Language: history and general works Books
Penguin Books Ltd Horrible Words
Book Synopsis''Stuffed with entertaining detail ... Horrible Words is lively, provocative, witty and enlightening'' The TimesNothing inflames the language purists like an illogical irregardless or a hideous otherization. But is it enough simply to dismiss these words as vile and barbarous howlers? Taking a genial tour far and wide through our linguistic badlands, Rebecca Gowers finds answers that are helpful, surprising and often extremely funny.''Exuberant, erudite, informative and fun ... a call on all English-speakers to trust their own feel for their language, to relish their verbal inventiveness and to do battle against the pedants who tell them they are wrong'' Michael Skapinker, Financial Times ''A very useful book, packed with good historical sense'' Lynne Truss, The TimesTrade ReviewA great delight -- David CrystalGowers is fierce, funny and staggeringly well informed -- Alan Connor * Mail on Sunday *Stuffed with entertaining detail ... Horrible Words is lively, provocative, witty and enlightening * The Times *Exuberant and stimulating ... erudite, informative and fun * Financial Times *Witty ... wry ... As a heretic, Gowers cuts a formidable figure * The Times Literary Supplement *A very useful book, packed with good historical sense -- Lynne Truss * The Times *A joy - informative and irreverent -- Caroline TaggartWitty and erudite ... A splendid antidote to small-minded pedantry -- Robbie Millen * The Times *Will have you enraptured by etymology ... Hugely enjoyable * Reader's Digest *
£12.69
Undena Publications,U.S. Graphemics and Diachrony
Book SynopsisThe analysis of writing is shown to parallel that of speech. Graphemes-- that is, letter shapes--are analyzed in terms of the physical distinctive features of strokes, minimal pairs, and etic and emic components.
£7.77
Prickly Paradigm Press, LLC Time and Human Language Now
Book SynopsisWhat can you say after you say that the world - or at least human life on it - looks like it's nearing its end? How about starting with wonder at the possibility that dialogue and subjectivity, the bases of human language, are possible? This title discusses about the relation between cosmos and consciousness.
£999.99
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Companion to the History of the English
Book SynopsisThis Companion, now available in a paperback format, brings together more than 60 distinguished contributors to offer a wide-ranging survey of the history of the English language. Many of the essays investigate regional and ethnic varieties and take up issues of and gender.Trade Review“In conclusion, this book succeeds in doing what it intended, to provide linguistic grounding for readers primarily interested in the literature and culture of English past and present. It deserves a place in libraries and classrooms, to be read cover to cover or dipped into for specific topics . . . Because it is readable and has good chapter bibliographies and a detailed index, it might also serve as a reference for students researching a topic within the history of English.” (Linguist, 20 January 2013) "Readers will find clear guides to basic information.... Editorial introductions to the various sections clarify and summarise the material. Each chapter ends with extensive lists of references and further reading. A glossary of linguistic terms, reflecting 'the terms as used by the authors,' is included. As with all the Blackwell Companions, the presentation of this substantial volume is of the highest standard." (Reference Reviews, November 2009) "Anyone with even a passing interest in the history of the language, whether an old-fashioned description of Middle English morphology or an au courant discussion of global Englishes, will be glad to have [this] Companion on the shelf." (Times Literary Supplement, May 2009) Momma (New York Univ.) and Matto (Adelphi Univ.) draw on an international cast of scholars to present 59 essays on the history of the English language. Part of the "Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture" series, this substantial volume is organized in nine sections and certainly covers the field. The first three sections provide essential linguistic concepts and a survey of the history of words, sounds, and grammar. Sections 4-6 deal with the Indo-European and Germanic roots of English, the history of English in England and the US, and English in British colonies and the postcolonial world. The last three sections cover literary language (including Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Toni Morrison), language variation and language teaching, and approaches to language study such as stylistics and cognitive linguistics. The editors provide brief contextual commentary for each section, and each essay has its own bibliography to facilitate further reading. All the contributions are readable and concise. This comprehensive picture of English and its history is a must for scholars. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. -- E. L. Battistella, Southern Oregon University (Choice, February, 2009)Table of ContentsList of Figures xi Notes on Contributors xiii Acknowledgments xxii Note on Phonetic Symbols and Orthography xxiv A Timeline for HEL xxix Part I Introduction 1 1 History, English, Language: Studying HEL Today 3 Michael Matto and Haruko Momma 2 History of the History of the English Language: How Has the Subject Been Studied? 