Author: N. J. Enfield Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262372738 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 253
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: Nancy C. Dorian Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521437578 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 464
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: Martin Pütz Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027218315 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 453
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: Ayọ Bamgboṣe Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster ISBN: 9783825847753 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 164
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: N.J. Enfield Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262368773 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 309
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: Raymond Mougeon Publisher: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press ISBN: Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 264
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: Eric Amsel Publisher: Psychology Press ISBN: 1135661529 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
This text's goal is to go beyond traditional accounts of human symbol skills to examine the development and consequences of symbolic communication. The editors explore the significance of communicationg symbolically as a means for understanding human symbol skills.
Author: Juan C. Sager Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027283648 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 367
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.
Author: MARY KATE. HURLEY Publisher: ISBN: 9780814257951 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Explores how translation in texts from Ælfric's Lives of the Saints to Chaucer imagines political, cultural, and linguistic communities.
Author: Howard Giles Publisher: ISBN: Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 266
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: N. J. Enfield
Author: Nancy C. Dorian
Author: Martin Pütz
Author: Ayọ Bamgboṣe
Author: N.J. Enfield
Author: Raymond Mougeon
Author: Eric Amsel
Author: Juan C. Sager
Author: MARY KATE. HURLEY
Author: Howard Giles