Do you call it April Fools’ Day, April Noddy Day or April Gowkin’ Day? Is the season before winter the Autumn, the Fall or the Backend? When you’re out of breath, do you pant, puff, pank, tift or thock?The words we use (and the sounds we make when we use them) are more often than not a product of where we live, and An Atlas of English Dialects shows the reader where certain words, sounds and phrases originate from and why usage varies from region to region. The Atlas

This collection of Newfoundland folk narratives, first published in 1996, grew out of extensive fieldwork in folk culture in the province. The intention was to collect as broad a spectrum of traditional material as possible, and Folktales of Newfoundland is notable not only for the number and quality of its narratives, but also for the format in which they are presented. A special transcription system conveys to the reader the accents and rhythms of each performance, and the endno...

This book offers a workbook approach to linguistics and provides guidelines for the study of language. It aims to give basic information and to indicate something of the background and development of the more important trends in the subject.Each chapter includes exercises which lead the reader outwards from the information given in the text. A list of suggested further reading and references follows each chapter so that each aspect of the subject may be followed up in greater depth...

First Published in 1994. The Survey of English Dialects (SED) is the only detailed nation-wide dialect survey which has ever been conducted in England. The SED is a unique repository of data on the traditional dialects of England in the mid-twentieth century. This remarkable record is a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of British English dialectology, sociolinguistics, and English historical linguistics. The SED fieldwork was undertaken in predominantly rural communities in Eng...

In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispen...

This classic book is a straightforward introduction to linguistics which attempts to answer two fundamental questions: 'What is language?' and 'How does language work?' It outlines the scope of linguistics, explaining basic concepts and essential terminology with examples drawn mainly from English. Sound patterning, syntax and meaning - the inner core of linguistics - are discussed simply and clearly, as are the rapidly growing areas of pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and s...

In this thriller from authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, a genetically engineered virus threatens to wipe out humanityMount Dragon: an enigmatic research complex hidden in the vast desert of New Mexico. Guy Carson and Susana Cabeza de Vaca have come to Mount Dragon to work shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest scientific minds on the planet. Led by visionary genius Brent Scopes, their secret goal is a medical breakthrough that promises to bring inc...

As an ESL teacher, have you looked at the phonetics textbooks on the market and decided that they don't directly address your needs? Unlike pronunciation books aimed at students of linguistics or at learners of English, Teaching American English Pronunciation has been written specifically for ESL teachers. It doesn't only give academic descriptions, but also helps you to improve your students' pronunciation effectively.

A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammarWhy do we say “I am reading a catalog” instead of “I read a catalog”? Why do we say “do” at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.Covering such turning points as the little-know...

Accessible, succinct, and including numerous student-friendly features, this introductory textbook offers an exceptional foundation to the field for those who are coming to it for the first time.Provides an ideal first course book in phonology, written by a renowned phonologistDeveloped and tested in the classroom through years of experience and useEmphasizes analysis of phonological data, placing this in its scientific context, and explai...

This book provides a comprehensive account of the intentionality of perceptual experience. With special emphasis on vision Searle explains how the raw phenomenology of perception sets the content and the conditions of satisfaction of experience. The central question concerns the relation between the subjective conscious perceptual field and the objective perceptual field. Everything in the objective field is either perceived or can be perceived. Nothing in the subjective field is perceived...

'My first English lesson was grammar with the terrifying Mrs Petrie. She spent the entire time marching up and down the classroom, thwacking various items of school furniture with a ruler while she banged on about the ING part of the verb. I sat there, vibrating with fear, desperately trying to figure out what on earth she could mean. Irregular Negative Gerund? Intransitive Nominative Genitive? It was only years later, when I was teaching English to foreign students, that I realised that E...