Bamberger Beitraege zur Englischen Sprachwissenschaft / Bamberg Studies in English Linguistics – serie

From a diachronic point of view, two linguistic contributions deal with grammaticalization and iconicity and with metaphorical aspects of compounding. The other two linguistic papers are related to the present. One offers a critique of perceptual dialectology and the other is concerned with recent developments in computer cartography. The contributions in the domains of literary and cultural studies demonstrate the wide extension of the field of enquiry and of current methods. Historically, they reach from the Old English period to the present day, and systematically, from new approaches in the interpretation of particular works through overviews over the regional validity of modes of literary aesthetics to recent innovations in literary theory and narratology.

This book explores a dialect contact situation in a second language setting – native speakers of English coming to Japan from different parts of the world as English teachers. It focuses on an Anglophone community in which speakers are socially and geographically mobile and have loose-knit networks with speakers of different languages and dialects. This longitudinal sociolinguistic study aims to investigate the relatively short-term linguistic changes induced by frequent face-to-face interaction with speakers of different dialects and to illustrate the impact of social network effects. Statistical analyses reveal that the individual speakers’ interpersonal ties are important factors that influence the linguistic behaviour of the speakers in a dialect contact situation in an L2 setting.

This collection unites 21 papers mainly presented at the 21st IAUPE (International Association of University Professors of English) Conference held at the Valetta Campus of the University of Malta in mid-July 2010. Most periods of world-wide literature in English from Anglo-Saxon to the present day were represented as well as many aspects of language and linguistics. One section «Writers and the Mediterranean» was of particular local interest.

This study analyses left dislocation, prepositions, and the progressive aspect in Ugandan English. It uses spoken data of English speakers with the three indigenous Ugandan languages. The results show high frequency use of left dislocation in Ugandan English. This suggests possible substrate influence from these first languages since left dislocation construction is used in these languages. The use of prepositions is overwhelmingly like in Standard English with just very few cases indicating variation from Standard English, although the three indigenous languages have very few prepositions in comparison to the English language. The use of the progressive illustrates variation among English speakers with the three first languages indicating that Ugandan English is not homogenous.

Methods in Dialectology is a venerable institution, having started in 1972 in London, Western Ontario, Canada. This book is a collection of papers presented at Methods XVI in Tachikawa, Japan, in 2017. It was the first time Methods took place in Asia. In this volume, the emphasis is on diverse methods and diverse research questions. Many of the papers focus on language innovation, language change, corpus studies and linguistic atlas from different perspectives. At the same time, methodological innovation is very much in focus. Its emphasis meant that several papers showcased cutting-edge quantitative techniques that allow dialectologists to address questions that had been thought impossible to answer only a few years ago.

This volume highlights the dynamic nature of the field of English Linguistics and features selected contributions from the 8th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English. The contributions comprise studies (i) that focus on the structure of linguistic systems (or subsystems) or the internal structure of specific construction types, (ii) that take an interest in variation at all linguistic levels, or (iii) that explore what linguistic findings can tell us about human cognition in general, and language processing in particular. All chapters represent state-of-the-art research that relies on rigorous quantitative and qualitative analysis and that will inform current and future linguistic practice and theory building.

A discussion of English and Polish gender systems, generic words, forms of address, referring expressions and other topics, provides evidence that in these two languages males and females are not treated equally. The main concern of this book is linguistic sexism. The data indicate that speakers of both languages treat male as the norm, attribute less desirable qualities to the speech and behaviour of women, stereotype women more than men, or simply make women linguistically invisible members of society.