From the beginning of the nineteenth century‎,‎ the emerging study of language shared with geology certain metaphors ‎- co‎-existing but mutually incompatible ‎- to describe theories of change‎.‎ The Tower of Babel‎,‎ Rise and Fall‎,‎ Line and Branch were ideas that fed both disciplines‎;‎ and linguistic study sometimes drew its imagery directly from geology‎,‎ comparing varieties of language to fossils marking layers of development‎.‎ At the same time‎,‎ tension arose between the concept of language as a fixed sign and the wish to endorse it as a tool for change‎,‎ an unpredictable maker of history‎.‎ Metaphors of Change looks in detail at three authors ‎- Walter Scott‎,‎ Elizabeth Gaskell‎,‎ and Charles Kingsley ‎- whose handling of language‎,‎ and in particular of dialect speech‎,‎ demonstrates different angles of approach‎,‎ and puts fiction into dialogue with science‎.‎ Through textual analysis of the novels‎,‎ and examination of contemporary scientific discourse‎,‎ the book throws light on how different genres affected the century‎'‎s use of metaphor and its often con‎.‎‎.‎‎.‎