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821 results in English language and linguistics: general interest

Page 1 of 42

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage
  • 2nd edition
  • Pam Peters
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2026
    Print publication:
    31 July 2026
  • American and British English in the twenty-first century are still divided by a common language. Now in its second edition, this highly readable guide provides an authoritative reference to English usage, covering the differences, and some emerging similarities, between British, American and international English. It has been thoroughly updated and expanded to document hundreds of variable points of usage for the benefit of British and American readers, and for those seeking international forms of English for written communication, as first- or second-language users. It discusses the current status of each usage item with quantitative evidence from the NOW (News on the Web) corpus and contemporary research. Lively examples of usage are provided to capture aspects of twenty-first century culture world-wide. It also discusses issues in the use of personal names and ethnic naming practices, as well as sexist and homophobic words, and person-centred words for those living with a disability.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
  • Edited by Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Evelina Leivada
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • The Minimalist Program is a long-established branch of Chomsky's Generative approach to linguistics, which, since its first incarnation in the early 1990s, has become one of the most prominent frameworks for syntax. Bringing together a team of world-renowned scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to current developments in generative syntactic theory. Split into five thematic parts, the chapters cover the historical context and foundations of the program, overviews of the major areas of research within modern syntactic theory, and a survey of the variety of phenomena dealt with within Minimalism through a focus on concepts, primitives, and operations. It offers in-depth perspectives on the core concepts and operations in the Minimalist Program for readers who are not already familiar with it, as well as a complete overview of the state-of-the-art in the field, making it essential reading for both scholars and students in the field.

The Acquisition of Relativization

African Literature in Transition
  • Print Cultures and African Literature, 1860–1960
  • Volume 3
  • Edited by Stephanie Newell, Karin Barber
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2025
    Print publication:
    31 October 2025
  • This book offers a compelling vision of the dynamism of local printing presses across colonial Africa and the new textual forms they generated. It invites a reconceptualisation of African literature as a field by revealing the profusion of local, innovative textual production that surrounded and preceded canonical European-language literary traditions. Bringing together examples of print production in African, Europea  and Arabic languages, it explores their interactions as well as their divergent audiences. It is grounded in the material world of local presses, printers, publishers, writers and readers, but also traces wider networks of exchange as some texts travelled to distant places. African print culture is an emerging field of great vitality, and contributors to this volume are among those who have inspired its development. This volume moves the subject forward onto new ground, and invites literary scholars, historians and anthropologists to contribute to the on-going collaborative effort to explore it.

Liquid Languages
  • Constructing Languages in Late Modern Cultures of Diffusion
  • Britta Schneider
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • Which ideas about language are prevalent in cultures that are not framed in Western nationalist and literate traditions? How do people conceptualise language if speakers of the same community are multilingual, have access to different language resources and only partially share ideas about what is right and wrong in language? This book explores the 'liquid' properties of language, highlighting how languages, as discursive-material assemblages, can differ in their degree of fixity. It provides a linguistic anthropological study of the language ideologies in Belize, where ethnic belonging and language practice do not necessarily match and where stable language norms are not always considered a value. Scrutinising ethnographic data and examinations of local performances of English, it shows that languages emerge in relation to belonging, prestige and material culture. Bringing to the fore liquid language cultures, it provides important additions to our understanding of late modern language assemblages in a globalising world.

The Language Work of Speechwriters
  • Gwynne Mapes
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2025
    Print publication:
    31 August 2025
  • The work of speechwriters is prominent in political discourse, yet the writers themselves remain in the shadows of the powerful, public figures they work for. This book throws the spotlight on these invisible wordsmiths, illuminating not only what they do, but also why it matters. Based on ethnographic research in the US American speechwriting community, it investigates the ways in which speechwriters talk about their professional practices, and also the material procedures which guide the production of their deliverables. Relying on a robust collection of various genres of discursive data, Mapes focuses on the primary rhetorical strategies which characterize speechwriters' discourse, neatly exposing how they are beholden to a linguistic marketplace entrenched in ideological and socioeconomic struggle. Providing fascinating insights into an understudied and relatively misunderstood profession, this book is essential reading for academic researchers and students in applied linguistics, discourse studies, linguistic and cultural anthropology, and sociolinguistics.