11 Thomas Cable 3 Essential Linguistics 18 Mary Blockley Part II Linguistic Survey 25 4 Phonology: Segmental Histories 29 Donka Minkova and Robert Stockwell 5 History of English Morphology 43 Robert McColl Millar 6 History of English Syntax 57 Olga Fischer 7 A History of the English Lexicon 69 Geoffrey Hughes 8 History of English Prosody 81 Geoffrey Russom Part III English Semantics and Lexicography 89 9 Dictionaries Today: What Can We Do With Them? 93 Reinhard R. K. Hartmann 10 English Onomasiological Dictionaries and Thesauri 103 Werner Hüllen 11 Johnson, Webster, and the Oxford English Dictionary 113 Charlotte Brewer Part IV Pre-history of English 123 12 English as an Indo-European Language 127 Philip Baldi 13 English as a Germanic Language 142 R. D. Fulk Part V English in History: England and America 151 Section 1 Old English in History (ca. 450–1066) 153 14 Early Old English (up to 899) 156 Daniel Donoghue 15 Late Old English (899–1066) 165 Mechthild Gretsch 16 Topics in Old English Dialects 172 Lucia Kornexl Section 2 Middle English in History (1066–1485) 181 17 Early Middle English (1066–ca. 1350) 184 Thorlac Turville-Petre 18 Late Middle English (ca. 1350–1485) 191 Seth Lerer 19 Varieties of Middle English 198 Jeremy J. Smith Section 3 Early Modern English in History (1485–1660) 207 20 Early Modern English (1485–1660) 209 Terttu Nevalainen 21 Varieties of Early Modern English 216 Jonathan Hope Section 4 Modern British English in History (1660–present) 225 22 British English in the Long Eighteenth Century (1660–1830) 228 Carey McIntosh 23 British English Since 1830 235 Richard W. Bailey 24 The Rise of Received Pronunciation 243 Lynda Mugglestone Section 5 American English in History 251 25 American English to 1865 254 David Simpson 26 American English Since 1865 263 Walt Wolfram 27 American English Dialects 274 Gavin Jones Section 6 Topics in History 281 28 Early Modern English Print Culture 284 John N. King 29 Issues of Gender in Modern English 293 Deborah Cameron 30 Class, Ethnicity, and the Formation of "Standard English" 303 Tony Crowley 31 The Transplantation of American English in Philippine Soil 313 Br. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC 32 English, Latin, and the Teaching of Rhetoric 323 Michael Matto 33 English in Mass Communications: News Discourse and the Language of Journalism 334 Philippa K. Smith and Allan Bell Part VI English in History: English Outside England and the United States 345 Section 1 British Isles and Ireland 347 34 English in Wales 350 Marion Löffler 35 English in Scotland 358 J. Derrick McClure 36 English in Ireland 366 Terence Patrick Dolan Section 2 English in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand 377 37 English in Canada 380 John Edwards 38 Australian and New Zealand English 389 Pam Peters Section 3 Colonial and Post-colonial English 401 39 South Asian English 404 Kamal K. Sridhar 40 English in the Caribbean 413 Donald Winford 41 English in Africa 423 Alamin M. Mazrui Part VII Literary Languages 431 42 The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Tradition 435 Fred C. Robinson 43 "In swich englissh as he kan": Chaucer's Literary Language 445 John F. Plummer 44 Shakespeare's Literary Language 455 Adam N. McKeown 45 Jane Austen's Literary English 464 Mary Poovey 46 Joyce's English 471 Laurent Milesi 47 Faulkner's Language 479 Noel Polk 48 Twixt the Twain: East-West in Rushdie's Zubaan-Tongue 487 Tabish Khair 49 Toni Morrison: The Struggle for the Word 495 Justine Tally Part VIII Issues in Present-Day English 505 50 Migration and Motivation in the Development of African American Vernacular English 509 Mary B. Zeigler 51 Latino Varieties of English 521 Robert Bayley 52 Teaching English to Native Speakers: The Subject Matter of Composition (1970–2005) 531 Mary Soliday 53 Earning as well as Learning a Language: English and the Post-colonial Teacher 541 Eugene Chen Eoyang 54 Creoles and Pidgins 553 Salikoko S. Mufwene 55 World Englishes in World Contexts 567 Braj B. Kachru Part IX Further Approaches to Language Study 581 56 Style and Stylistics 585 David L. Hoover 57 Corpus-Based Linguistic Approaches to the History of English 596 Anne Curzan 58 Sociolinguistics 608 Robin Tolmach Lakoff 59 Cognitive Linguistics 618 Dirk Geeraerts Glossary of Linguistic Terms 630 Haruko Momma Index 646
£133.95
Thomas Nelson Publishers What's In a Word?: Fascinating Stories of More
Book Synopsis
£12.39
WW Norton & Co Word Nerd: Dispatches from the Games, Grammar,
Book SynopsisBeginning his career on a lark as a freelance contributor to SCRABBLE News, John D. Williams fell down a rabbit hole inhabited by gamers, geeks, and the grammar police. For twenty-five years, as the executive director of the National SCRABBLE Association, Williams served as the official spokesperson for the game, and as the middleman between legions of fanatical word-game fans and the official brand. Now Word Nerd takes readers inside the byzantine, dog-eat-dog world of top tournament players, creating a piquant (seven-letter word, 68 points!) work that is part pop-cultural history, part anthropological study. Indeed, what Christopher Guest did for the world of dog shows in his film Best in Show, Williams does for the world of competitive word games in this funny and perfectly observed memoir. As readers will discover, Word Nerd explores anagrams, palindromes, the highest-scoring