Janet Holmes Books

"The Handbook of Language and Gender is a collection of articles written by a team of leading specialists in the field that examines the implications of gender ideologies for the ways we interact. The volume includes data and case-studies from interactions in a number of different social contexts and from a range of different communities, and theoretical discussions about the problems, pitfalls, and potential benefits of research on and discourses about gender." "This handbook provides a comprehensive, up-to-date, and stimulating picture of the field of language and gender for students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, gender studies, communication, management, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Book jacket."--Jacket

Part of the "Learning About Language" series, this text examines sociolinguistics and covers such topics as multilingual speech communities and language variation

This book provides a lively introduction to the study of language for students without prior experience in linguistics. It addresses the core areas of language study answering questions such as: * Where does language come from? * Why don't we all talk the same? * Who needs grammar? This is an excellent textbook for basic introductory courses and for students who are non-majors. It will be accessible and enjoyable for a variety of students.

First published in 1992, Janet Holmes' An Introduction to Sociolinguistics has established itself as the key introductory textbook in the field. It is divided into three sections. In the first, Janet Holmes shows how language is used in multilingual speech communities and explains the varying patterns of language use. She examines how and why languages change within society and highlights the factors that lead to the displacement of one language by another, and sometimes even the death of a language. The central section gives a comprehensive and well-illustrated exploration of social reasons for language change, exploring language change in monolingual communities and the features of a variety of dialects. She shows how and why differing social and racial groups develop and maintain speech variations. In the final section, Janet Holmes assesses how attitudes to language affect speech, and shows that linguistic responses depend upon a variety of contextual factors. Written in an accessible way, this essential introductory text is and illustrated throughout with numerous examples.

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