Most scholarly attention on Shakespeare's vocabulary has been directed towards his enrichment of the language through borrowing words from other languages and has thus concentrated on the more learned aspects of his vocabulary. However, the bulk of Shakespeare's output consists of plays and to make these appear lifelike he needed to employ a colloquial and informal style. This aspect of his work has been largely disregarded apart from his bawdy language. This dictionary includes all types of non-standard and informal language and lists all examples found in Shakespeare's works. These include dialect forms, colloquial forms, non-standard and variant forms, fashionable words and puns. >

This book investigates linguistic variation as a complex continuum of language use from standard to nonstandard. In our view, these notions can only be established through mutual definition, and they cannot exist without the opposite pole. What is considered standard English changes according to the approach at hand, and the nonstandard changes accordingly. This book offers an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to this central theme of wide interest. The articles approach writing in nonstandard language through various disciplines and methodologies: sociolinguistics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, dialectology, corpus linguistics, and ideological and political points of view. The theories and methods from these fields are applied to material that ranges from nonliterary writing to canonized authors. Dialects, regional varieties and worldwide Englishes are also addressed.

"This practical and informative course book is a fascinating, visual volume which leads the student through the development of the language from Old English, through Middle and Early Modern English to the establishment of Standard English in the eighteenth century." "At the core of this substantially expanded second edition lies a series of nearly 200 historical texts, of which more than half are reproduced in facsimile, and which illustrate the progressive changes in the language. The book is firmly based upon linguistic description, with commentaries which form a series of case studies demonstrating the evidence for language change at every level - handwriting, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, grammar and meaning." "Such a wealth of texts, as well as the structured activities and the various case studies, allow the volume to be used not only as a stimulating course text, guiding students through the analysis of data, but also as a comprehensive resource book and invaluable reference tool for teachers and students at all levels."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Shakespeare's English: A Practical Linguistic Guide provides students with a solid grounding for understanding the language of Shakespeare and its place within the development of English. With a prime focus on Shakespeare and his works, Keith Johnson covers all aspects of his language (vocabulary, grammar, sounds, rhetorical structure etc.), and gives illuminating background information on the linguistic context of the Elizabethan Age. As well as providing a unique introduction to the subject, Johnson encourages a "hands-on" approach, guiding students, through the use of activities, towards an understanding of how Shakespeare's English works. This book offers: · A unique approach to the study of Early Modern English which enables students to engage independently with the topic · Clear and engagingly written explanations of linguistic concepts · Plentiful examples and activities, including suggestions for further work · A glossary, further reading suggestions and guidance to relevant websites Shakespeare's English is perfect for undergraduate students following courses that combine English language, linguistics and literature, or anyone with an interest in knowing more about the language with which Shakespeare worked his literary magic.

This book is devoted to the description of typical trends in development, formation and the present state of English Author Lexicography, the roots of which go back to concordances to the Bible and glossaries of the complete works of Chaucer (xvi c.). Part I, “Linguistic Dictionaries to English Writers,” presents lexicographic analysis of old and new concordances, indices, glossaries and lexicons of famous English writers with special reference to Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, and Dickens. It presents a modern scene of author glossaries for unfamiliar words, terms and other groups of writers’ vocabulary (e.g. Shakespeare’s insults and his erotic language). The reader is offered a detailed review of author concordances, glossaries and lexicons on the Internet, along with criticism of printed dictionaries. Part II, “Encyclopedic Reference Works to English Writers,” deals with English author encyclopedic reference books, i.e. encyclopedias, guides and companions; dictionaries of characters and place names; quotations and proverbs, and Internet encyclopedic resources. The book also provides a comprehensive list of references on author lexicography and an Index of Dictionaries to the English Writers (xvi–xxi cc.), including 300 titles of linguistic and encyclopedic dictionaries, which is a reliable user guide in the world of English author lexicography.

