Product Description
New 4th Edition completely revised and updated with new DVD now available; ISBN 1-56368-283-4 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Just as i expected!
the book came in great timing and had the marks and everything that were in the description! It was a great price for the book and the seller was awesome about description and timeliness.

linguistics
This explains all of the hows and whys of ASL.This book hit on challenging topics like morphology.The passages and lessons were interesting.

Linguistics of American Sign Language
I'm an ITP student, and this is the textbook for our linguistics class.It's great.Don't expect to learn any sign from it though, this book assumes you already have a beginning level vocabulary.The book starts out with an introduction to Language and linguistics and progressively gets more difficult it it's exploration of ASL structure.Basically this book informs you as to why you do the things you do while signing.A must read!

THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ
This is definitly the best book I've ever read, just because the fact that I love this language and everything about it.I am hearing but I want to deaf and all I have are deaf friends. I think hearing people are deaf bashers and need to learn more.This book gave me even more understanding about the linguestics of ASL!! ... Read more

Product Description

A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture

Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?

Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a "she"—becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.

Customer Reviews (5)

Interesting thesis, fun to read
The author supports his thesis quite well with very interesting facts.I think that this book will be interesting and fun to read for those within the linguistics and anthropology communities or those who have a passing curiosity in the oddities and similarities between cultures and languages.I will admit that the book seemed to lack a "knock-out punch".Perhaps the author will follow up in another book.Still, this is worth a read for all.

Should be titled "Language and COLOR"
As a native Russian speaker, I always felt different from Americans. I've always wondered if the language i was brought up with altered my thinking in ways Americans weren't. I was hoping to get the answer in this book and I was really disappointed.

The book started out strong, showing how 3 different languages defined "culture" in different ways (French being most romantic and German being most brutal). But then once I started reading the book, it never really delved deeply into the subject of how language affects thought or behavior. The intro and reviews (it was recommended on New York Times) made it sound like a book about language affecting thought. IT wasn't.

I liked Deutchers' writing style. He was easy to read and funny. I liked his use of many examples, and then defining the examples to make it REALLY easy to understand. However, he NEVER really defined how A Language makes ONE society's thought be different from another's. He talked a little bit how a language FORCES one to pay attention and speak in a specific way. I really loved his example of how some cultures only have N S E W directions instead of front, back, left right. I understand what he said. I liked his analysis on "how can all language be equally complex? they cant." But i wish there were more examples like that.

More than half of the book (waaay too much ) was devoted to how different societies define colors. For example, how many cultures only have one word for green and blue. Maybe it's just that many studies haven't been done onlanguage and culture. I don't know. Then he devoted a TINY section of the book to sex of objects, but not enough.

This book should have been titled "Culture and Color." I would have been less let down if he JUST focused on color (he did so for more than half the book) and talk about other stuff (sex of objects, directions) in another book. "Through the Language Glass" was interesting, and well researched, but not what the book intro claimed to be about.

Four stars for content; minus one for Kindle deficiencies
The first foreign language I learned to complete fluency was German - after five years of high school German I spent a year at a German boys' boarding school. At the end of that year I was completely fluent, but noticed an odd phenomenon, that I felt like a slightly different person when I spoke German than when speaking English. Since then I've also learned Spanish to a high degree of fluency, and the same observation holds. In both cases, the main difference that I perceive has to do with humor, and the way the language I'm speaking affects my sense of humor. So I've always been interested in the extent to which language affects thought. The notion that it does is what linguists refer to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Belief in Sapir-Whorf reached its peak in the first half of the 20th century, but since then the notion that language affects cognition has been discredited by almost all mainstream linguists.

