How English has become a language of the people in India—one that enables the state but also empowers protests against it Against a groundswell of critiques of global English, Vernacular English argues that literary studies are yet to confront the true political import of the English language in the world today. A comparative study of three centuries of English literature and media in India, this original and provocative book tells the story of English in India as a tale not of imperial coercion, but of a people’s language in a postcolonial democracy. Focusing on experiences of hearing, touching, remembering, speaking, and seeing English, Akshya Saxena delves into a previously unexplored body of texts from English and Hindi literature, law, film, visual art, and public protests. She reveals little-known debates and practices that have shaped the meanings of English in India and the Anglophone world, including the overlooked history of the legislation of English in India. She also calls attention to how low castes and minority ethnic groups have routinely used this elite language to protest the Indian state. Challenging prevailing conceptions of English as a vernacular and global lingua franca, Vernacular English does nothing less than reimagine what a language is and the categories used to analyze it.

In response to the flood of interest in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) following the recent controversy over "Ebonics," this book brings together sixteen essays on the subject by a leading expert in the field, one who has been researching and writing on it for a quarter of a century.

This authoritative introduction to African American English (AAE) is the first textbook to look at the grammar as a whole. Clearly organised, it describes patterns in the sentence structure, sound system, word formation and word use in AAE. The textbook examines topics such as education, speech events in the secular and religious world, and the use of language in literature and the media to create black images. It includes exercises to accompany each chapter and will be essential reading for students in linguistics, education, anthropology, African American studies and literature.

Knowledge about one’s linguistic background, especially when it is different from mainstream varieties, provides a basis for identity and self. Ancestral values can be upheld, celebrated, and rooted further in the consciousness of its speakers. In the case of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) the matter is not straightforward and, ultimately, the social implications its speakers still face today are unresolved. Through detailed analysis of the four building blocks phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary, Sophia Huber tries to trace the development of AAVE as a literary dialect. By unearthing in what ways AAVE in its written form is different from the spoken variety, long established social stigmata and stereotypes which have been burned into the consciousness of the USA through a (initially) white dominated literary tradition will be exposed. Analysing fourteen novels and one short story featuring AAVE, it is the first linguistic study of this scope.

Offers a set of diverse analyses of traditional and contemporary work on language structure and use in African American communities.

This volume gives a detailed overview of the varieties of English spoken in the Americas and the Caribbean, including regional, social and ethnic dialects (such as Southern US, Canadian or Chicano English) as well as Caribbean creoles from the Bahamas to Suriname. The chapters, written by widely acclaimed specialists, provide concise and comprehensive information on the phonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics of each variety discussed. The articles are followed by exercises and study questions. The exercises are geared towards students and can be used for classroom assignments as well as for self study in preparation for exams. Instructors can use the exercises, sound samples and interactive maps to enhance their classroom presentations and to highlight important language features.

Houses are more than a shelter from the elements: they also offer an unparalleled insight into the beliefs, ideas and experiences of the people who built and lived in them. In this engaging book, Matthew Johnson looks at the traditional houses that still exist throughout the English countryside and examines the lives of the ordinary people who once occupied them. His wide-ranging narrative takes in the medieval hall and the community it framed; the rebuilding and 'improvement'of houses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the rise of the Georgian Order in both architecture and eighteenth century culture. This passionate book is animated by the conviction that old houses are much more than just pretty tableaux of an idyllic, unchanging rural England. Vernacular houses are compared to their larger, 'polite' counterparts, and English houses are placed in the wider context of the British Isles and the Atlantic world beyond. The result is a dynamic, compelling account of the development of houses in the English countryside and through this, a portrait of changing patterns of social life from medieval to modern times. Richly illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings, this book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the significance of our built heritage and the historic landscape.

This book was the first to provide a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English and is widely recognised as a classic in the field. It covers both the main linguistic features, in particular the grammar, phonology, and lexicon as well as the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English. The editors have played key roles in the development of African-American English and Black Linguistics as overlapping academic fields of study. Along with other leading figures, notably Geneva Smitherman, William Labov and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative diverse guide to these vitally important subject areas. Drawing on key moments of cultural significance from the Ebonics controversy to the rap of Ice-T, the contributors cover the state of the art in scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches. This classic edition has a new foreword by Sonja Lanehart, setting the book in context and celebrating its influence. This is an essential text for courses on African-American English, key reading for Varieties of English and World Englishes modules and an important reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

This book offers a critical exploration of the role of English in postcolonial communities such as India. Specifically, it focuses on some local ways in which the language falls along the lines of a class-based divide (with ancillary ones of gender and caste as well). The book argues that issues of inequality, subordination and unequal value seem to revolve directly around the general positioning of English in relation to vernacular languages. The author was raised and schooled in the Indian educational system.

World Englishes on the Web focuses on linguistic practices at the intersection of international migration and social media, examining the language repertoires of Nigerians living in the United States, and their negotiations of identity and authenticity on a Nigerian web forum. Based on a large corpus of informal, multilingual, interactive, online writing, this book describes how diasporic Nigerians employ African-American Vernacular English, Nigerian English, Nigerian Pidgin, and ethnic Nigerian languages in an online community of practice. The project combines corpus linguistic methods—relying on a corpus management tool custom-made for web forum data—with ethnographically-informed qualitative analyses of morphosyntactic, lexical, and orthographic features, and immigrants’ language attitudes and ideologies. It is relevant particularly for linguists and other social scientists interested in World Englishes, the sociolinguistics of globalization and computer-mediated communication, corpus linguistics, and pidgin and creole languages