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An introduction to culturally determined aspects of communicating in British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and American societies, especially those that may influence effective communication with members of these societies or be the source of false perceptions/stereotypes of their behaviour.

English Accents and Dialects is a unique introductory survey of the main regional and social varieties of English spoken in the British Isles. The authors discuss accent and dialect in the broader framework of language variation, including phonetic, phonological, grammatical, lexical, historical and stylistic differences. This is followed by a survey of the speech of different areas of the British Isles. The CD which accompanies the book consists of edited interviews (all transcribed in the book) with speakers from each of the different areas. The fourth edition has been expanded and updated to give substantial new information. Of particular importance in this new edition are the sections on Aberdeen, Galway, and Leicester.

It is well known that British and American English differ substantially in their pronunciation and vocabulary - but differences in their grammar have largely been underestimated. This volume focuses on British–American differences in the structure of words and sentences and supports them with computer-aided studies of large text collections. Present-day as well as earlier forms of the two varieties are included in the analyses. This makes it the first book-length treatment of British and American English grammar in contrast, with topics ranging from compound verbs to word order differences and tag questions.