Stephan Gramley Bücher

A comprehensive, scholarly and systematic review of modern English in one volume. It presents a description of both the linguistic structure of present-day English and its geographical, social, gender and ethnic variations.

Focusing on the conventions of academic writing in English linguistics and literary and cultural studies, this guide connects writing practices to research and thought processes. It offers clear examples and quotes that provide elegant solutions to common writing challenges. Both students and educators will find practical strategies for understanding and editing texts within the field of English Studies.

Chronologically exploring the development of the English language, this book delves into its linguistic, social, and cultural evolution from its origins in Britain around 450 to contemporary times. Each chapter highlights a distinct stage in the language's transformation, offering insights into how historical events and societal changes have shaped English over the centuries.

Cultures in Process: Encounter and Experience is a diverse collection of essays spanning literary, cultural, and linguistic scholarship, as well as performance arts, ethnography, gender studies, musicology, sociology, and psychology. The first section addresses the concept of process, illustrating its evolution. The second section explores cultural encounters that shape social practices and expressions, featuring examples from expatriates in India and Spain, musical traditions in China, performance art in Brazil, and the interplay of tradition and modernity in sexual practices in the Arabian Gulf. The next segment examines linguistic perspectives on cultural encounters, including language and culture in intercultural interactions, code-switching among bilinguals, and the relationship between identity, language, and culture in translation. The fourth section focuses on literature, discussing themes of encounter and identity formation within the Indian diaspora, the tension between memories of home and new cultural narratives, and identity shaped by societal racial prejudices. The concluding papers present case studies of cultural processes at various levels, such as the redefinition of South African indigenous culture amid political change, the implications of illnesses like Alzheimer’s on personhood and identity, and contrasting concepts of dynamic cultural processes through the works of Carlyle and Warburg.

The Bielefeld Introduction to Applied Linguistics is designed to provide a wide-ranging and substantial overview of the field for beginning students. It comprises twenty-seven well-documented contributions based on some of the most salient topics in research and teaching done at the Department of Linguistics and Literature at Bielefeld University. In four major sections this book looks at questions involving the user/learner (teaching/learning aids; learning processes and methods of gauging them); mental processes (language acquisition and loss); studies involving the linguistic code (metaphor, translation, empirical methods, approaches to texts); and the language community (bilingualism and code-switching, language policy, pragmatics, speaker groups and their languages). Each contribution offers – on sometimes varying levels of detail – a starting point for the young student and provides a useful selection of literature for further reading. Many of the chapters include a selection of do-able exercises based on the material presented.