In "Through the Language Glass" Guy Deutscher mounts a careful, very limited defence of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He considers three major areas - the link between language and color perception, how different languages deal with spatial orientation, and the phenomenon of differences in noun genders across different languages. His examination of the link between language and color perception is extensive and thought-provoking - he traces the development of linguistic theory on color perception from British prime minister Gladstone's commentary on the relative paucity of color terms in Homer's work, through the Berlin-Kay model (stating essentially that languages all tend to split up the color spectrum in similar ways) through very recent experiments suggesting that the existence of a particular color distinction in a language (e.g. the existence of separate terms in Russian for light and dark blue) affects the brain's ability to perceive that distinction. Deutscher's account of the evolution of linguistic theory about color perception is a tour de force of scientific writing for a general audience - it is both crystal clear and a pleasure to read.

Two factors contributed to my eventual disappointment with this book. The first is that, even after Deutscher's careful, eloquent, persuasive analysis, one's final reaction has to be a regretful "So what?" In the end, it all seems to amount to little of practical importance.

The second disappointment pertained only to the experience of reading this book on an Amazon Kindle. Reference is made throughout to a "color insert" which evidently contained several color wheels as well as up to a dozen color illustrations. This feature was completely absent from the Kindle edition, which had a severe adverse effect on the overall experience of reading this book. Obviously, this point is relevant only if you are contemplating reading the Kindle version - DON'T!

If it hadn't been for the lack of availability of key illustrations on the Kindle, I would have given the book 4 stars, but I feel obliged to deduct one because of the Kindle-related deficiencies.

Solid follow-up
How much does our culture determine, or liberate, our language's ability to express what we see? In his first book, "The Unfolding of Language," Deutschermentioned how colors evolved in verbal expression from a primitive stage. Words entered language first for a binary black-white, later adding red, then yellow-green, and finally blue. But, he skimmed past this factoid as he rushed on to other theoretical matters. He returns to make this subject the heart of this sequel.

If language mirrors our mind, what is reflected? Is it human nature or cultural conventions? Color served, since the era of Darwin aroused clumsy curiosity whether linguistic responses might be innate, as a test case. Did color come about as the brain developed and became more civilized? Victorians wondered if languages developed by natural selection; anthropologists suggested language was filtered through culture. Scholars began to study diverse indigenous tongues that often differed dramatically from Indo-European languages.

Deutscher devotes the first hundred pages to explaining their discoveries of how colors in newly discovered languages were understood by perceptions and then vocabularies which revealed contrasts with the West. While these nineteenth-century models crudely linking Darwin to linguistics have been discarded, these inquiries opened Western ears to a global diversity of verbal and mental expression. Deutscher explains how our mother tongue "can affect how we think and how we perceive the world." He does not argue that language determines how we think. This distinction is crucial.

For, he rejects the "linguistic relativity" of the discredited Sapir-Whorf theory which claimed that language locks its speakers into a cognitive prison by which they must perceive, say, time differently. The Hopi may say "on the fifth day" rather than "five days," but mainstream scholars deny that this proves that the Hopi conceive time's accumulation of "unvarying repetition" differently than we do with our spatial models. This quickly turns theoretical, as the extended analyses of color vocabulary and then spatial orientation by geographic rather than egocentrical markers make the bulk of this text.

I felt that Deutscher's in-depth example of the Guugu Yimithirr aboriginal language--which in its isolated heyday indicated directions according to compass points rather than personal coordinates--appeared intriguing but less compelling than he intended. For, the speakers in both cases still orient themselves by their own internal placement. We may say a chair is to our left; they may say it is to the southwest, but we both are setting ourselves in relation to it. Deutscher appears to gloss this over.

He shows how languages may lack green-blue distinctions that in our native tongue appear as if natural to us. He suggests how taste can be an analogy: what if "wild strawberries" might be our only term for the whole range of new fruits a stranger brought us from a faraway land of berry extravagance? All we could do is compare each new varietal to more or less the one berry we had words to describe. By the scholar from Berry-Land we would be pitied as primitives, unable to comprehend the obvious range of fruit flavors.

Similarly, some cultures have not paid much attention to color spectrums. They did not feel the need to, as discernment may not have been necessary. This surmise began when William Gladstone, after studying Homer, surmised that artificial dye in classical Greece might have stimulated the color perceptions of ancient peoples. Before dyes were manufactured for shades of blue, the Greeks may not have been used to discern a range of hues in their depths (which appear instantly blue to us, or green due to our different cultural and linguistic habits) as other than a "wine-looking" or "wine-dark sea."

