A collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. It discusses topics on some of the popular myths about language: the media are ruining English; children can't speak or write properly anymore; and, America is ruining the English language.

Peter Trudgill looks at why human societies at different times and places produce different kinds of language. He considers how far social factors influence language structure and compares languages and dialects spoken across the globe, from Vietnam to Nigeria, Polynesia to Scandinavia, and from Canada to Amazonia.
Modesty prevents Pennsylvanian Dutch Mennonites using the verb wotte ('want'); stratified society lies behind complicated Japanese honorifics; and a mountainous homeland suggests why speakers of Tibetan-Burmese Lahu have words for up there and down there. But culture and...

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Volume 2 of this two-volume text looks first at patterns of language variation, how gender identities are accomplished through language, and the importance of gender in accounting for language behavior. It goes on to examine sociolinguistic issues surrounding discourse, with reference to the communication of affective meaning, conversational routines, grammaticalization and language change, intertextuality, and cross-cultural discourse patterns and their social implications.

Trudgill's lively book traces the histories of dialects and accents, and defends the legitimacy of the language of ordinary people.

English Accents and Dialects is an essential guide to contemporary social and regional varieties of English spoken in the British Isles today. Together with invaluable overviews of numerous regional accents and dialects, this fifth edition provides a detailed description of key features of Received Pronounciation (RP) as well as several major non-standard varieties of English. Key features: * main regional differences are followed by a survey of speech in over 20 areas of the UK and Ireland, audio samples of which are available to download at www.routledge.com/cw/hughes * recent findings on...

Now in Paperback