. In this study Anssi Peräkylä applies the principles of conversation analysis to his exploration of AIDS counseling, using data from video-recorded counseling sessions in a London teaching hospital, and analyzes the design and placement of questions in these situations. His conclusions provide a timely and illuminating insight into the management of a sensitive topic through various techniques of indirectness.
Print Publication Year: 2011
Print ISBN: 9780521898669
Online Publication Date: May 2011
Online ISBN: 9780511976360
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976360
Analysing Variation in English brings together a range of perspectives on the collection, analysis and broader relevance of variable language data. In the first half of the book, the focus is firmly on the description and comparison of methods for collecting and analysing examples of variation in language. Novel quantitative and computational methods are introduced and exemplified alongside more traditional approaches. The innovative second half of the book establishes and tests the relevance of language variation to other aspects of linguistics such as language change, and to other disciplines such as law and education. Each chapter concludes with a ‘Where next?' section, providing guidance on further reading, but also pointers to under-researched areas, designed to help identify good topics for projects and dissertations. Designed to be used by students as well as researchers, the book will be welcomed by those working in English language and linguistics, sociolinguistics or language change.
Print Publication Year: 2011
Print ISBN: 9780521887168
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9781139051255
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139051255
The socially minded linguistic study of storytelling in everyday life has been rapidly expanding. This book provides a critical engagement with this dynamic field of narrative studies, addressing long-standing questions such as definitions of narrative and views of narrative structure but also more recent preoccupations such as narrative discourse and identities, narrative language, power and ideologies. It also offers an overview of a wide range of methodologies, analytical modes and perspectives on narrative from conversation analysis to critical discourse analysis, to linguistic anthropology and ethnography of communication. The discussion engages with studies of narrative in multiple situational and cultural settings, from informal-intimate to institutional. It also demonstrates how recent trends in narrative analysis, such as small stories research, positioning analysis and sociocultural orientations, have contributed to a new paradigm that approaches narratives not simply as texts, but rather as complex communicative practices intimately linked with the production of social life.
Print Publication Year: 2004
Print ISBN: 9780521821186
Online Publication Date: September 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511489792
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489792
By asking internationally respected scholars from a range of traditions in discourse studies to respond to the same interview material, this book reveals key differences in methodology and theoretical perspective. The use of interviews to explore attitudes towards race allow contributors to bring up sensitive issues regarding the development and interpretation of interviews on controversial topics.
Print Publication Year: 1992
Print ISBN: 9780521404877
Online Publication Date: November 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511611858
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611858
This book is a critique of the experiments of recent years that tried to teach language to apes. The achievements of these animals are compared with the natural development of language, both spoken and signed forms, in children. It is argued that the apes in these studies acquired merely crude simulations of language rather than language itself and that there is no good evidence that apes can acquire a language. A survey of the communication systems of apes and monkeys in nature finds that these systems differ from language in profound ways--language is a uniquely human attribute.
Print Publication Year: 2013
Print ISBN: 9781107030619
Online Publication Date: January 2014
Online ISBN: 9781139344166
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139344166
Language attitudes and ideologies are of key importance in assessing the chances of success of revitalisation efforts for endangered languages. However, few book-length studies relate attitudes to language policies, or address the changing attitudes of non-speakers and the motivations of members of language movements. Through a combination of ethnographic research and quantitative surveys, this book presents an in-depth study of revitalisation efforts for indigenous languages in three small islands round the British Isles. The author identifies and confronts key issues commonly faced by practitioners and researchers working in small language communities with little institutional support. This book explores the complex relationship of ideologies, identity and language-related beliefs and practices, and examines the implications of these factors for language revitalisation measures. Essential reading for researchers interested in language endangerment and revitalisation, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and language policy and planning, as well as language planners and campaigners.
