Play Audiobook Sample
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
“If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d sound like an American.”
“English accents are the sexiest.”
“Americans have ruined the English language.”
“Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English.”
Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language.
With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?
Download and start listening now!
"Narrator Pam Ward's clipped, wry tone is an excellent match for author and linguist Lynne Murphy's sharp analysis of how and why British English and American English came to be such different languages."
— AudioFile
Quotes
-
“Lynne Murphy…has a foot in each culture and a unique understanding of the Great Divide. The Prodigal Tongue is great fun—impeccably researched and outright funny at the same time.”
— Patricia T. O’Conner, author of Woe Is I
The Prodigal Tongue Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Lynne Murphy
Lynne Murphy is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex. Born and raised in New York State, she studied linguistics at the Universities of Massachusetts and Illinois, before starting her academic career in South Africa and Texas. Since 2000, she has lived in Brighton, England.
About Pam Ward
Pam Ward, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, found her true calling reading books for the blind and physically handicapped for the Library of Congress’ Talking Books program. The fact that she can work with Blackstone Audio from the beauty of the mountains of Southern Oregon is an unexpected bonus.