Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden

The English language has undergone many sound changes in its long history. Some of these changes had a profound effect on the pronunciation of the language. A number of these significant instances of language evolution are generally grouped together and termed the 'Great Vowel Shift'. These changes are generally considered to be unrelated to other, similar long-vowel changes taking place a little earlier. This book assesses an extensive range of irregular Middle English spellings for all these changes, with a view to identifying the real course of events: the dates, the chronology, and the dialects that stand out as being innovative. Using empirical evidence to offer a fresh perspective and drawing new, convincing conclusions, Stenbrenden offers an interpretation of the history of the English language which may change our view of sound change completely.

The English language has undergone many sound changes in its long history. Some of these changes had a profound effect on the pronunciation of the language. A number of these significant instances of language evolution are generally grouped together and termed the 'Great Vowel Shift'. These changes are generally considered to be unrelated to other, similar long-vowel changes taking place a little earlier. This book assesses an extensive range of irregular Middle English spellings for all these changes, with a view to identifying the real course of events: the dates, the chronology, and the dialects that stand out as being innovative. Using empirical evidence to offer a fresh perspective and drawing new, convincing conclusions, Stenbrenden offers an interpretation of the history of the English language which may change our view of sound change completely.

Denna bok finns även som e-bok med ISBN 9789140691194 och går att köpa via nätbokhandeln. Academic Writing in English är en bok för studerande på universitet och högskolor, som har svenska som modersmål, men som måste kunna formulera sig korrekt på engelska. Därför lyfter författarna i ett avsnitt fram grammatiska områden där missförstånd är särskilt vanliga. Målgruppen är alla studerande som inom ramen för sitt utbildningsprogram förväntas lämna in egenhändigt producerade texter på korrekt akademisk engelska. Boken är skriven på engelska. Boken inleds med en övergripande diskussion om vad som kännetecknar den akademiska textgenren, för att sedan föra läsaren genom skrivprocessens olika steg med särskilt fokus på olika texters stil. Särskild vikt läggs vid text konstruktion och bindning för att variera framställningen. Därefter riktas läsarens uppmärksamhet mot den enskilda satsen och hur mångordighet, bristfällig satskonstruktion och ett torftigt ordval kan försämra texten. Academic Writing in English ger läsaren både insikter och kunskap om vad som kännetecknar en välskriven akademisk text på engelska och praktiska råd kombinerade med övningar, så att läsaren på egenhand kan utveckla sitt språk. Kommentarer till bokens övningar med förslag på lösningar hittar man i e-boken: Academic Writing in English – Suggested answers. Boken har skrivits av docenterna Per Lysvåg och Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden vid Oslo universitet. De har tillsammans med Per Otterstedt, adjunkt vid Uppsala universitet, arbetat fram den svenska upplagan.

Academic writing in English is primarily intended for students in higher education. We have in mind students who are expected to hand in independently produced English as part of their programme requirements, for example in the form of assigned term papers, practice reports or a final thesis. But the book also offers valuable advice for non-students, for people in diverse professions who are assumed to possess good writing skills, but may not have them. We adopt an approach that gradually narrows the focus. We start out with a general discussion of the genre academic writing and its linguistic characteristics. We take students through the stages in the writing process, raising their awareness of the nature of the writing task and the appropriate level of style that the task requires. We also discuss matters of text cohesion, which is crucially important in text production. Most of these aspects can be referred to as macro-level concerns. Then, zooming in on the micro-level, the sentence level, we focus on problems that detract from the quality of any academic text, such as impoverished vocabulary, syntactic breakdowns and lack of compactness; Norwegian writers need to learn how to compress more meaning into fewer words. There is also a condensed presentation of the contrastive dimension, the main areas of grammar where Norwegian and English differ. A special chapter, central in all academic writing, presents the standard conventions for correctly acknowledging, referring to and quoting text-external voices. Plagiarism has no place in academic writing. It also includes advice on bibliography-making. Academic writing in English provides its users with academic insight into the characteristics of well-written texts and offers practical advice on how to attain the same level in their own writing. The book is amply illustrated and includes innumerable exercises.