Introduction

Abstract

This book aims to provide an account of language and drama between 1945 and 2005 which synthesises linguistic and dramatic knowledge in order to illuminate the ways in which attitudes to language have affected the practice and criticism of theatre. Examining contemporary developments in linguistics and folk-linguistics alongside plays, criticism and theatre writing from 1945 to 2005 the book seeks to account for the discourses within which language in drama is debated and described as well as analysing and interpreting the language used in relation to immediate social, cultural and theatrical contexts.¹