Key Topics in Sociolinguistics
Print Publication Year: 2010
Print ISBN: 9780521766043
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511844713
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844713
Just about everyone seems to have views about language. Language attitudes and language ideologies permeate our daily lives. Our competence, intelligence, friendliness, trustworthiness, social status, group memberships, and so on, are often judged from the way we communicate. Even the speed at which we speak can evoke reactions. And we often try to anticipate such judgements as we communicate. In this lively introduction, Peter Garrett draws upon research carried out over recent decades in order to discuss such attitudes and the implications they have for our use of language, for social advantage or discrimination, and for social identity. Using a range of examples that includes punctuation, words, grammar, pronunciation, accents, dialects and languages, this book explores the intricate and fascinating ways in which language influences our everyday thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
Print Publication Year: 2014
Print ISBN: 9781107017641
Online Publication Date: April 2014
Online ISBN: 9781139084536
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139084536
Inside and outside the classroom, children of all ages spend time interacting with their peers. Through these early interactions, children make sense of the world and co-construct their childhood culture, while simultaneously engaging in interactional activities which provide the stepping stones for discursive, social and cognitive development. This collection brings together an international team of researchers to document how children's peer talk can contribute to their socialization and demonstrates that if we are to understand how children learn in everyday interactions we must take into account peer group cultures, talk, and activities. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of language acquisition, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, and related disciplines. It examines naturally occurring talk of children aged from three to twelve years from a range of language communities, and includes ten studies documenting children's interactions and a comprehensive overview of relevant research.
Print Publication Year: 2009
Print ISBN: 9780521862646
Online Publication Date: February 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511609787
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609787
It is quite commonplace for bilingual speakers to use two or more languages, dialects or varieties in the same conversation, without any apparent effort. The phenomenon, known as code-switching, has become a major focus of attention in linguistics. This concise and original study explores how, when and where code-switching occurs. Drawing on a diverse range of examples from medieval manuscripts to rap music, novels to advertisements, emails to political speeches, and above all everyday conversation, it argues that code-switching can only be properly understood if we study it from a variety of perspectives. It shows how sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, grammatical and developmental aspects of code-switching are all interdependent, and findings in each area are crucial to others. Breaking down barriers across the discipline of linguistics, this pioneering book confronts fundamental questions about what a 'native language' is, and whether languages can be meaningfully studied outside of the individuals who use them.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 20)
Print Publication Year: 2006
Print ISBN: 9780521621236
Online Publication Date: December 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511607172
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607172
Providing a comprehensive discussion of communication between doctors and patients in primary care consultations, this volume brings together a team of leading contributors from the fields of linguistics, sociology and medicine to describe each phase of the primary care consultation. The authors use conversation analysis techniques to analyze the sequential unfolding of a visit and describe the dilemmas and conflicts faced by physicians and patients as they work through the visit. The result is a view of the medical encounter that reveals the perspective of both physicians and patients rationally. .
Print Publication Year: 1991
Print ISBN: 9780521393300
Online Publication Date: November 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511597084
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597084
Without even considering the 150 Aboriginal languages still spoken, Australia has an unparalleled mix of languages other than English in common usage, languages often described by the term 'community'. Drawing on census data and other statistics, this book addresses the current suitation of community languages in Australia, analysing which are spoken, by whom, and whereabouts. It focuses on three main issues: how languages other than English are maintained in an English speaking environment, how the structure of the languages themselves changes over time, and how the government has responded to such ethnolinguistic diversity. At a time of unprecedented awareness of these languages within society and a realisation of the importance of mutlilingualism in business, this book makes a significant contribution to understanding the role of community languages in shaping the future of Australian society.
Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact
Print Publication Year: 2009
Print ISBN: 9780521863971
Online Publication Date: January 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511642203
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642203
Why do groups of speakers in certain times and places come up with new varieties of languages? What are the social settings that determine whether a mixed language, a pidgin or a Creole will develop, and how can we understand the ways in which different languages contribute to the new grammar? Through the study of Malay contact varieties such as Baba Malay, Cocos Malay and Sri Lanka Malay, as well as the Asian Portuguese vernacular of Macau, and China Coast Pidgin, this book explores the social and structural dynamics that underlie the fascinating phenomenon of the creation of new, or restructured, grammars. It emphasizes the importance and interplay of historical documentation, socio-cultural observation and linguistic analysis in the study of contact languages, offering an evolutionary framework for the study of contact language formation - including pidgins and Creoles - in which historical, socio-cultural and typological observations come together.
Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
Print Publication Year: 1991
Print ISBN: 9780521361514
Online Publication Date: March 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511663673
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511663673
The theory of accommodation is concerned with motivations underlying and consequences arising from ways in which we adapt our language and communication patterns toward others. Since accommodation theory's emergence in the early l970s, it has attracted empirical attention across many disciplines and has been elaborated and expanded many times. In Contexts of Accommodation, accommodation theory is presented as a basis for sociolinguistic explanation, and it is the applied perspective that predominates this edited collection. The book seeks to demonstrate how the core concepts and relationships invoked by accommodation theory are available for addressing altogether pragmatic concerns. Accommodative processes can, for example, facilitate or impede language learners' proficiency in a second language as well as immigrants' acceptance into certain host communities; affect audience ratings and thereby the life of a television program; affect reaction to defendants in court and hence the nature of the judicial outcome; and be an enabling or detrimental force in allowing handicapped people to fulfill their communicative potential.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 27)
Print Publication Year: 2009
Print ISBN: 9780521883719
Online Publication Date: December 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511635670
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635670
'Conversation analysis' is an approach to the study of social interaction that focuses on practices of speaking that recur across a range of contexts and settings. The early studies in this tradition were based on the analysis of English conversation. More recently, however, conversation analysts have begun to study talk in a broader range of communities around the world. Through detailed analyses of recorded conversations, this book examines differences and similarities across a wide range of languages including Finnish, Japanese, Tzeltal Mayan, Russian and Mandarin. Bringing together interrelated methodological and analytic contributions, it explores topics such as the role of gaze in question-and-answer sequences, the organization of repair, and the design of responses to assessments. The emerging comparative perspective demonstrates how the structure of talk is inflected by the local circumstances within which it operates.
Print Publication Year: 2011
Print ISBN: 9780521873826
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511781032
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511781032
Conversation analysts have begun to challenge long-cherished assumptions about the relationship between gender and language, asking new questions about the interactional study of gender and providing fresh insights into the ways it may be studied empirically. Drawing on a lively set of audio- and video-recorded materials of real-life interactions, including domestic telephone calls, children's play, mediation sessions, police-suspect interviews, psychiatric assessments and calls to telephone helplines, this volume is the first to showcase the latest thinking and cutting-edge research of an international group of scholars working on topics at the intersection of gender and conversation analysis. Theoretically, it pushes forward the boundaries of our understanding of the relationship between conversation and gender, charting new and exciting territory. Methodologically, it offers readers a clear, practical understanding of how to analyse gender using conversation analysis, by presenting detailed demonstrations of this method in use.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 10)
Print Publication Year: 1994
Print ISBN: 9780521416191
Online Publication Date: August 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511519901
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519901
Chinese and Americans often unwittingly communicate at cross-purposes because they are misled by the cultural trappings of talk. This book aims to clarify their misunderstandings by tracing the development of Chinese communicative strategies from Confucius to the boardrooms and streets of Hong Kong. Its formal analysis of taped interchanges and in-depth interviews reveals Chinese speakers' distinctive ways of communicating and relating, thus highlighting the pitfalls of hidden assumptions underlying talk.
Print Publication Year: 2005
Print ISBN: 9780521806879
Online Publication Date: September 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511486623
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486623
With dialects constantly changing and mobility increasing in recent years, it has become difficult to distinguish between such local accents as one from London or Reading, Bonn or Cologne. This book's authoritative contributors cover all aspects of recent dialect change, in particular, dialect convergence and divergence. Each commissioned chapter, based on original research, provides an overview of a particular issue and presents case studies to illustrate points raised.
Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics
Print Publication Year: 1998
Print ISBN: 9780521593786
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511805103
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805103
When first published in 1980, Dialectology broke new ground by giving an integrated account of the social and regional aspects of dialectology. In this updated edition, the authors offer new sections on dialectometry and mapping variability, as well as updates of recent developments. The book examines dialectology in its widest sense, as the study of the way language, dialect and accent vary from place to place, social group to social group and time to time. As a comprehensive account of all aspects of dialectology this new edition makes an ideal introduction to the subject.
Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact
Print Publication Year: 2014
Print ISBN: 9780521119368
Online Publication Date: May 2014
Online ISBN: 9781139035576
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139035576
This volume provides a detailed analysis of language contact in North Africa and explores the historical presence of the languages used in the region, including the different varieties of Arabic and Berber as well as European languages. Using a wide range of data sets, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of language contact under classical diglossia and societal bilingualism, examining multiple cases of oral and written code-switching. It also describes contact-induced lexical and structural change in such situations and discusses the possible appearance of new varieties within the context of diglossia. Examples from past diglossic situations are examined, including the situation in Muslim Spain and the Maltese Islands. An analysis of the current situation of Arabic vernaculars, not only in the Maghreb but also in other Arabic-speaking areas, is also presented. This book will appeal to anyone interested in language contact, the Arabic language, and North Africa.
Print Publication Year: 1995
Print ISBN: 9780521473316
Online Publication Date: September 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511519871
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519871
Douglas Biber's new book extends and refines the research and methodology reported in his ground-breaking Variation Across Speech and Writing (1988), and adds for the first time a diachronic dimension. In it he gives a linguistic analysis of register in four widely differing languages: English, Nukulaelae Tuvaluan, Korean, and Somali. Striking similarities as well as differences emerge, allowing Biber to predict for the first time cross-linguistic universals of register variation.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 5)
Print Publication Year: 1987
Print ISBN: 9780521303859
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511611841
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611841
Discourse markers--the particles oh, well, now, then, you know, and I mean, and the connectives so, because, and, but, and or --perform important functions in conversation and call for the rigorous analysis this study provides. Schiffrin's approach is interdisciplinary, within linguistics and sociology, and demonstrates that markers and the conversations in which they function can only be properly understood as an integration of structural, semantic, pragmatic, and social factors. The core of this book is a comparative analysis of markers within conversational discourse collected by Dr. Schiffrin during sociolinguistic fieldwork. The study raises a wide range of theoretical and methodological issues, and the insights it offers will be of great value to readers confronting the very substantial problem presented by the search for an adequate model of discourse.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 1)
Print Publication Year: 1982
Print ISBN: 9780521246910
Online Publication Date: November 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511611834
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611834
To understand the role of language in public life and the social process in general, we need first a closer understanding of how linguistic knowledge and social factors interact in discourse interpretation. This volume is a major advance towards that understanding. Professor Gumperz here synthesizes fundamental research on communication from a wide variety of disciplines - linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology and non-verbal communication - and develops an original and broadly based theory of conversational inference which shows how verbal communication can serve either between individuals of different social and ethnic backgrounds. The urgent need to overcome such barriers to effective communication is also a central concern of the book. Examples of conversational exchanges as well as of longer encounters, recorded in the urban United States, village Austria, South Asia and Britain, and analyzed to illustrate all aspects of the analytical approach, and to show how subconscious cultural presuppositions can damagingly affect interpretation of intent and judgement of interspeaker attitude. The volume will be of central interest to anyone concerned with communication, whether from a more academic viewpoint or as a professional working, for example, in the fields of interethnic or industrial relations.
Language Culture and Cognition (No. 13)
Print Publication Year: 2014
Print ISBN: 9781107028920
Online Publication Date: May 2014
Online ISBN: 9781139237109
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139237109
Sand stories from Central Australia are a traditional form of Aboriginal women's verbal art that incorporates speech, song, sign, gesture and drawing. Small leaves and other objects may be used to represent story characters. This detailed study of Arandic sand stories takes a multimodal approach to the analysis of the stories and shows how the expressive elements used in the stories are orchestrated together. This richly illustrated volume is essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication. It adds to the growing recognition that language encompasses much more than speech alone, and shows how important it is to consider the different semiotic resources a culture brings to its communicative tasks as an integrated whole rather than in isolation.
Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact
Print Publication Year: 2003
Print ISBN: 9780521781367
Online Publication Date: December 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511606526
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606526
Written by an expert in the field, this study examines the dynamics of contact between languages in an immigrant context. Michael Clyne discusses the dynamics of contact with English using data from a wide range of languages, including German, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Croatian and Vietnamese. Clyne analyzes how and why these languages change in a country with many immigrants such as Australia, as well as why some languages survive longer than others.
Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
Print Publication Year: 2006
Print ISBN: 9780521843614
Online Publication Date: November 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511584305
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511584305
How do bilinguals experience emotions? Do they perceive and express emotions similarly or differently in their respective languages? Does the first language remain forever the language of the heart? What role do emotions play in second language learning and in language attrition? Why do some writers prefer to write in their second language? In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Aneta Pavlenko challenges the monolingual bias of modern linguistics and psychology and uses the lens of bi- and multilingualism to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between language and emotions. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers across many discplines.
Print Publication Year: 1998
Print ISBN: 9780521591027
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9781139166959
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166959
The issue of language loss is currently the focus of much linguistic research. This edited volume brings together work by theoretical linguists, field linguists and nonlinguist members of minority communities to provide an integrated view of how language is lost, from sociological and economic as well as from linguistic perspectives. It maps out some of the strategies applied by native communities and professional linguists in the face of language endangerment. Several authors address the understudied issue of what (beyond a linguistic system) is lost when a language becomes obsolescent.
Print Publication Year: 2014
Print ISBN: 9781107049598
Online Publication Date: December 2014
Online ISBN: 9781107279063
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107279063
At a time when many of the world's languages are at risk of extinction, the imperative to document, analyse and teach them before time runs out is very great. At this critical time new technologies such as visual and aural archiving, digitisation of textual resources, electronic mapping and social media, have the potential to play an integral role in language maintenance and revitalisation. Drawing on studies of endangered languages from around the world - Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America - this volume considers how these new resources might best be applied, and the problems that they can bring. It also re-assesses more traditional techniques of documentation in light of new technologies and works towards achieving a practicable synthesis of old and new methodologies. This accessible volume will be of interest to researchers in language endangerment, language typology and linguistic anthropology, and to community members working in native language maintenance.
Print Publication Year: 1991
Print ISBN: 9780521330800
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511611889
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611889
This volume looks at the little explored but increasingly important topic of the development of English as a world language. It gives a comprehensive account of our current knowledge of variation in the use of the English language around the world. Overview papers, written by specialist authors, survey the social context in which English is spoken in those parts of the world where it is widely used. Case study papers then provide representative examples of the empirical research that has been carried out into the English spoken in the areas covered by the overview. The volume therefore contributes both to our understanding of the English language worldwide and to a more general understanding of language as it is used in its social context. It assesses the extent of our current knowledge of variation in the English language and points to gaps in our understanding which future research might set out to remedy.
Print Publication Year: 2013
Print ISBN: 9781107001961
Online Publication Date: February 2013
Online ISBN: 9780511740060
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511740060
Recent developments in contact linguistics suggest considerable overlap of branches such as historical linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, pidgin/creole linguistics, language acquisition, etc. This book highlights the complexity of contact-induced language change throughout the history of English by bringing together cutting-edge research from these fields. Special focus is on recent debates surrounding substratal influence in earlier forms of English (particularly Celtic influence in Old English), on language shift processes (the formation of Irish and overseas varieties) but also on dialects in contact, the contact origins of Standard English, the notion of new epicentres in World English, the role of children and adults in language change as well as transfer and language learning. With contributions from leading experts, the book offers fresh and exciting perspectives for research and is at the same time an up-to-date overview of the state of the art in the respective fields.
Print Publication Year: 1993
Print ISBN: 9780521415149
Online Publication Date: December 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511597893
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597893
Rajend Mesthrie examines the rise of a new variety of English among Indian migrant workers indentured on the plantations of Natal in South Africa. Considering the historical background to, and linguistic consequences of, language shift in an immigrant context, he draws significant parallels between second language acquisition and the processes of pidginization and creolization. South African Indian English is compared with other dialects in South Africa, with English in India, and with Englishes generally.
Print Publication Year: 2003
Print ISBN: 9780521822640
Online Publication Date: September 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511486715
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486715
The English of the Southern United States is possibly the most studied of any regional variety of any language. However, most, if not all, books about Southern American English have been directed almost exclusively toward scholars already working in the field. Written by a team of experts, many of them internationally known, this volume provides a broad overview of the foundations of, and current research on, language variation in the Southern United States.
