This is a new volume in the Dialects of English series - a series of short, accessible but authoritative books on specific dialect varieties, each written by a specialist or specialists who have done first-hand work on the variety concerned. This volume provides an overview of all aspects of north-eastern English and explores the phonetic, phonological and morphosyntactic features of the variety, includes an analysis of lexical items. It focuses on the historical and linguistic aspects of the dialect and local culture, as well as investigating variation and change across generations. Designed with undergraduates and the general reader in mind, this book provides an excellent introduction to dialects of the region.
About the Author:

Joan C. Beal is Professor of English Language at the University of Sheffield and series editor for Edinburgh University Press's Dialects of English series. Before moving to Sheffield she spent 30 years at Newcastle University as a student and later lecturer/ senior lecturer in the School of English. She was co-investigator on the AHRC-funded Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English and has given interviews on TV and radio and in the local and national press on the cultural importance of Geordie.Joan Beal was born in Warrington and took her BA and PhD at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her teaching and research interests are in the fields of dialectology and the history of English post 1700 and she often works on the interface between these two fields. She is also interested in issues of place and identity, both with reference to language and in a broader cultural context.

Lourdes Burbano Elizondo gained her MLitt in English Linguistics in 2001 from Newcastle University and her PhD (titled Language Variation and Identity in Sunderland) in 2008 from the University of Sheffield. In 2006 she joined Edge Hill University where she has worked as a Senior Lecturer in English Language ever since.Lourdes's research interests and publications focus on language variation and change, especially on the urban north-eastern variety of Sunderland. Her research reflects her interest in sociolinguistic research methods and in exploring the social meaning of language variation and the use of language to construct social identities.

Carmen Llamas lectures in sociolinguistics at the University of York. She is co-editor (with Dominic Watt) of Language and Identities (2010) and (with Peter Stockwell and Louise Mullany) of The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics (2007). Her research deals primarily with phonological variation and change in the North East and the Scottish-English border region.