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Find out moreSee below for a selection of the latest books from Sociolinguistics category. Presented with a red border are the Sociolinguistics books that have been lovingly read and reviewed by the experts at Lovereading. With expert reading recommendations made by people with a passion for books and some unique features Lovereading will help you find great Sociolinguistics books and those from many more genres to read that will keep you inspired and entertained. And it's all free!
The dual number in Slavic has always puzzled linguists. In some Slavic languages, such as Russian, there is no dual number; there are only two categories of number, singular and plural. However, some Slavic languages, such as Slovenian, have three distinct categories of number: singular (1); dual (2); and plural (3 or more). Considering that all Slavic languages have evolved from a common Proto Slavic language, it is puzzling that there is such a difference in the category of number. In The Evolution of the Slavic Dual: A Biolinguistic Perspective, Tatyana G. Slobodchikoff explains the evolution of the category of number in Slavic languages. With the aid of tools from biolinguistics, Slobodchikoff develops a new theory of morphosyntactic feature economy within the distributed morphology framework. This is the first study to use a biolinguistic approach to the evolution of Slavic languages. Using newly digitized corpora of Old East Slavic, Old Slovenian, and Old Sorbian manuscripts spanning from the eleventh century through the present time, this book presents a complete analysis of the evolution of dual number in Slavic languages.
Written by a wide range of highly regarded scholars and exciting junior ones, this book critiques and operationalizes contemporary thinking in the rapidly expanding field of linguistic anthropology. It does so using cases studies of actual everyday language practices from an extremely understudied, yet incredibly important area of the global South, Indonesia. In doing so, it provides a rich set of studies that model and explain complex linguistic anthropological analysis in engaging and easily understood ways. As a book that is both accessible for undergraduate students and enlightening for graduate students through to senior professors, this book problematizes a wide range of assumptions. The diversity of settings and methodologies used in this book surpass many recent collections that attempt to address issues surrounding contemporary processes of diversification given rapid ongoing social change. In focusing on the trees, so to speak, the collection as a whole also enables readers to see the forest. This approach provides a rare insight into relationships between everyday language practices, social change, and the ever present and ongoing processes of nation building.
Written by a wide range of highly regarded scholars and exciting junior ones, this book critiques and operationalizes contemporary thinking in the rapidly expanding field of linguistic anthropology. It does so using cases studies of actual everyday language practices from an extremely understudied, yet incredibly important area of the global South, Indonesia. In doing so, it provides a rich set of studies that model and explain complex linguistic anthropological analysis in engaging and easily understood ways. As a book that is both accessible for undergraduate students and enlightening for graduate students through to senior professors, this book problematizes a wide range of assumptions. The diversity of settings and methodologies used in this book surpass many recent collections that attempt to address issues surrounding contemporary processes of diversification given rapid ongoing social change. In focusing on the trees, so to speak, the collection as a whole also enables readers to see the forest. This approach provides a rare insight into relationships between everyday language practices, social change, and the ever present and ongoing processes of nation building.
The Nage people of the eastern Indonesian island of Flores refer to someone who begins something but is regularly distracted by other matters as a dog pissing at the edge of a path. In this first comprehensive study of animal metaphors in a non-Western society, Gregory Forth focuses on how the Nage understand metaphor and use their knowledge of animals to shape specific expressions. Based on extensive field research, A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path explores the meaning and use of over 560 animal metaphors employed by the Nage. Investigating how closely their indigenous concept of pata pele corresponds to the Greek-derived English concept of metaphor, Forth demonstrates that the Nage people understand these figures of speech in the same way as Westerners - namely as conventional ways of speaking about people and objects, not expressions of an essential identity between their animal vehicles and human referents. Theoretically engaging with anthropology's recent ontological turn, the book considers whether metaphors reveal significant differences in conceptions of human-animal relations, the human-animal contrast, and human understanding of other humans in different parts of the world. An incredible catalogue of animal-based linguistic art and Nage verbal conventions, A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path illuminates essential features of metaphorical thought everywhere.
Up to ninety percent of humanity's traditional languages and cultures are at risk and may disappear this century. While language endangerment has not achieved the publicity surrounding environmental change and biodiversity loss, it is just as serious, disastrously reducing the variety of human knowledge and thought. This book shows why it matters, why and how it happens, and what communities and scholars can do about it. David and Maya Bradley provide a new framework for investigating and documenting linguistic, social and other factors which contribute to languages shifting away from their cultural heritage. Illustrated with practical in-depth case studies and examples from the authors' own work in Asia and elsewhere, the book encourages communities to maintain or reclaim their traditional languages and cultures.
Up to ninety percent of humanity's traditional languages and cultures are at risk and may disappear this century. While language endangerment has not achieved the publicity surrounding environmental change and biodiversity loss, it is just as serious, disastrously reducing the variety of human knowledge and thought. This book shows why it matters, why and how it happens, and what communities and scholars can do about it. David and Maya Bradley provide a new framework for investigating and documenting linguistic, social and other factors which contribute to languages shifting away from their cultural heritage. Illustrated with practical in-depth case studies and examples from the authors' own work in Asia and elsewhere, the book encourages communities to maintain or reclaim their traditional languages and cultures.
