What Language Is
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What Language Is
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Author : John McWhorter
language : en
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date : 2013-02-12
What Language Is written by John McWhorter and has been published by Penguin this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-02-12 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our assumptions about "correct" grammar. An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. From vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with Big Ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Surinam creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter also takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place-from Persian to the languages of Sri Lanka- to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.
Language For Everybody
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Author : Mario Pei
language : en
Publisher: New York : Devin-Adair
Release Date : 1956
Language For Everybody written by Mario Pei and has been published by New York : Devin-Adair this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1956 with Language and languages categories.
"An introduction to the history, structure and usage of mankind's most important tool - communication. In this basic book on a basic subject, Dr. Mario Pei, one of the world's leading linguistic authorities, tells you what language is, how it began, what makes it grow and how you can make better use of it." --Google Books.
Language Complexity As An Evolving Variable
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Author : Geoffrey Sampson
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2009-02-26
Language Complexity As An Evolving Variable written by Geoffrey Sampson and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2009-02-26 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.
Language
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Author : Otto Jespersen
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2013-05-24
Language written by Otto Jespersen and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-05-24 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This book was first published in 1922, Language is a valuable contribution to the field of English Language and Linguistics.
Language
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Author : Daniel L. Everett
language : en
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date : 2012-03-13
Language written by Daniel L. Everett and has been published by Vintage this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-03-13 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
A bold and provocative study that presents language not as an innate component of the brain—as most linguists do—but as an essential tool unique to each culture worldwide. For years, the prevailing opinion among academics has been that language is embedded in our genes, existing as an innate and instinctual part of us. But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety. For example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wari’ language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to say” or “to give,” illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined. Combining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.
Language An Introduction To The Study Of Speech
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Author : Edward Sapir
language : en
Publisher: Good Press
Release Date : 2019-11-20
Language An Introduction To The Study Of Speech written by Edward Sapir and has been published by Good Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-11-20 with Fiction categories.
This book is a leading work in the field of linguistics, providing readers with everything from the grammatical typology of language to speculations about the phenomenon of language drift, the arbitrariness of the association between race and language. The author Edward Sapir was an early 20th century leader in the field of linguists and a leader in American structural linguistics.
Speak
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Author : Tore Janson
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2003
Speak written by Tore Janson and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2003 with Historical linguistics categories.
English As A World Language
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Author : Isabelle Fol
language : en
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Release Date : 2005-09-16
English As A World Language written by Isabelle Fol and has been published by GRIN Verlag this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005-09-16 with Literary Collections categories.
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: good, University of Basel (Seminar for English Literatur and Linguistics), course: Seminar, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: English as a world language- a challenging topic that is fully treated in literature, because it is a topic of general interest. But during my researches, I realized that it was difficult to find literature about linguistic reasons for the establishment of English as a world language. Since this aspect is often interwoven within other reasons, for example geo-political reasons, linguistic reasons are seldom explicitly stated. Frequently, mixtures of reasons that have finally helped English to reach its high eminence as a world language are presented. In the end, I found some important aspects by picking them out of different texts and books and confined myself to present three important linguistic reasons for the establishment of English as a world language. Therefore, this paper does not claim to be complete, otherwise it would extend the prescribed lenght of the paper.
On What Language Is
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Author : Fred Jaeger
language : en
Publisher: Independently Published
Release Date : 2022-11-22
On What Language Is written by Fred Jaeger and has been published by Independently Published this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-11-22 with categories.
An original review of how verbal meaning is effected (through the iterative uses of sounds and marks) as that relates to conceptions of the world, to human behaviour and to the human self.
Why Language
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Author : Jacques Moeschler
language : en
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Release Date : 2021-08-23
Why Language written by Jacques Moeschler and has been published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-08-23 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
There is, at present, no book introducing the general issue of why language is specific to human beings, how it works, why language is not communication and communication is not language, why languages vary and how they evolved. Based on the most recent works in linguistics and pragmatics, Why Language? addresses many questions that everyone has about language. Starting from false claims about language and languages, showing that language is not communication and communication is not language, the first part (Language and Communication) ends by proposing a difference between linguistic rules and communicative principles. The second part (Language, Society, Discourse) includes domains of language and language uses which are generally taken as extrinsic to language, such as language variety, discourse and non-ordinary (literary) usages. Special attention is given to figures of discourse (metaphor, metonymy, irony) and literary usages such as narration and free indirect style. The reader, either specialist or amateur in language science, will find a first and unique synthesis about what we know today about language and what we have yet to learn, sketching what could be the future of linguistics in the next decades.