Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Show[s] how discourses on the English language both reflected and galvanized the forces of cultural and political hegemony in Britain, and those of expansion, empire and slavery on a global scale."
---John Gallagher, Times Literary Supplement"Sorensen shows how a wide range of authors represented and classified the real or imagined speech of lower status groups, refashioning it as 'strange vernaculars'. . . . She is especially strong on the hidden role of race. . . . Her final section on sailors' talk includes some fine points on Jane Austen, and on the allure of naval speech as both foreign and familiar, an allure that lies at the heart of the book."
---Elspeth Jajdelska, Times Higher Education"Sorensen brings together sociolinguistics and literary history in an innovative and subtle exploration of the social cachet that heteroglossia had for writers in the 18th century. . . . This sensitive work is both a contribution to 18th- century studies and a model of how heteroglossia in literature might be investigated in other eras." * Choice *
"For readers interested in the evolution of English, this is a fascinating look at the role strangeness and otherness played in the development of a national language and identity."
---James Holloway, Fortean Times"I learned much from
Strange Vernaculars, a dense, demanding, and thoroughly rewarding book."
---Jack Lynch, Oxford JournalTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I Wandering Languages: From Cant To Slang 25 1 Reappraising Cant: "Caterpillars" and Slaves 27 2 Daniel Defoe's Novel Languages 57 3 John Gay's Overloaded Languages 86 4 The Gendered Slang of Century's End 106 II The Language Of Place: From "living" Provincial Languages To The Language Of The Dead 129 5 Provincial Languages out of Place 133 6 "I Do Not Like London or Anything That Is in It": The Provincial Offensive 167 7 Provincial Languages and a Vernacular out of Time 192 III Wandering In Place: Maritime Language 231 8 Our Tars: Making Maritime Language English 234 Notes 273 Index 321
