Natalie Braber – författare

If we want to understand how German speakers think about themselves and the world in which they live, then a useful place to begin is by looking at the language they use. This fully revised and updated edition provides a systematic approach to the study of the German language and an introduction to the social aspects of the language, including its dialects, its history and the uses of the language today. No previous knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and each chapter is accompanied by a series of practical exercises. This edition includes a brand new section on gender, purism and German unification, fresh examples for analysis and an updated chapter on the geography of Germany today. The book will help students not only to find new ways of exploring the German language, but also of thinking and talking about German-speaking cultures.

If we want to understand how German speakers think about themselves and the world in which they live, then a useful place to begin is by looking at the language they use. This fully revised and updated edition provides a systematic approach to the study of the German language and an introduction to the social aspects of the language, including its dialects, its history and the uses of the language today. No previous knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and each chapter is accompanied by a series of practical exercises. This edition includes a brand new section on gender, purism and German unification, fresh examples for analysis and an updated chapter on the geography of Germany today. The book will help students not only to find new ways of exploring the German language, but also of thinking and talking about German-speaking cultures.

This volume offers an in-depth and up-to-date exploration of lexical variation from sociolinguistic perspectives, addressing a notable gap in lexis-focused research within the field. Drawing on a wide array of examples from the English language, the collection showcases cutting-edge approaches to understanding how lexical variation operates across different social and linguistic contexts.Organised into three thematic sections, the book begins with a focus on contemporary developments in dialectology. The first section not only highlights regional and social variation in lexis but also offers critical insights into the methodological innovations shaping 21st-century dialect research. The second section highlights innovative perspectives emerging from corpus linguistics, wheras the final section examines lexical variation through the lens of social meaning, including contributions from third-wave variationist sociolinguistics. Together, these chapters argue for the significance of lexical analysis in sociolinguistic inquiry – both as a window into society and as a means of uncovering mechanisms of language variation and change.This collection will be a valuable resource for students, researchers, and scholars in language variation and change, dialectology, corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics more broadly.

Exploring Language and Linguistics considers the key concepts of linguistics and the application of these concepts to real-world settings. The first eight chapters cover the standard topics of introduction to linguistics courses, while subsequent chapters introduce students to applied topics such as media discourse, literary linguistics and psycholinguistics. Each chapter has been written by a subject expert and experienced teacher, ensuring that the text is both up-to-date and clearly presented. Numerous learning features provide extensive student support: exercises allow students to review their understanding of key topics; summaries encourage students to reflect on the main points of each chapter; figures, photos, tables and charts clarify complex topics; and annotated suggestions for further reading point students to resources for self-study. A companion website, with 170 self-test questions, suggested group exercises, audio files and links to additional web resources, completes the learning package.

This book presents an overview of sociolinguistic research in England. Showcasing developments in sociolinguistic theory, method and application, the chapters examine sociolinguistic topics on different linguistic levels and in different geographical areas across the country.

This book presents an overview of sociolinguistic research in England. Showcasing developments in sociolinguistic theory, method and application, the chapters examine sociolinguistic topics on different linguistic levels and in different geographical areas across the country.

This interdisciplinary edited volume combines linguistic and memory approaches to study how people attribute meaning to the past. It includes contributions by linguists who consider memory studies and its theories, and by memory studies scholars without linguistic background who look at sociolinguistic methods and concepts.The book is divided into three parts and includes case studies from countries including Belgium, Chile, Cyprus, India, Italy, Poland and Sri Lanka. The first part considers ways in which memory scholars might reach out to discourse analytical and other sociolinguistic methods to make sense of a variety of memory phenomena. The second considers cutting-edge linguistic research which reaches out to memory scholars and their body of theories. The final section centres on how language itself can be studied as a ‘site of memory’. Its symbolic power is salient for communities to make sense of continuities between past, present and future.In addition to offering relevant theoretical recombinations and concrete methodological ways forward, the chapters indicate the different scales that come into play in this type of research, and what is at stake. The case studies from each chapter vary from the intimate, such as oral histories in the family setting and the difficult work of translators for asylum seekers, to the networked contexts of diasporic internet fora, and the grand-historical scale of the role of heritage in long-standing territorial disputes, as in the case of Cyprus. By bringing these scales together, readers are poised to discover new connections and instances of interscalar transfer.This book makes a powerful case that the connections between language and memory are crucial across cultures and at different scales.

