Conversations About Language Culture

Conversations About Language & Culture includes the following 5 carefully-edited Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading researchers. This collection includes a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. Each book is broken into chapters with a detailed introduction and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: 1.Babbling Barbarians: How Translators Keep Us Civilized - A Conversation with David Bellos, translator and professor in French literature at Princeton University. This wide-ranging conversation examines many fascinating features of language and translation, including the value of a translation as opposed to the original work, translating humour, the Bergman Effect and more. 2. China, Culturally Speaking - A conversation with Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at UCLA and a world-renowned Chinese literary translator and film scholar. After discussing the inspiring influence his English teacher had on him, the conversation covers a wide range of topics such as the appeal of literary translation, modern and contemporary Chinese literature, the history and development of Chinese cinema, popular culture in modern China, censorship, and the importance of staying true to one’s values. 3. The Value of Voice - A Conversation with Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. This wide-ranging conversation explores how the media can be used as a filter to examine power structures, political movements, economic interests, democracy and our evolving notion of culture, the importance of voice and the challenge posed by media institutions that order the social, political, cultural, economic, and ethical dimensions of our lives. 4. Perspectives on Mass Communication - A Conversation with Denis McQuail (1935-2017), who was Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential scholars in the history of mass communication studies.This wide-ranging conversation provides detailed insights into how examining the media, and in particular mass media, necessarily involves a careful, probing look at our societal values; the concepts, metrics and ideas that McQuail developed to measure the sociological influence of the media; the critical role of journalism in society and more. 5. Sign Language Linguistics is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and renowned researcher of sign languages Carol Padden, the Sanford I. Berman Chair in Language and Human Communication at UC San Diego. This extensive conversation covers many topics related to sign language, such as growing up with ASL, Carol’s early work with Bill Stokoe, the linguistic complexity, structure and properties of ASL and other sign languages, the development of new sign languages throughout the world, the role of gesture and embodiment, and much more. Howard Burton is the founder and host of all Ideas Roadshow Conversations and was the Founding Executive Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy.

With so much present conflict, from personal to global, based on words as well as weapons, the exploration of languaculture is of a vital and timely importance. As the old song goes, "You can't have one without the other" - not if you want to communicate in today's culturally complex world.

Public Internet discussion forums offer opportunities for intercultural interaction in many languages on a vast range of topics, but are often overlooked by language educators in favour of purpose-built exchanges between learners. The book investigates this untapped pedagogical potential.

Why should we study language? How do the ways in which we communicate define our identities? And how is this all changing in the digital world? Since 1993, many have turned to Language, Culture, and Society for answers to questions like those above because of its comprehensive coverage of all critical aspects of linguistic anthropology. This seventh edition carries on the legacy while addressing some of the newer pressing and exciting challenges of the 21st century, such as issues of language and power, language ideology, and linguistic diasporas. Chapters on gender, race, and class also examine how language helps create - and is created by - identity. New to this edition are enhanced and updated pedagogical features, such as learning objectives, updated resources for continued learning, and the inclusion of a glossary. There is also an expanded discussion of communication online and of social media outlets and how that universe is changing how we interact. The discussion on race and ethnicity has also been expanded to include Latin- and Asian-American English vernacular.

Cultures in Conversation introduces readers to the ethnographic study of intercultural and social interactions through the analysis of conversations in which various cultural orientations are operating. Author Donal Carbaugh presents his original research on conversation practices in England, Finland, Russia, Blackfeet County, and the United States, demonstrating how each is distinctive in its communication codes--particularly in its use of symbolic meanings, forms of interaction, norms, and motivational themes. Examining conversation in this way demonstrates how cultural lives are active in conversations and shows how conversation is a principal medium for the coding of selves, social relationships, and societies. Representing 20 years of research, this volume offers unique insights into the ways social interactions not only gain shape from, but also are formative of cultures. It makes a significant contribution to communication scholarship, and will be illuminating reading in courses focusing on cultural communication, language and social interaction, intercultural pragmatics, and linguistics.

What exactly is meant by the term 'knowledge'? What are the different kinds of knowledge? How might this be shared in a dialogue between two interlocutors, within a shared common ground, in the realization of successful speech acts? This volume investigates the nature of language, culture, knowledge, and context, and their interrelationships. Each of these is defined - in terms of their relationship to language in particular, and to identify their respective properties. Cultural and other knowledge is also found within the linguistic landscape and the artifacts within our environment. The book explores the ways that language is central to expressions of knowledge and culture. It draws a comprehensive and representative picture of the dimensions of meaning, emerging from the interrelationship between these domains of language, culture, knowledge, and context.

Argues that anyone--anthropologist, psychologist, or policeman--who uses what people say to find out what people think had better know how speech itself is organized.