Language, Texts, and Society

Language, Texts, and Society PDF Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857284312
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
This collection brings together the research papers of Patrick Olivelle, published over a period of about ten years. The unifying theme of these studies is the search for historical context and developments hidden within words and texts. Words - and the cultural history represented by words - that scholars often take for granted as having a continuous and long history are often new and even neologisms, and thus provide important clues to cultural and religious innovations. Olivelle's book on the Asramas, as well as the short pieces included in this volume, such as those on ananda and dharma, seek to see cultural innovation and historical changes within the changing semantic fields of key terms. Closer examination of numerous Sanskrit terms taken for granted as central to 'Hinduism' provide similar results. Indian texts have often been studied in the past as disincarnate realities providing information on an ahistorical and unchanging culture. This volume is a small contribution towards correcting that method of textual study.

Language, Texts, and Society

Language, Texts, and Society PDF Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857284312
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Get Book

Book Description
This collection brings together the research papers of Patrick Olivelle, published over a period of about ten years. The unifying theme of these studies is the search for historical context and developments hidden within words and texts. Words - and the cultural history represented by words - that scholars often take for granted as having a continuous and long history are often new and even neologisms, and thus provide important clues to cultural and religious innovations. Olivelle's book on the Asramas, as well as the short pieces included in this volume, such as those on ananda and dharma, seek to see cultural innovation and historical changes within the changing semantic fields of key terms. Closer examination of numerous Sanskrit terms taken for granted as central to 'Hinduism' provide similar results. Indian texts have often been studied in the past as disincarnate realities providing information on an ahistorical and unchanging culture. This volume is a small contribution towards correcting that method of textual study.

Language and Society

Language and Society PDF Author: Andrew Simpson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190210672
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Language and Society is a broad introduction to the interaction of language and society, intended for undergraduate students majoring in any academic discipline. The book discusses the complex socio-political roles played by large, dominant languages around the world and how the growth of major national and official languages is threatening the continued existence of smaller, minority languages. As individuals adopt new ways of speaking, many languages are disappearing, others are evolving into hybrid languages with distinctive new forms, and even long-established languages are experiencing significant change, with young speakers creating novel expressions and innovative pronunciations. Making use of a wide range of case studies selected from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, Andrew Simpson describes and explains key factors causing language variation and change which relate to societal structures and the expression of group and personal identity. The volume also examines how speakers' knowledge of language acts as an important force controlling access to education, advances in employment and the development of social status. Additional topics discussed in the volume focus on the global growth of English, gendered patterns of language use, and the influence of language on perception.

Introducing Language and Society

Introducing Language and Society PDF Author: Rodney H. Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108498922
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
An accessible and entertaining textbook that introduces students to sociolinguistics in a real-world context, with issues they care about.

Language, Technology, and Society

Language, Technology, and Society PDF Author: Richard Sproat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199549389
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
This book traces the history of language technology from writing - the first technology designed for language - to digital speech and contemporary language systems. Written in a clear, readable style, the book offers fascinating reading for everyone interested in how language and technology have shaped and continue to shape our day-to-day lives.

Language, Society and Power

Language, Society and Power PDF Author: Linda Thomas
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415303931
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
'This is a book written by real academics, drawing articulately on their own research interests, and using an excellent range of twenty-first century examples to give the book a lively, contemporary feel. The extensive textual analysis is far superior to some of the banal tasks often found in introductory textbooks.' âMartin Conboy,University of Sheffield, UK Language, Society and Powerlooks at the ways in which language functions, how it influences thought and how it varies according to age, ethnicity, class and gender. It seeks to answer such questions as: How can a language reflect the status of children and older people? Do men and women talk differently? How can our use of language mark our ethnic identity? The book also looks at language use in politics and the media and examines how language affects and constructs our identities, exploring notions of correctness and attitudes towards language use. This second edition includes recent developments in theory and research and offers the following features: new and engaging examples drawn from everyday life: conversation transcripts, novels including Ian McEwan'sAtonement, television and the internet new activities designed to give students a real understanding of the topic an international perspective with examples from the world's press, includingThe Washington Post,TheDaily MailandTheNew Zealand Listener updated and expanded further reading sections and glossary. Language, Society and Powerremains an essential introductory text for students of English language and linguistics, and will also be of use to students of media, communication, cultural studies, sociology and psychology.

Variety in Written English

Variety in Written English PDF Author: Tony Bex
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415108393
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Combining insight from a variety of linguistic perspectives including Hallidayan functional linguistics and relevance theory, Tony Bex demonstrates how written texts operate within society to convey meaning. This book: - * looks at a wide variety of written genres - advertisments, letters, poetry and literature * provides an accessible and comprehensive survey of genre theory * proposes a challenging new way of analysing genre which emphasises communicative function * unusually, considers the relevance of linguistic theories of genre to the study of literary texts. * includes numerous exercises and annotated bibliographies Variety in Written Discourse will be of interest to all students of language and communication. In addition, it will be an invaluable text for those interested in literature, as well as English for Specific Purposes.

Society and Language Use

Society and Language Use PDF Author: Jürgen Jaspers
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027289166
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The ten volumes of Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, cultural, variational, interactional, or discursive angles, this seventh volume underlines the mutually constitutive relation between society and language use. It highlights a number of the most prominent approaches of this relation and it draws attention to a selected number of topics that the study of language in its social context has characteristically brought to bear. Despite their theoretical and methodological differences, each of the chapters in this book assumes that it is necessary to look at society and language use as interdependent phenomena, and that by attending to microscopic linguistic phenomena one is also keeping a finger on the pulse of broader, macroscopic social tendencies that at the same time facilitate and constrain language use. The introduction provides a sketch of the intellectual antecedents of the volume’s two ‘mother disciplines’, viz., linguistics and social theory before pointing at recent common ground in the rising attention for discourse and what has come to be called ‘late-modernity’.

Women and Language in Literature and Society

Women and Language in Literature and Society PDF Author: Sally Mcconnell Ginet
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0275905209
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
All the 21 essays are outstanding contributions exemplifying the most interesting and sophisticated methodologies in feminist literary criticism. The essays are written by specialists representing a wide range of disciplines (linguistics, psychology, sociology, literary criticism, history and anthropology). An editors' introduction preceding each of the four parts provides a useful summary.

Language and Society

Language and Society PDF Author: William Downes
Publisher: Fontana Press
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description


Language in Society

Language in Society PDF Author: Suzanne Romaine
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191607029
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Why have 1500 separate languages developed in the Pacific region? Why do Danes understand Norwegians better than Norwegians understand Danish? Is Ebonics a language or a dialect? Linguistics tends to ignore the relationship between languages and the societies in which they are spoken, while sociology generally overlooks the role of language in the constitution of society. In this book Suzanne Romaine provides a clear, lively, and accessible introduction to the field of sociolinguistics and emphasizes the constant interaction between society and language, discussing both traditional and recent issues including: language and social class, language and gender, language and education, and pidgins and creoles. The text shows how our linguistic choices are motivated by social factors, and how certain ways of speaking come to be vested with symbolic value and includes examples drawing on studies of cultures and languages all over the world. This new edition incorporates new material on current issues in the study of gender as well as other topics such as the linguistic dimension to the ethnic conflict in the Balkans, and the controversy over Ebonics in the United States.