Why did a rural dialect from the heart of Norwegian farm country win a national dialect popularity contest? What were the effects of this win, and what has happened to the winning dialect since? A Winning Dialect tells a story of linguistic and cultural transformation in the rural district of Valdres, Norway. It shows how lifelong residents have adapted to changing social, economic, and political circumstances – particularly the shift from family farming to tourism development – and how they have used local linguistic and cultural resources to craft a viable future for themselves and the places their ancestors have called home for centuries. Once stigmatized as poor and uneducated, the distinctive dialect of Valdres now holds a special place as a valuable part of Norwegian national heritage, as well as a marker of local belonging. Based on two decades of research and fieldwork, A Winning Dialect considers how a traditional dialect is transformed – linguistically and culturally – as it is put to new uses in the contemporary world.

The Handbook of Language Contact offers systematic coverage of the major issues in this field – ranging from the value of contact explanations in linguistics, to the impact of immigration, to dialectology – combining new research from a team of globally renowned scholars, with case studies of numerous languages. An authoritative reference work exploring the major issues in the field of language contact: the study of how language changes when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact Brings together 40 specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars Examines language contact in societies which have significant immigration populations, and includes a fascinating cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world Accessibly structured into sections exploring the place of contact studies within linguistics as a whole; the value of contact studies for research into language change; and language contact in the context of work on language and society Explores a broad range of topics, making it an excellent resource for both faculty and students across a variety of fields within linguistics

The dimensions of time and space fundamentally cause and shape the variability of all human language. To reduce investigation of this insight to manageable proportions, researchers have traditionally concentrated on the “deepest” dialects. But it is increasingly apparent that, although most people still speak with a distinct regional coloring, the new mobility of speakers in recently industrialized and postindustrial societies and the efflorescence of communication technologies cannot be ignored. This has given rise to a reconsideration of the relationship between geographical place and cultural space, and the fundamental link between language and a spatially bounded territory. Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation seeks to take full account of these developments in a comprehensive, theoretically rich way. The introductory volume examines the concept of space and linguistic approaches to it, the structure and dynamics of language spaces, and relevant research methods. A second volume offers the first thorough exploration of the interplay between linguistic investigation and cartography, and subsequent volumes uniformly document the state of research into the spatial dimension of particular language groupings. Key features: comprehensive coverage of the field in terms of theory and methods the unique volume stands alone, since it neither is a handbook of dialectology or of areal linguistics, nor a handbook on language variation alone gathers together a great number of distinguished scholars and experts in the field

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Potsdam 2008) which are especially representative of the concerns of the conference and its thematic range. The reflection about language and the individual languages has characterized cultures since ancient times and has brought forth different traditions of the language sciences. The contributions cover the period from antiquity to contemporary history. In addition to terminological and social history approaches, they also include research results based on corpora or which reconstruct theoretical approaches. More than other scholars, linguists are turning to the history of their science for answers to current questions. This underscores the value of the history of language sciences for understanding the present state of linguistics and its development. Interdisciplinarity necessary for the research of many issues and manifestations of language makes historical reflections on the disciplines indispensable.