Print Publication Year: 1991
Print ISBN: 9780521380485
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511611827
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611827
Traditionally, when the human sciences consider foundational issues such as epistemology and method, they do so by theorising them. Ethnomethodology, however, attempts to make such foundational matters a focus of attention, and directly enquires into them. This book reappraises the significance of ethnomethodology in sociology in particular, and in the human sciences in general. It demonstrates how, through its empirical enquiries into the ordered properties of social action, ethnomethodology provides a radical respecification of the foundations of the human sciences, an achievement that has often been misunderstood. The chapters, by leading scholars, take up the specification of action and order in theorising, logic, epistemology, measurement, evidence, the social actor, cognition, language and culture, and moral judgement, and underscore the ramifications for the human sciences of the ethnomethodologist's approach. This is a systematic and coherent collection which explicitly addresses fundamental conceptual issues. The clear exposition of the central tenets of ethnomethodology is especially welcome.
Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language (No. 8)
Print Publication Year: 1989
Print ISBN: 9780521370639
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511611810
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611810
First published in 1974, this collection of classic case studies in the ethnography of speaking had a formative influence on the field. No other volume has so successfully provided a broad, cross-cultural survey of the use, role, and function of language and speech in everyday life. The essays deal with: traditional societies in Native North, Middle, and South America, Africa, and Oceania; English, French, and Yiddish speaking communities in Europe and North America; Afro-American communities in North America and the Caribbean. Now reissued, the collection includes a major new Introduction by the editors that traces the subsequent development of the ethnography of speaking and indicates directions for further research.
Print Publication Year: 2012
Print ISBN: 9780521195553
Online Publication Date: November 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511979002
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511979002
Proposing a new methodological approach to documenting languages spoken in multilingual societies, this book retraces the investigation of one unique linguistic space, the Creole varieties referred to as Takitaki in multilingual French Guiana. It illustrates how interactional sociolinguistic, anthropological linguistic, discourse analytical and quantitative sociolinguistic approaches can be integrated with structural approaches to language in order to resolve rarely discussed questions systematically (what are the outlines of the community, who is a rightful speaker, what speech should be documented) that frequently crop up in projects of language documentation in multilingual contexts. The authors argue that comprehensively documenting complex linguistic phenomena requires taking into account the views of all local social actors (native and non native speakers, institutions, linguists, non-speakers etc.), applying a range of complementary data collection and analysis methods and putting issues of ideology, variation, language contact and interaction centre stage. This book will be welcomed by researchers in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, fieldwork studies, language documentation and language variation and change.
Print Publication Year: 2008
Print ISBN: 9780521872089
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511806490
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511806490
If we want to understand how German speakers think about themselves and the world in which they live, then a useful place to begin is by looking at the language they use. This fully revised and updated edition provides a systematic approach to the study of the German language and an introduction to the social aspects of the language, including its dialects, its history and the uses of the language today. No previous knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and each chapter is accompanied by a series of practical exercises. This edition includes a brand new section on gender, purism and German unification, fresh examples for analysis and an updated chapter on the geography of Germany today. The book will help students not only to find new ways of exploring the German language, but also of thinking and talking about German-speaking cultures.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 17)
Print Publication Year: 2003
Print ISBN: 9780521810845
Online Publication Date: November 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511615238
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615238
Challenging the notion that women are necessarily always more polite than men (as language and gender literature claim), Sara Mills discusses the complex relationship between gender and politeness. Mills argues that, although women speakers, drawing on stereotypes of femininity, can appear to be acting more politely than men, there are many circumstances where women will act as "impolitely" as men.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 28)
Print Publication Year: 2011
Print ISBN: 9780521869676
Online Publication Date: May 2011
Online ISBN: 9780511975752
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975752
When is language considered 'impolite'? Is impolite language only used for anti-social purposes? Can impolite language be creative? What is the difference between 'impoliteness' and 'rudeness'? Grounded in naturally-occurring language data and drawing on findings from linguistic pragmatics and social psychology, Jonathan Culpeper provides a fascinating account of how impolite behaviour works. He examines not only its forms and functions but also people's understandings of it in both public and private contexts. He reveals, for example, the emotional consequences of impoliteness, how it shapes and is shaped by contexts, and how it is sometimes institutionalised. This book offers penetrating insights into a hitherto neglected and poorly understood phenomenon. It will be welcomed by students and researchers in linguistics and social psychology in particular.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 21)
Print Publication Year: 2006
Print ISBN: 9780521481595
Online Publication Date: January 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511616273
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616273
Deborah Schiffrin looks at two important tasks of language--presenting 'who' we are talking about (the referent) and 'what happened' to them (their actions and attributes) in a narrative--and explores how this presentation alters in relation to emergent forms and meanings. Drawing on examples from both face-to-face talk and public discourse, she analyzes a variety of repairs, reformulations of referents, and retellings of narratives, ranging from word-level repairs within a single turn-at-talk, to life story narratives told years apart.