The Nage people of the eastern Indonesian island of Flores refer to someone who begins something but is regularly distracted by other matters as a dog pissing at the edge of a path. In this first comprehensive study of animal metaphors in a non-Western society, Gregory Forth focuses on how the Nage understand metaphor and use their knowledge of animals to shape specific expressions. Based on extensive field research, A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path explores the meaning and use of over 560 animal metaphors employed by the Nage. Investigating how closely their indigenous concept of pata pele corresponds to the Greek-derived English concept of metaphor, Forth demonstrates that the Nage people understand these figures of speech in the same way as Westerners - namely as conventional ways of speaking about people and objects, not expressions of an essential identity between their animal vehicles and human referents. Theoretically engaging with anthropology's recent ontological turn, the book considers whether metaphors reveal significant differences in conceptions of human-animal relations, the human-animal contrast, and human understanding of other humans in different parts of the world. An incredible catalogue of animal-based linguistic art and Nage verbal conventions, A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path illuminates essential features of metaphorical thought everywhere.
For nearly 400 years, New England has held an important place in the development of American English, and New England accents are very well known in the popular imagination. While other projects have studied various dialect regions of New England, this is the first large-scale academic project since the 1930s to focus specifically on New England English as a whole. In New England English, James N. Stanford presents new variationist sociolinguistic research covering all six New England states, with detailed geographic, acoustic phonetic, and statistical analyses of recently collected data from over 1,600 New Englanders. Stanford and his team of Dartmouth students built this dataset over 8 years of face-to-face fieldwork and online audio recordings and questionnaires. Using acoustic phonetics, computational processing, and dialect maps, the book systematically documents major traditional New England dialect features and their current usage in terms of geography, age, gender, ethnicity, social class, and other factors. This dataset is interpreted in terms of William Labov's outward orientation of the language faculty, dialect levelling, convergence and divergence, and Hub social geometry. The result is a wide-ranging empirical analysis and theoretical overview of this influential English dialect region.
Researching Language, Gender and Sexuality leads students through the process of undertaking research in order to explore how gender and sexuality are represented and constructed through language. Drawing on international research, Sauntson incorporates a fluid understanding of genders and sexualities and includes research on a diverse range of identities. This accessible guidebook offers an outline of the practical steps and ethical guidelines involved when gathering linguistic data for the purpose of investigating gender and sexuality. Each chapter contains up-to-date information and empirical case studies that relate to a range of topics within the field of language, gender and sexuality, as well as suggestions for how students could practically research the areas covered. Student-friendly, this is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of English Language, Linguistics and Gender Studies.
Researching Language, Gender and Sexuality leads students through the process of undertaking research in order to explore how gender and sexuality are represented and constructed through language. Drawing on international research, Sauntson incorporates a fluid understanding of genders and sexualities and includes research on a diverse range of identities. This accessible guidebook offers an outline of the practical steps and ethical guidelines involved when gathering linguistic data for the purpose of investigating gender and sexuality. Each chapter contains up-to-date information and empirical case studies that relate to a range of topics within the field of language, gender and sexuality, as well as suggestions for how students could practically research the areas covered. Student-friendly, this is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of English Language, Linguistics and Gender Studies.
Language is integral to the construction of personal, socio-cultural and socio-political identities. Language, Identity and Symbolic Culture closely investigates the relationship between language and identities, offering a comprehensive yet progressive view of how linguistics relates to development and education, both in theoretical and real world applications. Progressing from a theoretical core examining the connection between language and individual identity, this book moves on to look at the wider socio-political discourse involving the marginalization and resistance of communities in the world. Beginning with the philosophical paradigms of language, Evans questions whether language shapes personal identities in its daily use or whether language is simply a tool for describing, rather than creating, the world. Extrapolating on this, the contributors utilise case studies from across the globe to see how these linguistic perspectives are played out in the real world, considering the role of language in issues surrounding power, colonization, marginalization and education. Language, Identity and Symbolic Culture offers a view of language identity conflicts around the world and an understanding of the opportunities of political and cultural emancipation created through language and open discourse.
Romani is the first language, and family and community language, of upwards of 3-4 million people and possibly many more in Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Documentation and research on the language draws on a tradition of more than two centuries, yet it remains relatively unknown and often engulfed by myths. In recent decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the language including language maintenance and educational projects, the creation of digital resources, language policy initiatives, and a flourishing community of online users of the language. This Handbook presents state of the art research on Romani language and linguistics. Bringing together key established scholars in the field of linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, it introduces the reader to the structures of Romani and its dialect divisions, and to the history of research on the language. It then goes on to explore major external influences on the language through contact with other key languages, aspects of language acquisition, and interventions in support of the language through public policy provisions, activism, translation, religious and literary initiatives, and social media. This comprehensive and groundbreaking account of Romani will appeal to students and scholars from across language and linguistics.
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