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Language Anxiety
Conflict and Change in the History of English
Tim William Machan
312 pages
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234x156mm
978-0-19-923212-3
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Hardback
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29 January 2009
Price:
£30.00 £7.50
Please note, this offer price only applies to individual customers when ordering direct from Oxford University Press, while stock lasts. No further discounts will apply. If you are a bookseller, please contact your OUP sales representative.
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- First history of the causes and effects of anxiousness about language change
- Ranges through literature, politics, and history
- Moves from Alfred the Great to the internet
- Covers varieties of English all over the world
- Relates to current discussions of rights, national identity, educational standards, etc.
- Combines scholarship and learning with an engaging style
This book looks at the ever-present anxieties associated with language change. Focusing on English from Alfred the Great to the present, Tim Machan offers a fresh perspective on the history of language. He reveals amusing and sometimes disconcerting aspects of our linguistic and social behavior and suggests that anxiety about language has sometimes allowed us to avoid the issues we really find disturbing: when speakers of English worry over grammar, sounds, or words the real source of their anxiety is often not language at all but issues like immigration or social instability.
Drawing on an array of evidence from archives, literature,
history, polemics, and the press, as well as centuries of legislation, Tim Machan uncovers the perennial nature of concerns about the poverty and purity of English. There has never been a time, he shows, when we weren't worried about the corruption of language and its apparent connections with educational standards, the morality of youth, the integrity of society, and the identity of our nations. This is a fascinating story, told here in consummate fashion, combining insight and anecdote, and learning with wit - a book for everyone interested in languages and the people who speak them.
Readership: Anyone interested in social attitudes to language and in how language changes, or concerned with how the
use of English is linked to issues of education, immigration, and ethnic or national identity. Scholars and students of the history of English, language change and variation, historical linguistics, and language contact, in departments of literature, linguistics, history, education, and sociology.
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Tim William Machan, Marquette University
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"An impressive book making a persuasive case, with a wealth of evidence being presented from many domains." - Year's Work in English Studies "Machan's work is perhaps as valuable for the extraordinary assembly of historical commentary on language change as for his essential thesis that language anxiety is symptomatic of anxiety about other major tumultuous events in society, including the demise of national identity through immigration, social dissolution in general, or the shoring up of power and privilege by those who already have it. It is a truly fascinating book." - Discourse and Society "...an admirable sweep and a nutritious density" - Stephen Poole, The Guardian "This
is an excellent book. The subject matter is extremely interesting, the book is well-written, and the arguments are carefully crafted." - Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin, writing in eLanguage
(the Journal of the Linguistic Society of America)
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1: Language, Change, and Response
2: A Moveable Speech
3: Narratives of Change
4: Policy and Politics
5: Say the Right Thing
6: Fixing English
Bibliography
Index
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Phyllis Tate
Conductor's score and parts on hire
Available on Hire
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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