Overview Sources
Whether you have a topic in mind or you need to explore some possibilities, subject encyclopedias and handbooks provide concise overviews which identify the who, what, where, and when related to your topic of interest. Adding this grounding to what you already know can help to focus a broad topic to a more specific research question. Subject encyclopedias can also provide key terms to use when searching in databases for additional research materials. The Oxford Bibliographies, and many entries in the subject handbooks linked below, provide citations for relevant books and articles which can jump start your research.
- Oxford Bibliographies: Linguistics This link opens in a new windowOxford Bibliographies for Linguistics provides annotations of the most important books and articles in the areas of Linguistics. This is a particularly useful resource for anyone beginning their research.
- Oxford Reference Online: Linguistics Encyclopedias & DictionariesOnline version of many Oxford University Press reference works - linguistics has been pre-selected for ease of accessing the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, Oxford Companion to the English Language, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics.
The Handbook of Language and Gender by Call Number: EBook - NU Affiliated Users OnlyPublication Date: 2003The Handbook of Language and Gender is a collection of articles written by leading specialists in the field that examines the dynamic ways in which women and men develop and manage gendered identities through their talk.
The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality by Call Number: EBook - NU Affiliated Users OnlyPublication Date: 2014A comprehensive overview of key historical themes and issues, along with methodologies related to the dynamic ways that women and men develop and manage gendered identities through their talk.
Oxford Handbook of African American Language by Call Number: Main Library Stacks PE3102.B53 O94 2015Publication Date: 2015The Handbook offers a survey of language and its uses in African American communities from a wide range of contexts organized into seven sections: Origins and Historical Perspectives; Lects and Variation; Structure and Description; Child Language Acquisition and Development; Education; Language in Society; and Language and Identity.
EBook also available
The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society by Call Number: EBook - NU Affiliated Users OnlyPublication Date: 2016Challenges the modernist positivist perspective of the field that has treated languages and speech communities as bounded and the idealized native speaker as the ultimate authority. Instead, it offers a critical poststructuralist perspective that examines the socio-historical context that led to the emergence of dominant sociolinguistic concepts and develops new theoretical and methodological tools that challenge these dominant concepts.
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowSearchable database of several hundred subject encyclopedias and other reference works across all subject areas, but with particular strengths in the social sciences and humanities. It includes a number of major reference works, and is Northwesterns largest single collection of reference materials. A good source for authoritative background information.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new windowOnline version of many Oxford University Press reference works, ranging from specialized dictionaries and companions to major reference works such as the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, among many others.