The topic of bilingualism has aroused considerable interest in research on language acquisition in recent decades. Researchers in various fields, such as developmental psychology and psycholinguistics, have investigated bilingual populations from different perspectives in order to understand better how bilingualism affects cognitive abilities like…

Case studies provide detailed comparisons, arranged alphabetically by title for ease of reference, of 26 problems in Modern English grammar, from both the old grammar (OG) and new grammar (NG) viewpoints. This A-Z approach juxtaposes contributions made by OG and NG to the description of Modern English grammar. Part I surveys large OG and NG…

This book explains the usage of more than 1,000 food-related expressions in everyday English. The 13 comprehensive chapters of the book cover the entire alphabet of food phrases from "soup to nuts" (or as in the index, from "above the salt" to "zest") as well as cooking and dining terms. The book provides many food…

Using examples drawn from books, magazines, newspapers, and television programs, this book examines linguistic sexism in the hope that if people consciously discard the semantic symbols of deeply rooted cultural assumptions, in time they will be freed from their power. The nine chapters discuss the following topics: how the way the culture's…

The textbook is designed as a self-contained introduction to English syntax, providing an overview of key theoretical concepts and descriptive devices used in contemporary linguistic work rather than a historical perspective and using varieties of English from around the world rather than other languages for illustration. Chapter topics include:…

The textbook provides an intensive introduction to recent work in syntactic theory within the minimalist framework. The approach taken is to presuppose no background knowledge of syntactic theory or historical linguistics. Rather than compare English with other languages, illustrations are drawn from varieties of English from around the world.…

The introduction to systemic functional linguistics explores the social semiotic approach to language most closely associated with the work of Michael Halliday and his colleagues. An approach that views language as a strategic, meaning-making resource, systemic linguistics focuses on the analysis of authentic, everyday texts and asks both how…

The book presents the following papers and transcriptions of debates: "One Country, Two Systems, Three Languages" (Sue Wright); "The Background to Language Change in Hong Kong" (Godfrey Harrison, Lydia K. H. So); "Aspects of the Two Languages System and Three Language Problem in the Changing Society of Hong Kong"…

This workbook for students provides an accessible introduction to a range of ways of analyzing language in context. The workbook can be used in a number of ways, for example, as a student reference text to briefly review a particular kind of language analysis or as a course textbook to introduce students to a variety of approaches to language data…

Essays on the history of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) include: an introduction to the evolution of AAVE within the African American diaspora (Shana Poplack); "Rephrasing the Copula: Contraction and Zero in Early African American English" (James A. Walker); "Reconstructing the Source of Early African American English…

The study examines origins of the usage patterns of "be" forms (conjugated and invariant forms of the copula) in Black English as they developed over a period of about 30 years. The corpus studied consists of selected interviews from a collection of recordings about Hoodoo, conjuration, witchcraft, and rootwork made by a white priest with almost…

An examination of pattern in certain languages spoken primarily by Blacks has both a narrow and a broad focus. The former is on structure and development of the creole spoken by Jamaicans in England and to a lesser extent, a Black country English. The broader focus is on the relationship between the Kwa languages of West Africa and the…

Going beyond mere grammaticality, this book examines the basic writing skills of a group of community college students in Hawaii for errors in idiomaticity, or native-like appropriateness of expression. The book suggests criteria for the classification of "phrasematic" expressions, and a convenient terminology comprising idioms,…

A discussion of language acquisition assumes that lexicon plays a central role, and that the principles of conventionality and contrast are also essential. It examines the hypotheses children draw on about possible word meanings and how they map their meanings into forms. This process begins with children's emerging knowledge of conventional words…

Intended to provide a basis for a sociolinguistic theory of reading by placing reading within a discussion of the formal and functional characteristics of language use in social settings, this book explores the state of the art of reading and literacy, the relations between spoken and written language, and explanations of reading failure. Chapters…