Print Publication Year: 1995
Print ISBN: 9780521461375
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511620799
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620799
In this interdisciplinary study, Michael Clyne examines the impact of cultural values on discourse. Through an exploration of the role of verbal communication patterns in successful and unsuccessful communication, he sets out to integrate and develop a framework for a linguistics of inter-cultural communication. He draws on data derived from recordings of spontaneous communication in the Australian workplace among people of vastly differing backgrounds, notably European and Asian, who use English as a lingua franca. This study offers both a pragmatics and a discourse perspective, not simply analyzing data but seeking to extend the theoretical model.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 13)
Print Publication Year: 1996
Print ISBN: 9780521552257
Online Publication Date: January 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511620874
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620874
Many scholars of language have accepted a view of grammar as a clearly delineated and internally coherent structure that is best understood as a self-contained system. The contributors to this volume propose a very different way of approaching and understanding grammar: taking as their starting point the position that the very integrity of grammar is bound up with its place in the larger schemes of the organization of human conduct, particularly social interaction, their essays explore a rich variety of linkages between interaction and grammar.
Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics (No. 15)
Print Publication Year: 1997
Print ISBN: 9780521573412
Online Publication Date: August 2009
Online ISBN: 9780511519895
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519895
This study identifies key mechanisms through which a young child operates with external knowledge in his/her immediate social context. Central to this is the child's capacity to draw on discourse-based understandings that have become evident in prior interaction. In contrast to studies that analyze development under different headings, such as language, emotions and cognition, Tony Wootton links these aspects in his examination of the state of understanding that exists at any given moment in interaction. The result is a distinctive social constructionist approach to children's development.
Print Publication Year: 2012
Print ISBN: 9780521192286
Online Publication Date: May 2012
Online ISBN: 9781139026703
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139026703
English is a language at the centre of research into language contact, because its global spread has resulted in contact with an enormous variety of different languages worldwide, leading to the creation of many new varieties of English, including second language varieties, and also pidgins and creoles. This book takes an original look at what happens when speakers of these different varieties interact with one another. Using her own rich fieldwork data from diverse international and South African contexts, Meierkord proposes an innovative approach to how Englishes merge and blend in such interactions, creating further new forms of English and further changes to the language. Through skilful analyses and descriptions, the book provides fascinating insights into where and who the users of English as a lingua franca are and what English then looks like at the levels of phonetics, morphosyntax, the lexicon and discourse.
Print Publication Year: 2010
Print ISBN: 9780521115292
Online Publication Date: December 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511760501
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511760501
In the last five hundred years or so, the English language has undergone remarkable geographical expansion, bringing it into contact with other languages in new locations. It also caused different regional dialects of the language to come into contact with each other in colonial situations. This book is made up of a number of fascinating tales of historical-sociolinguistic detection. These are stories of origins – of a particular variety of English or linguistic feature – which together tell a compelling general story. In each case, Trudgill presents an intriguing puzzle, locates and examines the evidence, detects clues that unravel the mystery, and finally proposes a solution. The solutions are all original, often surprising, sometimes highly controversial. Providing a unique insight into how language contact shapes varieties of English, this entertaining yet rigorous account will be welcomed by students and researchers in linguistics, sociolinguistics and historical linguistics.