SCRABBLE plays of all time, the birth of the World SCRABBLE Championship, as well as many of the more colorful figures that inhabit this subculture. Die-hard word fans will find invaluable tips on how top players see their boards and racks to come up with the best play, how they prepare, and the psychology of tournament competition. Those uninitiated in the mysteries of SCRABBLE mania will find a delightful, madcap memoir about all the fun people have with language and how words shape our lives and culture in unexpected ways. Whether reminiscing about past national champions, detailing the controversy over efforts to purge the Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary of all offensive words, opining on the number of vowelless words that are allowable (cmw for a Welsh deep-walled basin or nth for the ultimate degree), noting how long it takes a word to get into a dictionary, or explaining why there remain more male than female champions, Williams crafts a loving tribute to words and the games people play with them. Word Nerd will fascinate both amateurs and seasoned experts alike.Trade Review"Williams, the first and only executive director of the National Scrabble Association, joyfully and enthusiastically recounts his unlikely 25-year tenure as the official national spokesman for the world-famous word game. …Casual gamers will find this light read to be a fun escape, while avid grammarians and fellow word nerds will devour it in a single sitting." -- Publishers Weekly"For Scrabble fans—and they are everywhere, young and old, male and female—this walk down memory lane with the former National Scrabble Association (NSA) executive director is informative, funny, anecdotal, and bittersweet…. [A]ficionados will treasure this book for its appendixes: ‘offensive’ words; short Q, J, X, and Z words; ‘Important Vowel Dumps’: and more." -- Eloise Kinney - Booklist
£12.34
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale How to Argue with a Cat: A Human's Guide to the
Book Synopsis
£13.59
Reaktion Books Beyond Words Sobs Hums Stutters and Other
Book SynopsisProbing the fringes of human communication, Beyond Words is an account of language outside words: the growls, stutters, ums, and ahs of everyday conversation.
£999.99
Reaktion Books The Art of Verbal Warfare
Book SynopsisWe use salty or artful language to win arguments, slander, cheat and bully, as well as to express feelings of joy or frustration and blow off steam. Rik Smits delves into the magic of oaths and profanity, art and advertising, probes the lure of fake-news and propaganda, and explores invective and off-colour jokes the world over. The Art of Verbal Warfare shows why conversation dies in crowded lifts, what drives you to curse at your laptop and what makes some political bigshots fall, but not others. This is, when all is said and done, the story of how we get through life without coming to physical blows.
£999.99
KPT Publishing Signs of Life
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£9.45
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale A Guide to Midwestern Conversation
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£15.29
Bohlau Verlag Im Hier Und Jetzt: Konstellationen Der Gegenwart
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£999.99
Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial Mexiconario / Mexiconary
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£13.46
Ediciones Trea, S.L. La palabra y su escritura
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£26.78
Peeters Publishers Éthique, poétique et esthétique du secret de
Book SynopsisAlors que notre époque semble ne laisser aucune place au secret, il est difficile d’imaginer quelle fut son importance dans la pensée et la pratique sous l’Ancien Régime. Le présent volume, issu d’un colloque international qui s’est tenu à Reims, examine ce que fut le secret durant les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, tout en ouvrant l’étude à des textes originels comme le Roman du Graal, à la période romantique avec Senancour, Chateaubriand et Stendhal, voire au XXe siècle. Les contributions déclinent les diverses formes du secret : discrétion, dissimulation, énigme, mystère, implicite, clandestinité, espionnage. Dans la première partie, elles touchent à l’anthropologie et au rapport qu’entretiennent le politique et la morale. Une esthétique du secret s’affirme quand les poètes, les peintres et les dramaturges sollicitent la participation du spectateur. Le «plaisir secret» se charge alors de valeur positive. Les auteurs, les libraires et les journalistes n’ignorent pas la valeur pragmatique du secret. La seconde partie du volume porte sur les fictions. Le roman de cette époque élabore des dispositifs ingénieux pour exprimer ce qui est à la fois montré et caché. Il circonscrit le secret dans son ambiguïté, sans pouvoir le dire vraiment. Quel que soit son intérêt au Grand Siècle, le secret d’amour tend à se vider de son contenu pour mieux éclairer les processus de communication. Le roman du siècle suivant hésite entre la dissimulation et la transparence ; avec le conte, il use de l’énigme et de la mystification pour mener un combat idéologique et pour interroger l’inconscient jusque dans l’érotisme et l’inceste. Ainsi la poétique du secret qui se développe jusqu’au seuil du XIXe siècle permet de repenser plus largement le rapport du lecteur à la production littéraire.
£103.55
