Natalie Braber

The first book to examine the language of coal miners in the East Midlands of England Examines the language of coal miners in the East Midlands Investigates an important aspect of intangible cultural heritage Explores the relationship of language and identity Coal mining, long one of the most important industries in the East Midlands, has now completely ceased in the UK. Although there is some attempt to keep hold of the artefacts which tell us about mining, mining language remains neglected. Research by Natalie Braber has shown that there is a variety of 'pit talk' which is distinctive to the East Midlands and this book explains the language used by miners in their everyday work and lives. This book will appeal to academics interested in language variation and change, language and identity, community heritage, fragmented communities and post-industrial societies.

Coal mining, a prominent industry once situated at the heart of communities across the East Midlands, has now completely ceased in the UK. Although there is some attempt to keep hold of the artefacts which tell us about mining, mining language remains neglected. Natalie Braber's research has shown there is a variety of 'pit talk' which is distinctive to the East Midlands. Lexical Variation of an East Midlands Mining Community explains the distinct language used by miners in their day-to-day lives. This book will appeal to academics interested in language variation and change, language and identity, community heritage, fragmented communities and post-industrial societies.

This volume will provide a comprehensive yet accessible description of East Midlands English, an area of neglect in linguistic research. Existing publications, which aggregate the findings of earlier surveys and more recent localised studies presenting an overview of regional speech in the UK, are either lacking up-to-date research data from the East Midlands or simply ignore the region. A coordinated survey of dialects of the East Midlands was part of the Survey of English Dialects (SED) in the 1950s. This data is now over sixty years old and focuses almost exclusively on broad rural dialect speakers. This book will fill the knowledge and literature gaps by comparing vernacular speech in different urban and rural locations in the East Midlands, and examining whether the East Midlands is a 'transition zone' between the North and South. Recordings held by the British Library will be used, and will be supplemented with recordings made with local speakers. Language in the East Midlands is distinctive and there is considerable regional variety, for instance, between speech in the major urban centres of Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Bringing out this regional variation will also improve our wider understanding of language variation in English. The concept of the East Midlands in itself is not a clear one, and this volume aims to address such issues and to examine what makes the East Midlands an area of itself and what this area includes.

If we want to understand how German speakers think about themselves and the world in which they live, then a useful place to begin is by looking at the language they use. This fully revised and updated edition provides a systematic approach to the study of the German language and an introduction to the social aspects of the language, including its dialects, its history and the uses of the language today. No previous knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and each chapter is accompanied by a series of practical exercises. This edition includes a brand new section on gender, purism and German unification, fresh examples for analysis and an updated chapter on the geography of Germany today. The book will help students not only to find new ways of exploring the German language, but also of thinking and talking about German-speaking cultures.