Non-Canonical English Syntax
  • Concepts, Methods, and Approaches
  • Edited by Sven Leuckert, Teresa Pham
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • The term non-canonical syntax generally refers to deviations from 'typical' word order. These represent a fascinating phenomenon in natural language use. With contributions from a team of renowned scholars, this book presents a range of case-studies on non-canonical syntax across historical, register-based, and non-native varieties of English. Each chapter investigates a different non-canonical construction and assesses to what extent it can be called 'non-canonical' in a theory-based and frequency-based understanding of non-canonical syntax. A range of state-of-the-art methodologies are used, highlighting that an empirical approach to non-canonical syntactic constructions is particularly fruitful. An introduction, a synopsis, a terminological chapter, and three section introductions frame the case studies and present overviews of the theory behind non-canonical syntax and previous work, while also illustrating open questions and opportunities for future research. The volume is essential reading for advanced students of English grammar and researchers working on non-canonical syntax and syntactic variation. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Cambridge Handbook of Language and Brain
  • Edited by Edna Andrews, Swathi Kiran
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2025
  • The topic of language and brain is a large and significant area of research and study, and this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the field. Bringing together contributions from an interdisciplinary team of internationally-renowned scholars, it focuses on important theoretical positions that have changed the study of language and brain in the first two decades of the 21st century. It is split into seven thematic parts, covering topics such as theoretical foundations of language and brain, neuroimaging studies of brain and language, language and cognitive development, building cognitive brain reserve and the importance of proficiency, aphasia and autism spectrum disorders, brain, language and music, and new directions and perspectives. Representing the most powerful trends in the field, it will inform new directions in the study of language and brain, cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, and scholars and advanced students will find this compilation an invaluable resource for years to come.

Voice and Argument Structure in Basque
  • Ane Berro, Beatriz Fernández
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • Basque is a language of central importance to linguists because it is a 'language isolate,' a rare type of language that is typologically 'alone' and cannot be classified as a part of any language family. Language isolates remain somewhat a mystery, and this book aims to provide an important piece of the puzzle, by both exploring the structure of Basque and shedding new light on its unique place within the languages of the world. It meticulously examines various properties of Basque, including the alignment of intransitive verbs, the introduction of dative arguments, the nature of psych predicates, the causative/inchoative alternation, impersonals, and morphological causatives. By doing so, it presents a comprehensive overview of Basque's intricacies within the realm of argument structure alternations and voice. In its final chapter, it provides an introduction to potential formal analyses of the topics discussed, paving the way for future research in the field. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The Cambridge Handbook of Multilingual Education
  • Edited by Piotr Romanowski
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • Although multilingual education is still a relatively new field, it has already become a solid and dynamic area of academic investigation growing worldwide. Bringing together a stellar line-up of leading experts, this Handbook covers a wide range of topics crucial for understanding the concept of multilingual education and its implementation. It includes a wide range of overviews and case studies from diverse systems of education from across the globe, to help facilitate effective multilingual instruction relevant in the realities of local and global contexts. All chapters are written in a knowledgeable, yet accessible, style, and the theory is introduced step-by-step, to provide a rich resource for classroom instructors worldwide. It will serve as the principal text for many of the rapidly increasing multilingual programmes, degrees, courses and seminars devoted to multilingual education in tertiary institutions worldwide, as well as a reference text for instructors in primary and secondary education.

The Cambridge Handbook of Technology in Language Teaching and Learning
  • Edited by Glenn Stockwell, Yijen Wang
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • The use of technology in various language teaching and learning contexts has become increasingly commonplace in recent years. This has resulted in an enormous range of choices for teachers and researchers in the field, but at the same time, it has also become more and more difficult for those who are new to using technology for language teaching and researching to keep up with these changes. This handbook provides a wide-ranging, accessible overview of technology in language teaching and learning by leading experts in the field from around the world. The chapters are split into six thematic parts, covering a multitude of subject areas whilst also highlighting the relationships between the topics covered. Showcasing the diversity and complexity of the field in a comprehensive yet approachable manner, it is essential reading for academic researchers and graduate students, as well as pre-service and in-service teachers in various global contexts.