Whether Australian or Mediterranean, people tend to use the words they need for their world. If blue existed in sky or sea, it may not have been necessary to differentiate it. If it turned into an imported dye altering fashion or determining status, it then mattered to find a term for blue. (I invent this elaboration; "The cultural significance of blue," Deutscher admits as an aside, "is very limited." Such points deserved more analysis, considering that much of this book concerns color's linguistic applications.)

Yellow and green emerge later for many native cultures because agriculture and vegetation brought a greater awareness (ripe or unripe?) involved in sustenance. Black and white, day and night tend to come first for they are the most obvious contrasts. Red follows, as blood marks our encounters with each other and the natural world in which we compete and struggle.

The second section shifts to the impact of our mother tongue on how we think. It may influence our reactions without determining them: this qualification segues into the Boas-Jakobson alternative to Sapir-Whorf's model. Before this, Deutscher in one of his most compelling chapters compresses material that I thought more compelling than much of the previous hundred-plus pages on color.

This extends the essence of The Unfolding of Language (see my Oct 2007 review), even if he barely refers to his earlier book. How languages begin complex and then grow simpler--and then perhaps more complex again--appears to contradict what we might expect. Small societies rely on markers. Like the aborigines with their compass internalized in their language and their bodies in one place with the same solar and meteorological coordinates for thousands of years, people settled as relatives in one place speak by shorthand. As intimates, "she," "them," "here" and "over there" may be all that is needed to express what to a stranger would require precise yet wordier explanations of kinship, locale, or quirk.

When strangers arrive (perhaps traders of blue dye), they may speak a different accent or dialect. This forces locals to simplify words to communicate clearly. Comprehension between unfamiliar speakers of different languages may force a drastically minimal, almost childlike, manner of speech. More terms may be needed, such as "aquamarine" or "indigo," and these then enrich the local language. Concision, simplicity, and literacy often slow a language down in word forms and on paper. This is one reason why the spelling of English may preserve archaic sounds we no longer say, or why the gender distinctions of Romance languages persist in illogical forms, lovingly detailed in the best chapter, "Sex and Syntax."

The rest of the narrative lacks this intriguing scenario, however dimly sketched. But, Deutscher dutifully sums up current research in a manner that we non-linguists can appreciate. He shows, as in the gender situation, how German's feminine article for such a word as a bridge may influence somewhat the response, even in English, of traits attributed by a German speaker to "die Brücke" vs. a Spanish speaker's masculine "el puente". "German speakers tended to describe bridges as beautiful, elegant, fragile, peaceful, pretty, and slender; Spanish speakers as big, dangerous, long, strong, sturdy, towering." While Deutscher remains cautious about interpreting such findings, he does hint that "manly or womanly associations of inanimate objects are strong enough in the minds of Spanish and German speakers to affect their ability to commit information to memory."

Both of this author's books share this professor's lively anecdotes, his engaging personality, and his ability to summarize linguistic debates efficiently. He lets the rest of us, outside the academy, listen in on arcane arguments. Yet, as part of academia, Deutscher may let his love for theoretical excursion weaken the pace of his presentations.

He wraps up his latest work, after more color discussion and more cognitive experiments, with a summary of how culture conventions of our society can be influenced by language. We do not live in what from Nietzsche has been memorably mistranslated as a "prison-house of language." But, we do tend to find patterns and pursue expressions that fit with our habitual sights, sounds, and markers.

Deutscher closes by begging forgiveness from future scholars, for we are on the verge of brain discoveries about language processing even as thousands of languages die out. These may offer, as Guugu Yimithirr, fantastic alternatives we thinkers used to English might never have conceived. Our scientific progress accelerates, but we also need linguistic alternatives to our monocultural, globalizing mindset. None of us can step aside and find a perfect language to judge all the others by. Maybe we've built, in a determination to make everyone speak our native tongue, our own prison-house after all?