When you read Shakespeare or watch a performance of one of his plays, do you find yourself wondering what it was he actually meant? Do you consult modern editions of Shakespeare's plays only to find that your questions still remain unanswered? A Grammar of Shakespeare's Language, the first comprehensive grammar of Shakespeare's language for over one hundred years, will help you find out exactly what Shakespeare meant. Steering clear of linguistic jargon, Professor Blake provides a detailed analysis of Shakespeare's language. He includes accounts of the morphology and syntax of different parts of speech, as well as highlighting features such as concord, negation, repetition and ellipsis. He treats not only traditional features such as the make-up of clauses, but also how language is used in various forms of conversational exchange, such as forms of address, discourse markers, greetings and farewells. This book will help you to understand much that may have previously seemed difficult or incomprehensible, thus enhancing your enjoyment of his plays.

Innovations and Challenges in Grammar traces the history of common understandings of what grammar is and where it came from to demonstrate how ‘rules’ are anything but fixed and immutable. In doing so, it deconstructs the notion of ‘correctness’ to show how grammar changes over time thereby exposing the social and historical forces that mould and change usage. The questions that this book grapples with are: Can we separate grammar from the other features of the language system and get a handle on it as an independent entity? Why should there be strikingly different notions and models of grammar? Are they (in)compatible? Which one or ones fit(s) best the needs of applied linguists if we assume that applied linguists address real-world problems through the lens of language? And which one(s) could make most sense to non-specialists? If grammar is not a fixed entity but a set of usage norms in constant flux, how can we persuade other professionals and the general public that this is a positive observation rather than a threat to civilised behaviour? This book draws upon both historical and modern grammars from across the globe to provide a multi-layered picture of world grammar. It will be useful to teachers and researchers of English as a first and second language, though the inclusion of examples from and occasional references to other languages (French, Spanish, Malay, Swedish, Russian, Welsh, Burmese, Japanese) is intended to broaden the appeal to teachers and researchers of other languages. It will be of use to final-year undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students as well as secondary and tertiary level teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition and grammar pedagogy.

This collection explores the consequences of accentism—an under-researched issue that intersects with racism and classism—in the Shakespeare industry across languages and cultures, past and present. It adopts a transmedia and transhistorical approach to a subject that has been dominated by the study of "Original Pronunciation." Yet the OP project avoids linguistically "foreign" characters such as Othello because of the additional complications their "aberrant" speech poses to the reconstruction process. It also evades discussion of contemporary, global practices and, underpinning the enterprise, is the search for an aural "purity" that arguably never existed. By contrast, this collection attends to foreign speech patterns in both the early modern and post-modern periods, including Indian, East Asian, and South African, and explores how accents operate as "metasigns" reinforcing ethno-racial stereotypes and social hierarchies. It embraces new methodologies, which includes reorienting attention away from the visual and onto the aural dimensions of performance.

Shakespeare continues to feature in the construction and refashioning of national cultures and identities in a variety of forms. Often co-opted to serve nationalism, Shakespeare has also served to contest it in complex and contradictory ways.

The present book contains a collection of works devoted to current trends in theoretical and practical lexicography, terminology and terminography. All papers are divided into two main sections. Part I: Lexicography deals with analysis of historical and typological problems in lexicography with special reference to English, Italian, Russian and Southern African dictionaries for general- and special- purposes. The main focus is given to the description of principles in lexicographic presentation of non-equivalent lexics, rhyming slang, idioms, clichÃ(c)s and gender nominations of people in bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. Part II: Terminology and Terminography is devoted to description of the current tendencies observed in terminology and terminography studies with special reference to modern European languages such as English, Russian, Norwegian, etc. Terms of different special domains are viewed from the angle of the latest achievements of modern science, cognitive linguistics in particular. It reveals specific features of terminological word-combinations, terms in colloquial use, peculiarities of terms belonging to newly formed Languages for Special purposes, typical features of recently appeared LSPs and presentations of new dictionariesâ (TM) projects of different subject areas. This part reveals international nature of current tendencies in terminology studies and shows the national ways of their functioning and presentation in special dictionaries.