West Midlands English: Birmingham and the Black Country

ISBN-13: 9780748641697 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 192 str.

UK Asto Urszula Clark (Aston University;Esther Asprey (Aston University)

Opis

This volume focuses on the closely allied yet differing linguistic varieties of Birmingham and its immediate neighbour to the west, the industrial heartland of the Black Country. Both of these areas rose to economic prominence and success during the Industrial Revolution, and both have suffered economically and socially as a result of post-war industrial decline. The industrial heritage of both areas has meant that tight knit and socially homogeneous individual areas in each region have demonstrated in many respects little linguistic change over time, and have continued to exhibit linguistic features, especially morphological constructions, peculiar to these areas or now restricted to these areas. At the same time, immigration from other areas of the British Isles over time, from Commonwealth countries and later from EU member states, together with increased social mobility, have meant that newly developing structures and more widespread UK linguistic phenomena have spread into these varieties. This volume provides a clear description of the structure of the linguistic varieties spoken in the two areas.

Spis treści

List of figures and tables; Acknowledgments; 1 Geography, demography, culture and research design, 1.1 Introduction, 1.2 The geographical limits of the West Midlands – where does it begin and where does it end?; 1.3 The demographic makeup of the West Midlands across time; 1.4 An introduction to the language varieties of Birmingham and the Black Country; 1.5 Birmingham and the Black Country – Language, Culture and Identity; 1.6 Researching Birmingham and Black Country dialects; 1.7 Conclusion; 2 Phonetics and phonology; 2.1 Overview; 2.2 Short vowels; 2.3 Long vowels; 2.4 Diphthongs; 2.5 Unstressed vowels; 2.6 Consonant phonology – an overview; 2.7 Stops; 2.8 Nasals; 2.9 Fricatives; 2.10 Approximants; 2.11 Conclusion; 3 Grammar, 3.1 Introduction, 3.2 Numerals and determiners, 3.3 Nouns, 3.4 Pronouns, 3.5 Adjectives and adverbs, 3.6 Prepositions, 3.7 Conjunctions, 3.8 Main verb systems in Birmingham and the Black Country – regularisation, 3.9 More about aspect and mood, 3.10 Conclusion; 4 Lexis, 4.1 Introduction, 4.2 The Survey of Regional English (SuRE) and Sense Relations Networks (SRNs), 4.3 The West Midlands Dialect Project, 4.4 Language and Place: Birmingham and Language, performance and Region: Discourse and Sociocultural Identity in the Black Country, 4.5 Conclusion; 5 Survey of previous works and annotated bibliography, 5.1 An overview of linguistic research concerning Birmingham and Black Country English, 5.2 Literary, folk and other collections, 5.3 Works cited in this chapter and the book as a whole; 6 Transcriptions; Index