Through Wine-Tinted Glasses
In some cultures, there is a single word that denotes both blue and green. The people in these cultures can see the difference between the colors as well as anyone else, but they don't consider blue and green different colors, just different shades of the same color. In Russian, there is a word for dark blue and another word for sky blue. We who did not grow up speaking Russian do not confuse dark blue and light blue any more than Russians do, even if we call them both "blue."

How a language deals with colors is just one of the ways that linguist Guy Deutscher examines the interplay between language and thought. For many years, it was THE controversy in linguistic circles. But even if the phrases "Sapir-Whorf" and "Chomskian grammar" do not make you see red or any other color, you will find Deutscher's investigations into how language affects thought and vice versa, fascinating and enlightening.

He discusses why, in the Iliad, Homer described both the sea and oxen as being "wine-colored." He describes a society in which the people use points of the compass to describe locations rather than "left" and "right," and how that affects their sense of place.

Through the Language Glass had me seriously questioning what I thought I knew about language. Deutscher challenges conventional linguistic theories and seems to have a great time doing it. Through the Language Glass is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone and find out what they think about it, too. Is Deutscher crazy? Is he brilliant? Both, probably.

Also recommended -- When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge by K. David Harrison, and Harrison's documentary, The Linguists. ... Read more

Product Description
African American language is central to the teaching of linguistics and language in the United States, and this book covers the entire field--grammar, speech, and verbal genres. It also reveals the various historical strands that must be identified in order to understand the development of African American English. These are the social and cultural history of the American South, the urban and northern black popular culture, as well as policy issues. The current heated political and educational debates about the status of the African American dialect are also addressed. ... Read more

Product Description
This accessible textbook is the only introduction to linguistics in which each chapter is written by an expert who teaches courses on that topic, ensuring balanced and uniformly excellent coverage of the full range of modern linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge the text offers a clear introduction to the traditional topics of structural linguistics (theories of sound, form, meaning, and language change), and in addition provides full coverage of contextual linguistics, including separate chapters on discourse, dialect variation, language and culture, and the politics of language. There are also up-to-date separate chapters on language and the brain, computational linguistics, writing, child language acquisition, and second-language learning. The breadth of the textbook makes it ideal for introductory courses on language and linguistics offered by departments of English, sociology, anthropology, and communications, as well as by linguistics departments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

linguistics and phonetics
linguistics and phonetics go hand in hand - this is a great resource for an intro to how one feeds the other, with the primary emphasis on the spoken. highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
This Second Edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language presents a mass of new information and introduces the subject of language to a fresh generation of students and general readers.Probably the most successful general study of language ever published, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language covers all the major themes of language study, including popular ideas about language, language and identity, the structure of language, speaking and listening, writing, reading, and signing, language acquisition, the neurological basis of language, and languages of the world.Exposing this work to a new generation of readers, the Second Edition extends the range of coverage to include advances in areas such as machine translation, speech interaction with machines, and language teaching.There is new material on acoustics, physiological concepts of language, and World English, and a complete update of the language distribution maps, language-speaking statistics, table of the world's languages, and further reading.All geopolitical material has been revised to take account of boundary changes.The book has been redesigned and is presented for the first time in full color, with new pictures and maps added.Amazon.com Review
The most diverse, enjoyable, and thought-provokingencyclopedia on language. Though not an alphabetical encyclopedia, the coverage of the 65 thematic chaptersis encyclopedic--ideal for anyone interested inwords, speech, writing, and thought, and certain to be a continualpoint of reference for any writer for years to come. Very HighlyRecommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

The best comprehensive introduction to language--we'd love a new edition!
Based on this and his many other excellent books, David Crystal is a world heritage treasure!This book provides a stimulating introduction to language in a comprehensive way that I have found nowhere else.However, since its 1997 publication date there are exciting new developments in understanding language and its origins, including language acquisition, neurolinguistics, and semantics.We would love a new edition and hope the marvelous author has nothing else to do for the foreseeable future! Please convince him, Cambridge University Press!

