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: 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: 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

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. Using examples from popular culture, the authors show how the study of language is relevant to students' experience. Teachers and students will appreciate the book's innovative structure, designed to build an understanding of how different aspects of language work together. A variety of exercises - individual, group, discussion, research - is provided to support every teaching style. Imaginatively organised and fun to use, American English is the ideal guide to language study for students taking the subject as a general education requirement, beginning undergraduates in linguistics, and future teachers of English.

Product Description: This work marries qualitative ethnographic methods to quantitative acoustic methods. The analysis describes how internal and external factors in phonological change differ and demonstrates how these two forces interact to structure 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

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. Featuring cartoons which demonstrate the relationship between language and race, as well as common perceptions of African American Language, she explores its contribution to mainstream American English and includes a summary of expressions as a suggested linguistic core of AAL. As global manifestations of Black Language increase, she argues that, through education, we must broaden our conception of AAL and its speakers, and further examine the implications of gender, age and class on AAL. Perhaps most of all we must appreciate the ‘artistic and linguistic genius’ of AAL, presented in this book through rap and Hip Hop lyrics and the explorations of rhyme and rhetoric in the Black speech community. Word from the Mother is an essential read for students of African American English, language, culture and sociolinguistics, as well as the general reader interested in the worldwide ‘crossover’ of black popular culture.

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.

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

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.

Product Description: This is a Ph.D. dissertation. This study investigates the connection between language variation and ethnic identity among older bilingual Swedish Americans. The study traces how factors relating to Swedish immigration to America, starting in the mid- 1800s and continuing well into the 1900s, and the resulting strong social networks established in Swedish-American communities have created and maintained Swedish-American English, a hybrid language variety...read more

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)

This study examines the effect of race-consciousness upon the pronunciation of American English and upon the ideology of standardization in the twentieth 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. This study is of interest to scholars and students in linguistics, American studies, cultural studies, Jewish studies, and studies in race, class, and gender. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This volume, based on presentations at a 1998 state of the art conference at the University of Georgia, critically examines African American English (AAE) socially, culturally, historically, and educationally. It explores the relationship between AAE and other varieties of English (namely Southern White Vernaculars, Gullah, and Caribbean English creoles), language use in the African American community (e...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This volume, based on presentations at a 1998 state of the art conference at the University of Georgia, critically examines African American English (AAE) socially, culturally, historically, and educationally. It explores the relationship between AAE and other varieties of English (namely Southern White Vernaculars, Gullah, and Caribbean English creoles), language use in the African American community (e...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)