San Antonio College Library

Volume 1, Beginnings to 1066: This volume deals with the history of English up to the Norman Conquest and contains chapters on Indo-European and Germanic, phonology and morphology, syntax, semantics and vocabulary, dialectology, onomastics, and literary language. Each chapter, as well as giving a chronologically-oriented presentation of the data, surveys scholarship in the area and takes full account of the impact of developing and current linguistic...

Images of English demonstrates how opinions of the English language reflect prejudice and hope, bigotry and pride, scorn and celebration. Richard Bailey examines the attitudes of authors, critics, and commentators toward the English language and shows how their comments offer insight into the social conditions of their times. Images of English is the first attempt to focus exclusively on beliefs about English as a reflection of society itself- some...

"Angst over the apostrophe and hysteria over hyphens: the English language has become a combat zone. Why are people so passionate about language? How has the fighting over English usage come about?" "David Crystal charts the clashes from Anglo-Saxon times via the language of Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson to our own time of texting and the greengrocer's apostrophe. While others have fought to impose their views on spelling and grammar, David Crystal...

The thesis advanced in this short book is that a proper understanding and appreciation of poetry is not obtained by investigating the particular poet's career or the nature of the society in which he has grown up. These are at best secondary considerations. It is the special uses to which he puts his society and personality in the language of his time that are ultimately decisive. The thesis is illustrated in a survey of English poetry from the Renaissance...

This book presents a history of English written from the perspective of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, relating changes in the language to major social events and cultural changes and at the same time providing a framework for research.