Awesome!!!
This is a useful, complete and wonderful book, which person interested in language should have. It's topics are simply great!!

Olga Ocaña

An unmatched linguistic compendium
Everything that you could ever have wanted to know about the way language works is in here (along with many other things that you probably had never even thought of). From the minds ability to comprehend certain sights and sounds as forms of communication and how it deciphers them to writing styles, changes and progression in languages and grammatical structures and nuances in voice level and tone used to alter understanding of a particular syllable, this book's got it all. I have to confess to being overawed when I first opened the book and then marvelling at the detail contained therein. Be warned though, this book is not for beginners in any field of study. Those with a strong interest in linguistics though should definitely invest in this treasure. There's so much in here it's staggering.

excellent overview of language
David Crystal's Encylcopedia of Language is an excellent and readable book for lay-people like myself. I often come to it for information on a particular language-related question, or else I'll just open it up at random and see where I land.

There are plenty of diagrams and coloured pictures throughout, as well and quite a few interesting stories placed in vignettes.

As other reveiwers have pointed out, a huge range of topics are included here. I'm yet to find an aspect of language that hasn't been covered in some way.

A brief comment
This book is a linguaphile and language lover's delight, to read or just to browse like a coffee table book. It covers just about every major topic in the study of language you can think of, from traditional classical and comparative philology and linguistics to modern developmental and neurological studies of language.

The book is comprised of 11 major sections and 65 smaller sections, with 8 appendices devoted to various topics, and there is an extensive glossary of linguistic terms as well as a table giving essential information about almost 1000 of the world's languages. Although a scholarly book, it's well written and Crystal never gets overly pedantic or dry. This is no doubt one of the most comprehensive and detailed compendia of information for the general reader about the subject of language ever written.

After reading this, you'll be more than ready to tackle a formal or more technical introductory text in linguistics, if you want to continue your studies. If you do, I highly recommend David Lyons's classic, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, now out of print but worth getting if you can find a used copy. If you can't find that there are several other recent texts that are quite good. But if you decide to stick with this book, you'll still have learned a lot. Whichever way you decide, good luck and happy reading. ... Read more

Product Description
A must have for all those following the debate about language, instinct vs learned debate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The value of contrarian views
I'm torn between a three and a four on this one.I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the issue of whether or not language is instinctual. Sampson scores some hits against those believing that language is inborn. I admit that I'm a pushover for discrediting Noam Chomsky. I consider him to be a philosopher, rather than a scientist, since he doesn't empirically test his ideas.Logic is a valuable tool, but ideas that originally seemed logical litter the path of science when they don't stand up to testing.

Sampson is particularly strong when he catches his opponents making assumptions rather than basing their arguments on actual data. He searches databases like the British National Corpus, that includes samples of everyday speech, to show that many forms of speech aren't as rare as was supposed, and it is therefore more likely that a child could learn them by observation. He also catches them in overgeneralizations about things that are frequently, but not always true.These are the strongest parts of the book.

Still, in the end I am not convinced that he is right. He argues that the idea that language is entirely learned, like games or dances, is the "commonsense" position. I don't know about that: I have read that in the Middle Ages, efforts were made to isolate infants from adult speech in the belief that they would then speak the original language. And I am unaware of any culture that does not have a language. Even deaf infants babble.

I also think that Sampson overstates the "instinct" position, to set up a straw man.He says: "All of us, surely, would rather be what most of us have supposed we are: creatures capable of coming to terms with whatever life throws at us because of our ability to create novel ideas [...] Who would not prefer this picture to that which portrays biology as allotting to the human mind a range of available settings, like a fully featured washing machine [...] The former concept of Man is far nobler.The evidence suggests that it is far more accurate." I don't think that most people are arguing that either all behavior is instinctive or it is all learned. The "instinct" proposal still leaves room for the great variety that we find in languages, and it doesn't necessarily mean that any other behavior is instinctive.Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we would like to believe, but what is true.

