Language Matters A Guide To Everyday Questions About Language

Why and how does language matter in everyday life? Language Matters answers these questions in an informal, entertaining style. Encouraging readers to tap into their own knowledge of language, the book explores a variety of issues including language acquisition, sign languages, animal communication, and non-standard dialects.

Is Ebonics really a dialect or simply bad English? Do women and men speak differently? Will computers ever really learn human language? Does offensive language harm children? These are only a few of the issues surrounding language that crop up every day. Most of us have very definite opinions on these questions one way or another. Yet as linguist Donna Jo Napoli points out in this short and highly entertaining volume, many of our most deeply held ideas about the nature of language and its role in our lives are either misconceived or influenced by myths and stereotypes. L Napoli provides an ente.

Is Ebonics really a dialect or simply bad English? Do women and men speak differently? Will computers ever really learn human language? Does offensive language harm children? These are only a few of the issues surrounding language that crop up every day. Most of us have very definite opinions on these questions one way or another. Yet as linguists Donna Jo Napoli and Vera Lee-Schoenfeld point out in this short and thoroughly readable volume, many of our most deeply held ideas about the nature of language and its role in our lives are either misconceived or influenced by myths and stereotypes. Language Matters provides a highly informative tour of the world of language, examining these and other vexing and controversial language-related questions. Throughout, Napoli and Lee-Schoenfeld encourage and lead the reader to use common-sense and everyday experience rather than preconceived notions or technical linguistic expertise. Both their questions and their conclusions are surprising, sometimes provocative, and always entertaining. This thoroughly revised second edition updates the book with a new co-author, and includes new chapters on language and power, language extinction, and what it is linguists actually do. Language Matters is sure to engage both general readers and students of language and linguistics at any level.

This book provides a non-technical introduction to the study of language by focusing on questions such as: Where does language come from? Why don't we all talk the same? Who needs grammar? Suitable for students with no experience of linguistics, this lively introduction to language approaches will encourage students to think.

An Introduction to Language offers an engaging guide to the nature of language, focusing on how language works – its sounds, words, structures, and phrases – all investigated through wide-ranging examples from Old English to contemporary pop culture. Explores the idea of a scientific approach to language, inviting students to consider what qualities of language comprise everyday skills for us, be they sounds, words, phrases, or conversation Helps shape our understanding of what language is, how it works, and why it is both elegantly complex and essential to who we are Includes exercises within each chapter to help readers explore key concepts and directly observe the patterns that are part of all human language Examines linguistic variation and change to illustrate social nuances and language-in-use, drawing primarily on examples from English Avoids linguistic jargon, focusing instead on a broader and more general approach to the study of language, and making it ideal for those coming to the subject for the first time Supported by additional web resources – available upon publication at www.wiley.com/go/hazen/introlanguage – including student study aids and testbank and notes for instructors

The first edition of ELL (1993, Ron Asher, Editor) was hailed as "the field's standard reference work for a generation". Now the all-new second edition matches ELL's comprehensiveness and high quality, expanded for a new generation, while being the first encyclopedia to really exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics. * The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field * An entirely new work, with new editors, new authors, new topics and newly commissioned articles with a handful of classic articles * The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics through the online edition * Ground-breaking and International in scope and approach * Alphabetically arranged with extensive cross-referencing * Available in print and online, priced separately. The online version will include updates as subjects develop ELL2 includes: * c. 7,500,000 words * c. 11,000 pages * c. 3,000 articles * c. 1,500 figures: 130 halftones and 150 colour * Supplementary audio, video and text files online * c. 3,500 glossary definitions * c. 39,000 references * Extensive list of commonly used abbreviations * List of languages of the world (including information on no. of speakers, language family, etc.) * Approximately 700 biographical entries (now includes contemporary linguists) * 200 language maps in print and online Also available online via ScienceDirect – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedirect.com. The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics Ground-breaking in scope - wider than any predecessor An invaluable resource for researchers, academics, students and professionals in the fields of: linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, language acquisition, language pathology, cognitive science, sociology, the law, the media, medicine & computer science. The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field

The ninth edition of this textbook for hybrid introductory communication courses provides a balanced introduction to the fundamental theories and principles of communication. The book explores communication in a variety of contexts—including interpersonal, group, organizational, and mass media—and provides students the theoretical knowledge and the research and critical thinking skills they’ll need to succeed in advanced communication courses and professions. The first section explores the history of communication study and explains basic perspectives used by scholars in the field. The second looks at how communicators decode and encode messages, while the third examines channels and contexts, from interpersonal to mass media. This edition devotes attention to how new technologies are changing the ways we think about communication, with revised and updated examples, and gives special attention to relevant critical theory. Two appendices give users the flexibility to tailor their courses to the interests and needs of their students, offering guidelines for preparing and presenting public presentations and giving examples of major research methods. Thinking Through Communication is an ideal textbook for Introduction to Communication courses that aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the field. Material for instructors containing PowerPoint slides, test questions, and an instructor’s manual is available at https://routledge.com/9780367857011.

Bilingualism in the world is the norm, rather than the exception. Unlike in other countries where bilingualism often survives over numerous generations, in the United States, it generally takes two or three generations for a minority language to be lost. In a country where the very definition of ""American"" embodies the intersection of different languages, cultures, and ethnicities, the assimilation process into American culture often takes place at the expense of minority languages and cultur ...