This is a unique introductory survey of the main regional and social varieties of English spoken in the British Isles. In the book, the authors discuss accent and dialect in the broader framework of language variation, including phonetic, phonological, grammatical, lexical, historical and stylistic differences. This is followed by a survey of the speech of twelve different areas of the British Isles. The cassette which accompanies the book consists of edited interviews (all transcribed in the book) with speakers from each of the different areas. The third edition has been thoroughly revised and includes an entirely new chapter on Received Pronunciation. The cassette now includes recordings of three different varieties of RP speech. Entirely new sections, with corresponding recordings, have been added on Lowland Scots, Devon and Dublin speech.

Do you call it April Fools’ Day, April Noddy Day or April Gowkin’ Day? Is the season before winter the Autumn, the Fall or the Backend? When you’re out of breath, do you pant, puff, pank, tift or thock? The words we use (and the sounds we make when we use them) are more often than not a product of where we live, and An Atlas of English Dialects shows the reader where certain words, sounds and phrases originate from and why usage varies from region to region. The Atlas includes: ninety maps showing the regions in which particular words, phrases and pronunciations are used detailed commentaries explaining points of linguistic, historical and cultural interest explanations of linguistic terms, a bibliography for further reading and a full index. Based on the Survey of English Dialects – the most extensive record of English regional speech – the Atlas is a fascinating and informative guide to the diversity of the English Language in England.

This book provides a very readable, up-to-date description of language variation in American English, covering regional, ethnic, and gender-based differences. contains new chapters on social and ethnic dialects, including a separate chapter on African American English and more comprehensive discussions of Latino, Native American, Cajun English, and other varieties, includes samples from a wider array of US regions features updated chapters as well as pedagogy such as new exercises, a phonetic symbols key, and a section on the notion of speech community accessibly written for the wide variety of students that enrol in a course on dialects, ranging from students with no background in linguistics to those who may wish to specialize in sociolinguistics

English Accents and Dialects is an essential guide to contemporary social and regional varieties of English spoken in the British Isles today. Together with invaluable overviews of numerous regional accents and dialects, this fifth edition provides a detailed description of key features of Received Pronounciation (RP) as well as several major non-standard varieties of English. Key features: main regional differences are followed by a survey of speech in over 20 areas of the UK and Ireland, audio samples of which are available to download at www.routledge.com/cw/hughes recent findings on London English, Aberdeen English and Liverpool English contains new entries on Hull, Manchester, Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Southampton, London West Indian, Lancashire and the Shetlands additional exercises with answers online accompany the new varieties clear maps throughout for locating particular accents and dialects. This combination of reference manual and practical guide makes this fifth edition of English Accents and Dialects a highly useful resource providing a comprehensive and contemporary coverage of speech in the UK and Ireland today.

This book is a comprehensive but accessible description of English as it is spoken in New Zealand. New Zealand English is one of the youngest native speaker varieties of English, and is the only variety of English where there is recorded evidence of its entire history. It shares some features with other Southern Hemisphere varieties of English such as Australian English and South African English, but is also clearly distinct from these. For the past two decades extensive research has focused on the evolution and ongoing development of the variety. New Zealand English presents the results of this research in an accessible way.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

While it is accepted that the pronunciation of English shows wide regional differences, there is a marked tendency to under-estimate the extent of the variation in grammar that exists within the British Isles today. In addressing this problem, Real English brings together the work of a number of experts on the subject to provide a pioneer volume in the field of the grammar of spoken English.