Alliteration in Culture

Alliteration occurs in a wide variety of contexts in stress-initial languages, including Icelandic, Finnish and Mongolian. It can be found in English from Beowulf to The Sun . Nevertheless, alliteration remains an unexamined phenomenon. This pioneering volume takes alliteration as its central focus across a variety of languages and domains.

'This is a unique and richly rewarding account of alliteration which establishes its cultural and linguistic interest, and will be a valuable resource for students and scholars.' - Nigel Fabb, Strathclyde University, UK

'This collection offers a broad view of alliteration, one of the most widely shared cohesive and creative applications of human language. This cross-cultural poetic and rhetorical universal is explored in its anthropological, socio-cultural, poetic, stylistic, and linguistic contexts in diverse settings and traditions. The changing attitudes to alliteration, its multiple forms, and its uses and abuses, will be of interest to any reader curious about language and will provide valuable information to scholars from all areas in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.' - Donka Minkova, UCLA, USA

'This stimulating volume, which is largely relevant for folklorists, investigates an area that deserves far more cross-disciplinary attention.' - Andy Arleo, Folklore

'Jonathan Roper's research group sets out to explore alliteration in a cross-linguistic and inter-cultural perspective as one of the most widely shared features of human language. The reader meets an impressive assembly of scholars from different cultures, language groups and academic traditions focusing on alliteration more broadly and establishing a new interdisciplinary research field.' - Michael Schulte, Journal of Indo-European Studies

'This is one of those books I didn't know I needed until I saw it.' - Steve Dodson, languagehat.com

RAGNAR INGI AÐALSTEINSSON is both a published poet and a researcher on metrics. He is currently an adjunct in Icelandic at the University of Iceland KRISTJÁN ÁRNASON is Professor of Icelandic Linguistics at the University of Iceland ROLF H. BREMMER JR is Senior Lecturer in Medieval English and, by special appointment, Professor of Frisian at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands PAUL COWDELL was a professional actor before entering the academic world. He is currently researching contemporary belief in ghosts at the University of Hertfordshire, UK LENNART HAGÅSEN, works at the Department of Onomastics (Namnavdelningen) of the Institute for Language and Folklore (Institutet för språk och folkminnen) in Uppsala, Sweden HELENA HALMARI is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Sam Houston State University, USA JEREMY HARTE is a Researcher into the overlap between folklore and the landscape. He trained as a museum professional, and is curator of the Bourne Hall Museum, UK MICHIKO KANEKO works at the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol, UK GYÖRGY KARA, longtime Professor of Inner Asian studies at ELTE University of Budapest, is currently Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA LARISSA NAIDITCH is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where she teaches Gothic, Old Icelandic, Old and Middle High German MARTIN ORWIN is Senior Lecturer in Somali andAmharic at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK EILA STEPANOVA is based at the University of Helsinki's Department of Folklore Studies, Finland, where she is presently working on the language, structure and compositional strategies of Karelian laments FROG is presently a Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki, Department of Folklore Studies, Finland VILMOS VOIGT is Professor of Folklore, Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Philosophy, Budapest, Hungary FIONNUALA CARSON WILLIAMS (Northern Ireland) is a folklorist specialising in proverbs