In Literature About Language Valerie Shepherd brings together linguistic theory and literary criticism and examines languages as a theme in a range of literary texts. By looking at the work of writers such as Swift, Joyce and Sontag she discusses the power of story-telling and metaphor to shape our thinking and examines the communicative capacities of non-standard English and the strengths of women's writing in a male language world. By turning to the work of writers such as Hardy, Cummings, Lodge and Gordimer, however, she also demonstrates the ways in which language can be...