You’re All Talk

why we are what we speak
Rob Drummond

‘Rob Drummond has achieved something very special in this book — an account of accents and identity that reaches across the generations, from concerned oldie to innovative TikToker, and shows how a sociolinguistic perspective can help reduce the anxieties and tensions that so often surround this topic. He writes: “the world would be a better place if people knew just a bit more about how we communicate”. I’m in no doubt that You’re All Talk, with its humour, clarity, and breadth of illustration, will help make that happen.’

David Crystal, author of How Language Works

‘Rob Drummond is a brilliant tour guide around the endless labyrinths of the way we speak; in this book he hosts the talk show of our lives, ensuring that we listen hard to ourselves and everybody else.’

Ian McMillan

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‘For years, working exclusively in radio, my voice was my whole professional self. It is still vastly important now. With a voice — an accent — like mine, I suspect a career in news broadcasting would have been almost impossible a generation or two ago. In a fortunate twist of timing, as minds have broadened, I suspect it’s actually been an advantage to me and helped me stand out.

I am fascinated by accents — and all the perceptions they haul around with them. This is a brilliantly written analysis. It is warm and human in tone. Rob wears his vast expertise lightly, meaning the lay reader is engaged, informed, and entertained in equal measures. I’d thoroughly recommend it.’

Chris Mason, BBC Political Editor

‘We are what we say — and Rob Drummond's intriguing and engaging book proves it.’

Gyles Brandreth, author of Word Play

‘Drummond gives us a history lesson as to how the different accents developed and changed around the world, and how they continue to evolve and change today … You're All Talk by Rob Drummond is highly recommended for non fiction readers interested in language and communication and why we speak the way we do.’

Carpe Librum

‘The book is suitable for anyone from an expert to a novice. As an armchair enthusiast who studied sociolinguistics, there were certainly things I learned, as well as having a smile at a couple of in-jokes.’

Lix Dexter, Shiny New Books

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

‘This collaborative piece of research raises awareness of the value of nonstandard language and informs policymakers and commentators, which will hopefully help mitigate social bias and inequality. It also has implications for future studies, both empirically and theoretically, by offering an elaborate account of conducting fieldwork as well as combining different research traditions. This book is especially helpful to those who will conduct school-based ethnography.’

Gloria Yan Dou, Language in Society

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

‘Drummond’s writing will be accessible to a wide range of readers, including students and those with no background in sociolinguistic research … Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity offers a thoughtful, reflective, and unusually honest account of doing fieldwork in a challenging context. It is engaging, highly readable, and will certainly be of use to anyone considering linguistic ethnography — of any type — in the future.’

Lucy Jones, Journal of Linguistics

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

’This book is a gem. It gives rare insights into the lives and language of young people in non-mainstream learning centres, treated with the respect and admiration that Drummond shows us they clearly deserve. But it does far more than this. It portrays the roller coaster ride of a successful interdisciplinary research project, from start to finish, with all the trials and excitement encountered along the way. This engagingly written personal account will be hugely important for linguists, teachers, policy makers and anyone interested in urban youth language, and inspirational and essential reading for both new and experienced researchers.’

Jenny Cheshire FBA, Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London

‘A telling and compelling exploration of spoken English, charting the joys and risks of individual accents, and why we perceive them the way we do. Through a mix of history, anecdotes, and topical examples, Drummond brings light and humour into a gnarly subject that affects every one of us.’

Susie Dent, author of Word Perfect

Why do we have different accents and where do they come from? Why do you say ‘tomayto’ and I say ‘tomahto’? And is one way of speaking better than another?

In You’re All Talk, linguist Rob Drummond explores the enormous diversity of our spoken language to reveal extraordinary insights into how humans operate: how we perceive (and judge) other people and how we would like ourselves to be perceived. He investigates how and why we automatically associate different accents with particular social characteristics — degrees of friendliness, authority, social class, level of education, race, and so on — and how we, consciously or subconsciously, change the way we speak in order to create different versions of ourselves to fit different environments.

Ultimately, You’re All Talk demonstrates the beauty of linguistic diversity and how embracing it can give us a better understanding of other people — and ourselves.

David Crystal, author of How Language Works

Ian McMillan

View all reviews

Chris Mason, BBC Political Editor

‘We are what we say — and Rob Drummond's intriguing and engaging book proves it.’

Gyles Brandreth, author of Word Play

Carpe Librum

Lix Dexter, Shiny New Books

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

Gloria Yan Dou, Language in Society

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

Lucy Jones, Journal of Linguistics

Praise for Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity:

Jenny Cheshire FBA, Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 234mm × 153mm

Extent:256pp

ISBN (13):9781922585455

RRP:$32.99

Pub date:31 Oct 2023

Rights Held: UK & Commonwealth

High-res cover:Download Image

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AUTHOR

Rob Drummond

Rob Drummond is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he researches and teaches about the relationship between how we speak and who we are. He recently completed a large project exploring the accents and dialects of Greater Manchester, touring the region in his Accent Van. He appears regularly on radio and TV talking about language-related issues and spent some time as ‘resident linguist’ on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, as well as appearing on the BBC Breakfast sofa.

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You’re All Talk

why we are what we speak
Rob Drummond

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Multi-time winner of the Australian Small Publisher of the Year Award

You’re All Talk

why we are what we speak Rob Drummond

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why we are what we speak
Rob Drummond