English Phonetics and Phonology
  • An Introduction
  • Frank Lorenz
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • English Phonetics and Phonology provides a detailed yet accessible foundational account of the science of speech sounds. Suitable for introductory courses, this textbook presents the key knowledge to comprehend the nature and function of consonant and vowel sounds as well as other characteristics of spoken language, such as stress, rhythm and intonation. With a focus on the sound system of English, examples from other languages are explored and included throughout, allowing students to better understand English sounds in contrast to these languages. Readers will discover what can be measured in speech and learn the basic functions of Praat. This hands-on-approach encourages students to make their own recordings and perform simple measurements to support their learning. While each of the fourteen chapters can be covered in one seminar, instructors can easily tailor them to fit 10–12 weeks of teaching in a phonetics or linguistics module. With no prior phonetic or linguistic knowledge needed, this textbook is suitable for first year undergraduate students, or anyone interested in developing a fundamental and sustained knowledge of the sound structure of the English language.

The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
  • Edited by Sjef Barbiers, Norbert Corver, Maria Polinsky
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2025
  • Bringing together a globally representative team of scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of comparative syntax, the study of universal and variable properties of the structure of building blocks in natural language. Divided into four thematic parts, it covers the various theoretical and methodological approaches to syntactic variation; explores dependency relations and dependency marking; shows how the building blocks of syntax both vary and display universal properties across languages, and explores the interfaces between syntax and other aspects of language structure. It also includes examples from a typologically broad range of languages, as well as data from child language, sign language, language processing, and diachronic syntax, giving a clear picture of the ubiquity of cross-linguistic variation. It serves as a source of inspiration for future research, and forges a deeper understanding of the variant and invariant parts of language, making it essential reading for researchers and students in linguistics.

The Balkan Languages
  • Victor A. Friedman, Brian D. Joseph
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
  • Southeast Europe's Balkan peninsula is home to numerous languages that have come to converge structurally and lexically, due to complex social factors involving contact among speakers of these languages, constituting a 'sprachbund'. This volume provides the first comprehensive, book-length survey of the Balkan languages in English. It covers the full range of languages involved in the Balkan convergence zone, including Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Judezmo, Macedonian, Meglenoromanian, Romani, Romanian, Torlak, and West Rumelian Turkish. Balkan convergences - 'Balkanisms' - are presented, considering the grammatical domains of phonetics, phonology, morphology, morphosyntax, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and lexicon. It gives attention to relevant notions of contact linguistics and to the history of the field, while also introducing key conceptual innovations. Providing fresh data and perspectives on the most studied intense contact situation, this work is essential reading for anyone interested in Balkan languages. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Continuing Syntax
  • Hierarchy and Locality
  • Ian Roberts
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2025
  • A logical and clear exposition of hierarchy and locality by a leading figure in the field, Continuing Syntax takes students from an introductory level of syntactic theory to an understanding of cutting-edge research in the field. A comprehensive range of topics is covered, including configurationality, head-movement, clause structure, nominal structure, subjacency, barriers and phases, ensuring that students have a thorough understanding of all the main components of contemporary theory. The many example sentences, extensive glossary, end-of-chapter exercises and annotated further reading lists allow readers to embed and extend their knowledge as they progress through the book. A self-contained work ideal for intermediate-level students, this volume also builds on the author's Beginning Syntax, and lays the foundation for a third volume, Comparing Syntax, which introduces formal syntactic typology.

