How We Talk about Language

How We Talk about Language PDF Author: Betsy Rymes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108803768
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The most important challenges humans face - identity, life, death, war, peace, the fate of our planet - are manifested and debated through language. This book provides the intellectual and practical tools we need to analyse how people talk about language, how we can participate in those conversations, and what we can learn from them about both language and our society. Along the way, we learn that knowledge about language and its connection to social life is not primarily produced and spread by linguists or sociolinguists, or even language teachers, but through everyday conversations, on-line arguments, creative insults, music, art, memes, twitter-storms - any place language grabs people's attention and foments more talk. An essential new aid to the study of the relationship between language, culture and society, this book provides a vision for language inquiry by turning our gaze to everyday forms of language expertise.

How We Talk about Language

How We Talk about Language PDF Author: Betsy Rymes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108488315
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
With examples of conversation, this book is a lively account of social and intellectual import of everyday talk about language.

Why We Talk

Why We Talk PDF Author: Jean-Louis Dessalles
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199276234
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Constant exchange of information is integral to our societies. The author explores how this came into being. Presenting language evolution as a natural history of conversation, he sheds light on the emergence of communication in the hominine congregations, as well as on the human nature.

Power Talk

Power Talk PDF Author: Sarah Myers McGinty
Publisher: Business Plus
ISBN: 0759521352
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Show up on time, work hard, do well, and rise up the corporate ladder? Maybe. Oral communication is the most crucial ingredient in advancement on the job. In Power Talk, Sarah Myers McGinty analyzes the social and psychological elements of speech in the workplace, helping readers hear who's in charge and talk their way ahead. Fast trackers match the right speaking style to the situation and develop a corporate voice that comes across loud and clear. From the voice mail message that gets a call back to navigating a department meeting, listeners will learn how to become their own best spokesperson and advocate.

The Loom of Language

The Loom of Language PDF Author: Frederick Bodmer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393300345
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 724

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Book Description
Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples. It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages -- Teutonic, Romance, Greek -- helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a language as it is actually used in everyday life.

How We Talk about Language

How We Talk about Language PDF Author: Betsy Rymes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108803768
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book

Book Description
The most important challenges humans face - identity, life, death, war, peace, the fate of our planet - are manifested and debated through language. This book provides the intellectual and practical tools we need to analyse how people talk about language, how we can participate in those conversations, and what we can learn from them about both language and our society. Along the way, we learn that knowledge about language and its connection to social life is not primarily produced and spread by linguists or sociolinguists, or even language teachers, but through everyday conversations, on-line arguments, creative insults, music, art, memes, twitter-storms - any place language grabs people's attention and foments more talk. An essential new aid to the study of the relationship between language, culture and society, this book provides a vision for language inquiry by turning our gaze to everyday forms of language expertise.

How We Talk

How We Talk PDF Author: N. J. Enfield
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093760
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
An expert guide to how conversation works, from how we know when to speak to why huh is a universal word We all had teachers who scolded us over the use of um, uh-huh, oh, like, and mm-hmm. But as linguist N. J. Enfield reveals in How We Talk, these "bad words" are fundamental to language.Whether we are speaking with the clerk at the store, our boss, or our spouse, language is dependent on things as commonplace as a rising tone of voice, an apparently meaningless word, or a glance -- signals so small that we hardly pay them any conscious attention. Nevertheless, they are the essence of how we speak. From the traffic signals of speech to the importance of um, How We Talk revolutionizes our understanding of conversation. In the process, Enfield reveals what makes language universally -- and uniquely -- human.

Talking Back, Talking Black

Talking Back, Talking Black PDF Author: John H. McWhorter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781942658207
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
An authoritative, impassioned celebration of Black English, how it works, and why it matters

The Liberty of Our Language Revealed

The Liberty of Our Language Revealed PDF Author: Thomas Blackwell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692056790
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Clem walked to the corner of the room and picked up a wooden box. From inside the box, he pulled out an old, worn-out book. Stuffed in the back of the binding were several pieces of paper filled with hand-written notes. He pulled out the notes and handed me the book. The book appeared to have been sitting in that box for many years. The title was carved into the dried-up leather cover by some sort of nail or perhaps a knife. I read the title: The Liberty of Our Language Revealed. "You ever heard of it before?" Clem inquired. "No, I haven't," I answered, opening its dusty pages. "Wait, these pages are blank, and there is no author!" I declared, as I flipped back to the front cover to see if any name was written. Clem paused and made eye contact with me, "You are the author, Thomas; you are the author of The Liberty of Our Language Revealed."On the walls of the abandoned escape route someone had etched several phrases. I studied each one. "Change your language, change your life." "Improve your results, create a better environment." "Increase your productivity, transform your economy." "Elevate your performance, and achieve higher standards."

Talk Is Cheap : Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language

Talk Is Cheap : Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language PDF Author: Minnesota John Haiman Professor of Linguistics Macalester College
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195354060
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Putting aside questions of truth and falsehood, the old "talk is cheap" maxim carries as much weight as ever. Indeed, perhaps more. For one need not be an expert in irony or sarcasm to realize that people don't necessarily mean what they say. Phrases such as "Yeah, right" and "I couldn't care less" are so much a part of the way we speak--and the way we live--that we are more likely to notice when they are absent (for example, Forrest Gump). From our everyday dialogues and conversations ("Thanks a lot!") to the screenplays of our popular films (Pulp Fiction and Fargo), what is said is frequently very different from what is meant. Talk is Cheap begins with this telling observation and proceeds to argue that such "unplain speaking" is fundamentally embedded in the way we now talk. Author John Haiman traces this sea-change in our use of language to the emergence of a postmodern "divided self" who is hyper-conscious that what he or she is saying has been said before; "cheap talk" thus allows us to distance ourselves from a social role with which we are uncomfortable. Haiman goes on to examine the full range of these pervasive distancing mechanisms, from cliches and quotation marks to camp and parody. Also, and importantly, this text highlights several new ways in which the English language is evolving (and has evolved) in response to our postmodern world view. In other words, this study shows us how what we are saying is gradually separating itself from how we say it. As provocative as it is timely, the book will be fascinating reading for students of linguistics, literature, communication, anthropology, philosophy, and popular culture.

How to Talk Language Science with Everyone

How to Talk Language Science with Everyone PDF Author: Laura Wagner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108841511
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This is an indispensable guide to engaging the general public in language sciences, Illustrated with a wide-range of real-life examples.