The most curious, funny, insightful, and expressive invectives from more than forty languages-fully illustrated, you miserable misokakku."Misokkasu": Scum of soya paste. (Japanese) "Tu es um borra-battos.": You s**t in your own boots. (Portugese) "Like a fart in a trance.": A dreamy person who seems at a loss what to do. (Scottish) "A pies ci morde lizal!": Literally, a dog has licked your gob. (Polish) "Prumphaensn.": Fartchicken. (Icelandic)Whether borne out of surprise, ...

Covering thinkers from Aristotle to Saussure and Chomsky, "Introducing Linguistics" reveals the rules and beauty that underlie language, our most human skill.

An expat’s witty and insightful exploration of English and American cultural differences through the lens of language that will leave readers gobsmackedIn That’s Not English, the seemingly superficial differences between British and American English open the door to a deeper exploration of a historic and fascinating cultural divide. In each of the thirty chapters, Erin Moore explains a different word we use that says more about us than we think. For exampl...

Is American English in decline? Are regional dialects dying out? Is there a difference between men and women in how they adapt to linguistic variations?These questions, and more, about our language catapulted Robert MacNeil and William Cran—the authors (with Robert McCrum) of the language classic The Story of English—across the country in search of the answers. Do You Speak American? is the tale of their discoveries, which provocatively show how the standard for A...

Leading scholars in the field examine the role played by the English language in contemporary Japanese society. Their various chapters cover the nature, status, and function of English in Japan, focusing on the ways in which globalization is influencing language practices in the country.

In the United States today there is lively discussion, both among educators and employers, about the best way to prepare students with high-level language and cross-cultural communication proficiency that will serve them both professionally and personally in the global environment of the twenty-first century. At the same time, courses in business language and medical language have become more popular among students. Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), which encompasses these kin...

What role does race, geography, religion, orthography and nationalism play in the crafting of identities? What are the origins of Singlish? This book offers a thorough investigation of old and new identities in Asia's most global city, examined through the lens of language.

'Uptalk' is commonly used to refer to rising intonation at the end of declarative sentences, or (to put it more simply) the tendency for people to make statements that sound like questions, a phenomenon that has received wide exposure and commentary in the media. How and where did it originate? Who are the most frequent 'uptalkers'? How much does it vary according to the speaker's age, gender and regional dialect? Is it found in other languages as well as English? These and other questions...

First published in 1937, this book supplies a history of the living growth of the English language from Old English to the medieval period. It offers an in-depth study of the growth of vocabulary through literature and social interaction, bringing out the fact that it is chiefly words that foreign influence has affected — leaving sentence structure almost unaltered. Isolative and combinative changes in phonology, the accidence of nouns and plurals, pronouns and adverbs, and verbs are also ...

Studies in Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics illustrates how sociolinguistic approaches and linguistic distributions from corpora can be effectively combined to produce meaningful studies of language use and language variation. Three major parts comprise the volume focusing on: (1) Corpora and the Study of Languages and Dialects, in particular, varieties of global Englishes; (2) Corpora and Social Demographics; and (3) Corpora and Register Characteristics. The 14 peer-reviewed, new, a...

This book provides a wide-ranging and in-depth theoretical perspective on dialogue in teaching. It explores the philosophy of dialogism as a social theory of language and explains its importance in teaching and learning. Departing from the more traditional teacher-led mode of teacher–student communication, the dialogic approach is more egalitarian and focuses on the discourse exchange between the parties. Authors explore connections between dialogic pedagogy and sociocultural learning theo...

This book presents a sociolinguistic ethnography of the linguistic landscape of Chinatown in Washington, DC. The book sheds a unique light on the impact of urban development on traditionally ethnic neighbourhoods and discusses the various historical, social and cultural factors that contribute to this area’s shifting linguistic landscape. Based on fieldwork, interviews with residents and visitors and analysis of community meetings and public policies, it provides an in-depth study of the p...