English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States - Hardcover

..."a sobering account of the manifestation of language prejudice and discrimination in American society." -Teaching Tolerance ..."exciting new book...The volume is highly readable, and it offers new evidence of the relationship between ideology and language within institutions such as the media, the courts, and the entertainment industry. In addition to being useful to researchers in the fields that deal with language and society, the book is well suited for beginning graduate or upper-division undergraduate classes." -"Language in Society "Badly needed and of greatest importance." -Roger Shuy, Georgetown University

In this bestselling textbook, Rosina Lippi-Green scrutinizes American attitudes towards language. Using examples drawn from a variety of contexts: the classroom, the court, the media and corporate culture, she exposes the way in which discrimination based on accent functions to support and perpetuate social structures and unequal power relations. English with an Accent:

• focuses on language variation linked to geography and social identity
• looks at how the media and the entertainment industry work to promote linguistic stereotyping
• examines how employers discriminate on the basis of accent
• reveals how the judicial system protects the status quo and reinforces language subordination

This fascinating and highly readable book forces us to acknowledge the ways in which language is used to discriminate.