This interdisciplinary edited volume combines linguistic and memory approaches to study how people attribute meaning to the past. It includes contributions by linguists who consider memory and its theories, and by memory scholars without linguistic background who look at sociolinguistic methods and concepts.The book is divided into three parts and includes case studies from countries including Belgium, Chile, Cyprus, India, Italy, Poland and Sri Lanka. The first part considers ways in which memory scholars might reach out to discourse analytical and other sociolinguistic methods to make sense of a variety of memory phenomena. The second considers cutting-edge linguistic research which reaches out to memory scholars and their body of theories. The final section centres on how language itself can be studied as a ‘site of memory’. Its symbolic power is salient for communities to make sense of continuities between past, present and future.In addition to offering relevant theoretical recombinations and concrete methodological ways forward, the chapters indicate the different scales that come into play in this type of research, and what is at stake. The case studies from each chapter vary from the intimate, such as oral histories in the family setting and the difficult work of translators for asylum seekers, to the networked contexts of diasporic internet fora, and the grand-historical scale of the role of heritage in long-standing territorial disputes, as in the case of Cyprus. By bringing these scales together, readers are poised to discover new connections and instances of interscalar transfer.This book makes a powerful case that the connections between language and memory are crucial across cultures and at different scales.

Coal mining, a prominent industry once situated at the heart of communities across the East Midlands, has now completely ceased in the UK. Although there is some attempt to keep hold of the artefacts which tell us about mining, mining language remains neglected. Natalie Braber’s research has shown there is a variety of ‘pit talk’ which is distinctive to the East Midlands. Lexical Variation of an East Midlands Mining Community explains the distinct language used by miners in their day-to-day lives. This book will appeal to academics interested in language variation and change, language and identity, community heritage, fragmented communities and post-industrial societies.

The first book to examine the language of coal miners in the East Midlands of EnglandExamines the language of coal miners in the East Midlands Investigates an important aspect of intangible cultural heritage Explores the relationship of language and identity Coal mining, long one of the most important industries in the East Midlands, has now completely ceased in the UK. Although there is some attempt to keep hold of the artefacts which tell us about mining, mining language remains neglected. Research by Natalie Braber has shown that there is a variety of 'pit talk' which is distinctive to the East Midlands and this book explains the language used by miners in their everyday work and lives. This book will appeal to academics interested in language variation and change, language and identity, community heritage, fragmented communities and post-industrial societies.

This volume will provide a comprehensive yet accessible description of East Midlands English, an area of neglect in linguistic research. Existing publications, which aggregate the findings of earlier surveys and more recent localised studies presenting an overview of regional speech in the UK, are either lacking up-to-date research data from the East Midlands or simply ignore the region. A coordinated survey of dialects of the East Midlands was part of the Survey of English Dialects (SED) in the 1950s. This data is now over sixty years old and focuses almost exclusively on broad rural dialect speakers. This book will fill the knowledge and literature gaps by comparing vernacular speech in different urban and rural locations in the East Midlands, and examining whether the East Midlands is a 'transition zone' between the North and South. Recordings held by the British Library will be used, and will be supplemented with recordings made with local speakers.Language in the East Midlands is distinctive and there is considerable regional variety, for instance, between speech in the major urban centres of Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Bringing out this regional variation will also improve our wider understanding of language variation in English. The concept of the East Midlands in itself is not a clear one, and this volume aims to address such issues and to examine what makes the East Midlands an area of itself and what this area includes.