Edward Finegan – författare

Whatever you do and wherever you go, you use language to interact. This text explains what human language is and how it works, giving you a look into the multiple fascinating and surprising facets of this uniquely human trait. You’ll find many opportunities to ask your own questions and explore the language in use all around you.

The guiding idea of this collection is to bring together a number of different perspectives on variation in language according to occasion of use. At present this is a rather ill-defined field of interest sometimes referred to as style variation and sometimes as register variation. This area has not figured as prominently in sociolinguistics as certain and other aspects of variation (social dialect variation in particular). This volume draws attention to the importance of this ubiquitous linguistic phenomenon and points the way to a unified approach. Biber and Finegan have solicited studies presenting a variety of perspectives on registers and register variation, as well as papers that attempt to integrate register and social dialect variation into a coherent theoretical framework.

This collection brings together several perspectives on language varieties defined according to their contexts of use--what are variously called registers, sublanguages, or genres. The volume highlights the importance of these central linguistic phenomena; it includes empirical analyses and linguistic descriptions, as well as explanations for existing patterns of variation and proposals for theoretical frameworks. The book treats languages in obsolescence and in their youth; it examines registers from languages from around the globe; and it offers several of the most complete studies of registers and register variation published to date, adopting both synchronic and diachronic perspectives.

This textbook provides a comprehensive survey of current language issues in the USA. Through a series of specially commissioned chapters by leading scholars, it explores the nature of language variation in the United States and its social, historical and political significance. The book is divided into three sections. Part I, American English, explores the history and distinctiveness of American English, and regional and social varieties. Part II, Other Language Varieties, looks at multilingualism and linguistic diversity. Part III, The Sociolinguistic Situation in the USA includes chapters on attitudes to language, language and education, Rap and Hip Hop, and adolescent language. It also explores issues such as the Ebonics controversy and the English Only movement. Clear, accessible and broad in its coverage, this book will be welcomed by students across the disciplines of English, Linguistics, Communication, American Studies and Popular Culture, as well as anyone interested more generally in language-related issues.

There is no such thing as 'the dictionary'. Rather, there are innumerable kinds of dictionaries that respond to their authors' aspirations and their users' needs. In each case, the negotiation among a dictionary's material, its authors, and its readers tells a rich cultural story. Bringing together cutting-edge research from an international team of experts, this interdisciplinary Handbook provides an all-encompassing account of dictionaries in context. Organized into five thematic parts, its chapters cover a multitude of topics such as types of dictionaries, the place of dictionaries in intellectual, cultural and book history, and dictionaries as material objects, as well as their visual design. It also explores the role of dictionaries in a select group of special fields where words especially matter (for instance, law), the business contexts in which dictionaries are made, and finally the future of dictionaries. There is no fuller or more compelling overview of dictionaries available today.