Talking Proper: The Rise Of Accent As Social Symbol Hardcover 2

Lynda Mugglestone

Talking Proper is a history of the rise and fall of the English accent as a badge of cultural, social, and class identity. Lynda Mugglestone traces the origins of the phenomenon in late eighteenth-century London, follows its history through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and charts its downfall during the era of New Labour. This is a witty, readable account of a fascinating subject, liberally spiced with quotations from English speech and writing over the past 250 years.

9780199250615

English

Oxford University Press, USA

10-04-2003

364

Lynda Mugglestone is News International Lecturer in Language and Communication, University of Oxford and Fellow in English Language and Literature, Pembroke College, Oxford.

2

includes an impressive array of quotes from a wide range of sources. * Linguist List * ... much fascinating, carefully researched information about the development of a socially pre-eminent accent in Britain. * Linguist List * ... there is a commendable effort to ensure that the phonetics is easily accessible to non-experts and so does not constitute a barrier for those with no specialist training in the field. * Linguist List * ... a fascinating and authoritative insight into the rise (and fall?) of RP with a valuable, wide-ranging collection of well-researched data that is always clearly and carefully presented. * Linguist List * What Talking Proper does very well is to trace the process by which spoken Engish came to incorporate the view that a particular way of pronouncing it was superior to any other and should be recognised as the phonetic standard. * John Sturrock, London Review of Books