So I think that Sampson does the noble work of pointing out weaknesses in the instinct language, and good scientists will thank him, even if it is through gritted teeth, for helping them perfect their data collection. On the other hand, he has chiefly presented arguments against his opponents, not for his own position.

Not what I was looking for
I enjoy looking at both side of an argument; as an introductory linguistics course I am taking has highlighted this book as a good way of looking at the other side of the Chomskyan claims I swiftly ordered my copy, fully expecting several evenings of intellectual challenge and brain stretching. The book has thoroughly disappointed me. It is a pamphlet rather than a scientific work.

I'll propose that the first paragraph of the book is an acid test for the potential reader. It reads as follows: "the English language, and other languages, are institutions like country dancing or the game of cricket: cultural creations that individuals may learn during their lifetimes, if they happen to be born into the appropriate cultures, but to which no one is innately predisposed".
If you're struck by the fact you hardly know anybody who doesn't speak a language (I know nobody having chosen to not learn one during her lifetime), but probably know several people who don't play cricket you'll be hard pressed to find a satisfying explanation.
If on the other hand, you find this claim fairly self obvious (maybe you don't know anybody who doesn't play cricket for instance) and are in fact scandalized anybody could think otherwise, you'll probably enjoy the book.

Extreme lack of scholarship and insight
I approached this book with some enthusiasm as it had promised to disprove nativist theories. However, from the first page it was obvious that the author is quite uninformed and had not delved deep enough into the nativist literature to postulate a reasonable argument. (Come'on, do you actually think you can write off the CPH in 3 pages...?) The tone of the entire book is extremely sophomoric reflecting an emotionally driven stance and lack of theoretical foundation. It is no wonder Chomsky and Pinker have written this author off as a buffoon. The poor scholarship in this book is not deserving of their attention.

If nativism is to be disproved one must go about such an enterprise with some guile and intelligence. This book was written too disingenuously to be of any merit or threat to the theory. If you are a linguist you will find this book quite comical, but it's not worth the money to actually buy it. My suggestion is to check it out from the local library if your curiosity gets the best of you.

Dense, repetitive and could have been better researched
Geoffrey Sampson's critical approach to Pinker's best-selling "The Language Instinct" makes some good points against the nativist position on language acquisition. Mostly, advocating for a return to empiricism, and using the science philosophy of K. Popper, Sampson tries to debunk the basic tenets of Chomsky's (and Pinker's) theory of language acquisition.

Some arguments are clearly backed by evidence. For instance, the idea that "language mutants" with an specific genetic disorder that affects the use of suffixes has been not well research by Pinker, since further evidence shows that the gene involved in the problem is NOT only relevant for linguistic forms, but to more general learning processes.

However, the philosophical and logical arguments against Chomsky's classic proofs such as "poverty of stimulus" and the like are not as clear. Maybe Sampson keeps his arguments at a logical level (which makes it harder to fallow the argumentation, very dense at moments), instead on relying on more empirical evidence.

In sum, it is an interesting book, but the style and the dense argumentation (as well as some subtle clear dislike for Chomsky and his role in the world of ideas) doesn't make it a candidate to be THE definite critical voice in the linguistic innateness debate.

Spoiler Alert!
This book certainly brought a different perspective to the empiricist/ nativist debate.It shed reasonable doubt upon the idea that we are born with innate semantic structure.Mr. Sampson does a good job of showing the empirical evidence does not always indicate the universals the nativists claim are substantial.After reading this book, I am certainly more confident in the creativity of human intelligence.

However, I have my qualms with Mr. Sampson.I am not a linguist, but most of the arguments were not out of my grasp.At times the author was repetitive, ambiguous and he often went on tangents, particularly in the last few chapters in which it seems he is struggling to respond to all of the critics of his first edition.Particularly I note how he struggled to convince the reader that Karl Popper would advocate his position.I am not very familiar with this philosopher, but Mr. Sampson is forced to combine quotes to manipulate his words.It seems that he just wants people to be on his side.All this, after he argued against the atrocities of hegemony!Aside from his prose, the biggest annoyance I had with this book was that he waits until the end to reveal his true stance.This is the spoiler: he believes that the mind is literally infinitely creative.This seems to contradict his statement earlier in the book that he believes Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate to be of great value despite the fact that this conclusion can only come from complete denial of everything this book stands for.Mr. Sampson calls upon the ghost in the machine, Descarte's dualism, as the source of human creativity.This view was not integrated into the book but simply pops out at the end, at least from my perspective.Regardless of whether it is true or not, as he admits, it is not a scientific argument.

