Author: N. J. Enfield
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262544865
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
What is it about humans that makes language possible, and what is it about language that makes us human? If you are reading this, you have done something that only our species has evolved to do. You have acquired a natural language. This book asks, How has this changed us? Where scholars have long wondered what it is about humans that makes language possible, N. J. Enfield and Jack Sidnell ask instead, What is it about humans that is made possible by language? In Consequences of Language their objective is to understand what modern language really is and to identify its logical and conceptual consequences for social life. Central to this undertaking is the concept of intersubjectivity, the open sharing of subjective experience. There is, Enfield and Sidnell contend, a uniquely human form of intersubjectivity, and it is essentially intertwined with language in two ways: a primary form of intersubjectivity was necessary for language to have begun evolving in our species in the first place and then language, through its defining reflexive properties, transformed the nature of our intersubjectivity. In the authors’ analysis, social accountability—the bedrock of society—is grounded in this linguistically transformed, enhanced kind of intersubjectivity. The account of the language-mind-society connection put forward in Consequences of Language is one of unprecedented reach, suggesting new connections across disciplines centrally concerned with language—from anthropology and philosophy to sociology and cognitive science—and among those who would understand the foundational role of language in making us human.
Author: Martin Pütz
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027218315
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 453
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Book Description
This volume concerns various aspects of the theory and application of language conflict phenomena seen from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on linguistic, social, psychological and educational issues (conditions, constraints and consequences) involved in the status and use of languages in multilingual settings. The book is divided into four sections, which deal with: theoretical issues - such as the nature of the concepts of language maintenance; language policy and language planning; attitudes towards languages; and codeswitching and language choice.
Author: Nancy C. Dorian
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521437578
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
This collection will certainly stimulate further and better co-ordinated research into a topic of direct relevance to sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.
Author: N. J. Enfield
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262548461
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention. Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts of experience. Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), why it can be dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, and why it deserves our deepest respect. Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.
Author: Eric Amsel
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135661510
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development addresses the impact of language and literacy on cognitive development. Top researchers examine the cognitive significance of the growth in children's ability to express themselves symbolically, whether that involves communicating linguistically, mathematically, logically, or through some other symbol system expressed in speech, gesture, notations, or some other means. The book contributes to refining and answering questions regarding the nature, origin, and development of symbolic communication in all its forms, and their consequences for the cognitive development of the younger child at home and the older child at school.
Author: Ayọ Bamgboṣe
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825847753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
Language is a critical factor in nation-building, and in a continent such as Africa, where language groups do not necessarily correspond with national boundaries, it is potentially contentious as well. Ayo Bamgbose's new book focuses on the problem of language exclusion, whereby certain languages -- and groups -- are omitted from language policies, particularly in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Originally based on a series of lectures given in South Africa, the individual chapters largely preserve the original style of presentation. Consequently, the book is readable, and a valuable introduction to some of the more important issues in African sociolinguistics. The book makes special reference to the language situation in post-apartheid South Africa. The appendices provide access to some of the most important documents on language policies such as the Organization of African Unity's Language Plan of Action For Africa (1986), the language provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of South Africa (1996), and the Barcelona Universal Declaration on Linguistics Rights.
Author: Raymond Mougeon
Publisher: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This study of minority languages documents the linguistic consequences of contact and restriction. First providing sociohistorical and sociolinguistic backgrounds, the book analyzes the effect contact with English and language-use restriction has had on the evolution of the French dialect spoken in predominately English-speaking Ontario, Canada. Addressing such fundamental theoretical issues as the interplay between linguistic and extralinguistic causes of structural change and the mechanisms of linguistic change in bilingual communities, this work will appeal to linguists interested in language contact and linguistic change.
Author: Herman Batibo
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 9781853598081
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
The aim of this book is to inform both scholars and the public about the nature and extent of the problem of language decline and death in Africa. It resourcefully traces the main causes and circumstances of language endangerment, the processes and extent of language shift and death, and the consequences of language loss to the continent's rich linguistic and cultural heritage. The book outlines some of the challenges that have emerged out of the situation.
Author: Howard Giles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Aims to synthesize work in social psychology, communication science, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Begins with theory, and proceeds to a consideration of actual contexts, such as ethnolinguistic expression, bilingualism, health and ageing, where language and social forces interact.
Author: Juan C. Sager
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027283648
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
At a time when information technology has become a regular tool of specialised translators in all aspects of their work, it is useful to place the activity of technical translation into its appropriate environment and to describe it from the point of view of its role in the broader context of communication in which it occurs. The advent of automated alternatives to human translation has fundamentally affected the profession, its products and the relationship between translators and their clients.This book presents and discusses the process of translation against this background. The context in which translation is normally studied is widened in order to re-examine the process of translation as part of interlingual text production and to analyse the manner in which the new tools affect the product of translation.This book is of particular relevance in modern translator training courses. Contents 1. The language industry and translation, 2. Aspects of language, 3. Elements of communication theory, 4. A theory of text types and messages, 5. The nature of translation, 6. Specifications: Factors influencing the translation, 7. Preparation for translation, 8. Steps in translation, 9. Human and Machine Translation, 10 Pragmatic circumstances of automation, 11. Translation in an information technology environment. Bibliography + Index.