Print Publication Year: 2007
Print ISBN: 9780521852999
Online Publication Date: January 2010
Online ISBN: 9780511551048
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551048
English has been spoken in Ireland for over 800 years, making Irish English the oldest variety of the language outside Britain. This 2007 book traces the development of English in Ireland, both north and south, from the late Middle Ages to the present day. Drawing on authentic data ranging from medieval literature to authentic contemporary examples, it reveals how Irish English arose, how it has developed, and how it continues to change. A variety of central issues are considered in detail, such as the nature of language contact and the shift from Irish to English, the sociolinguistically motivated changes in present-day Dublin English, the special features of Ulster Scots, and the transportation of Irish English to overseas locations as diverse as Canada, the United States, and Australia. Presenting a comprehensive survey of Irish English at all levels of linguistics, this book will be invaluable to historical linguists, sociolinguists, syntacticians and phonologists alike.
Print Publication Year: 2013
Print ISBN: 9781107029064
Online Publication Date: December 2013
Online ISBN: 9781139245890
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139245890
Many of the world's languages have diminishing numbers of speakers and are in danger of falling silent. Around the globe, a large body of linguists are collaborating with members of indigenous communities to keep these languages alive. Mindful that their work will be used by future speech communities to learn, teach and revitalise their languages, scholars face new challenges in the way they gather materials and in the way they present their findings. This volume discusses current efforts to record, collect and archive endangered languages in traditional and new media that will support future language learners and speakers. Chapters are written by academics working in the field of language endangerment and also by indigenous people working 'at the coalface' of language support and maintenance. Keeping Languages Alive is a must-read for researchers in language documentation, language typology and linguistic anthropology.
Print Publication Year: 2011
Print ISBN: 9780521193375
Online Publication Date: August 2011
Online ISBN: 9780511978852
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511978852
Once a predominantly African-American city, South Vista opened the twenty-first century with a large Latino/a majority and a significant population of Pacific Islanders. Using an innovative blend of critical ethnography and social language methodologies, Paris offers the voices and experiences of South Vista youth as a window into how today's young people challenge and reinforce ethnic and linguistic difference in demographically changing urban schools and communities. The ways African-American language, Spanish and Samoan are used within and across ethnicity in social and academic interactions, text messages and youth authored rap lyrics show urban young people enacting both new and old visions of pluralist cultural spaces. Paris illustrates how understanding youth communication, ethnicity and identities in changing urban landscapes like South Vista offers crucial avenues for researchers and educators to push for more equitable schools and a more equitable society.
Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language (No. 25)
Print Publication Year: 2009
Print ISBN: 9780521864176
Online Publication Date: June 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511626692
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511626692
Language is a means we use to communicate feelings; we also reflect emotionally on the language we and others use. James Wilce analyses the signals people use to express emotion, looking at the social, cultural and political functions of emotional language around the world. His book demonstrates that speaking, feeling, reflecting, and identifying are interrelated processes and shows how desire or shame are attached to language. Drawing on nearly one hundred ethnographic case studies, it demonstrates the cultural diversity, historical emergence, and political significance of emotional language. Wilce brings together insights from linguistics and anthropology to survey an extremely broad range of genres, cultural concepts, and social functions of emotional expression.
Key Topics in Sociolinguistics
Print Publication Year: 2006
Print ISBN: 9780521848435
Online Publication Date: September 2012
Online ISBN: 9780511791215
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791215
What is ethnicity? Is there a 'white' way of speaking? Why do people sometimes borrow features of another ethnic group's language? Why do we sometimes hear an accent that isn't there? This lively overview, first published in 2006, reveals the fascinating relationship between language and ethnic identity, exploring the crucial role it plays in both revealing a speaker's ethnicity and helping to construct it. Drawing on research from a range of ethnic groups around the world, it shows how language contributes to the social and psychological processes involved in the formation of ethnic identity, exploring both the linguistic features of ethnic language varieties and also the ways in which language is used by different ethnic groups. Complete with discussion questions and a glossary, Language and Ethnicity will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, as well as anybody interested in ethnic issues, language and education, inter-ethnic communication, and the relationship between language and identity.