Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. — 375 p. — (Trends in Linguistics)."Folk knowledge of language has not engaged linguists very often in the history of that field. Introductory texts often disparage folkbelief in contrast to 'scientific truth'. In fact, language is a ubiquitous topic of discussion and general concern of the folk. They talk about grammar, pronunciation, first and second language learning, language disabilities, dialects, gender and language, and a host of other topics. This book approaches such beliefs as one of most important aspects of ethnography. Surely what a people believe about their language is as important as any other key to an understanding of their culture. This fascinating book investigates how non-linguists think and talk about language, an area overlooked by linguists, as the authors show."Joseph Salmons in: DiachronicaContents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
List of figures
List of tables
Transcription conventions
Introduction
Regionalism
Social factors
Language acquisition and applied linguistics
General and descriptive linguistics
The last words
Fieldworker and respondent identifications and indent recording data
Notes
References
Author index
Subject index