Composite Predicates in English
  • Processes of Specialization
  • Eva Berlage
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2025
    Print publication:
    15 May 2025
  • Composite Predicates (CPs) are of particular interest to linguists in that only some of them are semantically restricted in present-day English, while others are not. This book explores the semantic-syntactic evolution of twenty-four different CPs in English from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, showing why some specialize over time while others do not. It highlights that the semantic scope and evolution of the morphologically and semantically related simple verb acts as a powerful predictor of whether or not a CP becomes semantically restricted in the course of time. In all those cases where CPs undergo specialization, semantic changes take place earlier than syntactic ones. Finally, large-scale corpus-analyses reveal that the CPs, which, in comparison to their morphologically simple verbs, can be considered analytic constructions, decrease from the nineteenth to twentieth century or show consistently low frequencies. This finding runs counter to the trend of English to become increasingly analytic.

English Sociolinguistics
  • An Introduction
  • Daniel Schreier
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2025
    Print publication:
    15 May 2025
  • Covering both traditional topics and innovative approaches, this textbook constitutes a comprehensive introduction to English sociolinguistics. Reflecting the field's breadth and diversity, it guides students through the development of research on language and society over the last sixty years, as well as global trends and related fields such as World Englishes, language politics, language and inequality, and translanguaging. It features practical activities, for both individual work and in-class discussion, as well as vignettes introducing specific case studies, additional information on 'out of the box' topics, key terms, and examples from around the world and various social settings. Inspiring, personal and authoritative interviews with leading sociolinguists conclude the book. Assuming only a basic understanding of the English sound system and its grammar, and supported online by additional activities and selected model answers, this is the ideal text for undergraduates wanting an accessible and modern introduction to the field.

Homemaking in the Russian-speaking Diaspora
  • Material Culture, Language and Identity
  • Edited by Maria Yelenevskaya, Ekaterina Protassova
  • Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    15 March 2025
    Print publication:
    01 May 2023
  • Bringing together scholars specialising in Russian studies, linguistic and cultural anthropology, sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics, this collection examines the discursive practices in which migrants' homes are framed, negotiated and constructed to reveal the complexity and ambivalence of home as a concept and as a phenomenon of social life.

    By examining migrants' stories about moving home, the book explores the stages of linguistic and cultural adaptation. It demonstrates that immigrants' homes are semiotic storehouses revealing their owners' past and present as well as aspirations for the future. It presents the first multifaceted investigation of the interdependence of materiality and emotions and materiality and language use by Russian-speaking immigrants.

A Dictionary of Arabic Idioms and Expressions
  • Arabic-English Translation
  • El Mustapha Lahlali, Tajul Islam
  • Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    13 March 2025
    Print publication:
    31 January 2024
  • Are you at your wits' end trying to master the Arabic language? With thousands of entries, this dictionary will help you to rattle off idioms and expressions in no time. The ability to use and understand idioms and expressions often marks the difference between a language-learning beginner and a natural-sounding language user. This dictionary translates over 8,000 Arabic idioms and expressions into English, covering a wide range of situations and registers. It helps intermediate and advanced learners of Arabic working in fields including translation, academia and business to hone their skills, and is equally useful to native Arabic speakers involved in translating and interpreting from Arabic to English.

Social Justice and the Language Classroom
  • Reflection, Action, and Transformation
  • Deniz Ortaçtepe Hart
  • Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    07 March 2025
    Print publication:
    01 May 2023
  • Challenging the liberal notion of the classroom as a neutral space, Social Justice and the Language Classroom invites you to become advocates, allies, and activists, and gives you the conceptual and practical tools to fight against systemic injustice in education and beyond.

    This practical resource book examines issues of inequity, marginalization, discrimination, and oppression that are regularly experienced by language learners coming from diverse backgrounds in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, ability, language and sexuality.  Drawing on examples from international contexts and including problem-posing and reflective tasks, sample lesson plans, activities and resource materials, this book provides you with vital knowledge for socially just language teaching and provides the pedagogical tools to apply these in classroom contexts.

    With its emphasis on intersectionality and global competence, the book builds bridges between critical pedagogy, political economy, critical race theory, feminist pedagogy, and queer theory to equip you with the tools to recognize systems of oppression and inequality, understand how they interact, and to adopt social justice pedagogies for transformation and social change.

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