Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Alphabet to Email Naomi Baron takes us on a fascinating and often entertaining journey through the history of the English language, showing how technology - especially email - is gradually stripping language of its formality.
Drawing together strands of thinking about writing, speech, pedagogy, technology, and globalization, Naomi Baron explores the ever-changing relationship between speech and writing and considers the implications of current language trends on the future of written English.
Alphabet to Email will appeal to anyone who is curious about how the English language has changed over the centuries and where it might be going.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures (p. x)
• Preface (p. xi)
• 1 Robin Hood's Retort (p. 1)
• 2 Legitimating Written English (p. 26)
• 3 Who Writes, Who Reads, and Why (p. 48)
• 4 Setting Standards (p. 95)
• 5 The Rise of English Comp (p. 143)
• 6 Commas and Canaries (p. 167)
• 7 What Remington Wrought (p. 197)
• 8 Language at a Distance (p. 216)
• 9 Why the Jury's Still Out on Email (p. 247)
• 10 Epilogue: Destiny or Choice (p. 260)
• Notes (p. 270)
• Bibliography (p. 285)
• Name Index (p. 305)
• Subject Index (p. 311)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this largely historical survey, Baron (American Univ.) explores the changing relationship of spoken and written English in England and the US over the past 1,300 years. Early chapters review the importance of nonlinguistic factors in the development of written English, including new conceptions of creativity and authorship and the effects of social class, nationalism, prescriptivism, and standardization. The latter portion of the work focuses more explicitly on the manner in which technologies from handwriting and the printing press through the typewriter and telegraph to the computer contribute to written norms. Far more than simply a work on the "linguistics of writing," this volume contains much pertaining to the history of publishing and libraries, pedagogy, and educational trends. Although its scope occasionally forces the oversimplification of complex issues (as in a brief discussion of American spoken standards), it provides a balanced counter to exaggerated claims of the media-driven decline of the written form. Written in a lively, anecdotal style, it should be useful in undergraduate collections and enjoyed by its intended audience of linguists, teachers of composition and TESOL, computer specialists, and the educated lay person. J. Adlington; Trinity College (CT)