San Antonio College Library

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...

"Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions: Making Sense of Transatlantic English is a practical and engaging guide to sorting out the differences between American and British English. Written with a culturally neutral stance, this book catalogs the differences between the "two" languages. Not simply a collection of lists, the chapters of this book are arranged around important and familiar topics, including Education; the Government and the Law;...

Six aspects of nineteenth-century English are treated in separate chapters: writing, sounds, words, slang, grammar, and voices. In each domain, innovation and obsolescence are discussed as they were observed by contemporary writers. Thus Bailey shows how linguistic details gained powerful social meaning in the emergent stratification by class, region, race, and gender of the anglophone community. An abundance of quotations provides insight into the...

"As the most widely documented language in human history English holds a unique key to unlocking some of the mysteries of the uniquely human endowment of language. Yet the field of World Englishes has remained somewhat marginal in linguistic theory. This collection heralds a more direct and mutually constructive engagement with current linguistic theories, questions, and methodologies. It achieves this through areal overviews, theoretical chapters,...

A history of the English language draws on the diversity of dialects and regional accents around the world, as well as the dialects that appear in a variety of literary classics, to explain the significance of the language.