It is a shame that Steven Pinker did not write this book, as it would have been more eloquent, and without the unnecessary supernatural conclusion.This book is at least a good start, hopefully someone will build off of it ... Read more

Product Description
This book demonstrates the extent and importance of language play in human life and draws out the implications for applied linguistics and language teaching. It stresses how language play is central to human thought and culture, learning, creativity, and intellectual development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Challenge your assumptions about language and language teaching
Guy Cook's call for greater consideration of play in language and in language teaching is thoroughly researched and convincingly argued. As an applied linguistics text, this book is useful to language teachers while not being prescriptive about classroom practice. It doesn't guide teachers through the 'trees' of language teaching method and technique, but rather provides an overview of the 'forest' and so provides a new perspective from which language teachers can view their subject matter and their practice.

So why would a busy language teacher spend time and effort to read this book - because it isn't a light read, especially in its more theoretical parts? Isn't the idea of language play somewhat peripheral to language and language teaching? Well, it takes a bit of a leap of faith to get started with it. If you buy into Dr. Cook's argument (as I did), you will quickly realize that, far from being on the sidelines of linguistics, language play should be considered central. If you balk at this idea, it's probably because of the short shrift that language play is given in the field of linguistics in general.

Cook's first three chapters explore the nature of language play, and like a good language teacher, Cook analyses his subject through a focus on form, meaning, and use. Chapter 1, The Forms of Language Play, examines phenomena such as rhythm, rhyme, and repetition, and he attempts an evolutionary explanation as to why we enjoy these features of language. They are not merely the province of childhood: Cook draws attention to the fact that we can find them in adult discourses such as "prayers, liturgies, ceremonies, songs, advertisements, jokes, poems, films, and stories." Chapter 2, "The Meanings of Language Play" focuses in on the creation of imaginary worlds through language, and asks why we are so interested in fiction and fantasy. Wouldn't it be more useful for children, for example, to learn real facts about the world than about, say, "what happened on Grey Rabbit's birthday"? Why do adults spend so much of their time in fictional worlds (TV shows, movies, novels, etc.)? Cook draws on two types of explanation - language play as serving some other use, and language play as useful in itself - to attempt an explanation. The third chapter, "The Uses of Language Play: Competition and Collaboration" considers language play as an "instrument of competition and as a means of expressing shared beliefs and identities." Cook's description verbal duelling as a means of elucidating an evolutionary explanation ("skill with words is often worn and used like plumage in birds") is masterful - though as with many evolutionary explanations, it is necessarily speculative. Cook is not an evolutionary scientist of course, but looking at his bibliography, he seems to have read widely in the field (Dawkins, Pinker, Tooby and Cosmides, et al.), and I was impressed with his attempt to apply evolutionary thinking to a problem in his field. He unfortunately refers in his endnotes to counterarguments by Michael Behe, an "intelligent design" advocate now long discredited as far as any scientific contribution goes. This is a minor point, though.

The central section of the book contains two chapters on play itself, and attempts to steer a course between a constructivist explanation (in which language and culture largely determine our reality) and an evolutionary-psychological explanation which focuses on genetic inheritance interacting with the environment. Chapter 4, The Nature of Play, again attempts to answer the question why play is so prominent in the behavior of humans and other animals. What purpose could it serve? The endnotes to this chapter contain an absolutely fascinating distillation of universalist and relativist traditions in linguistics, which I would recommend to anyone interested in language. Chapter 5, The Play of Nature, delves even more deeply into genetics, finding a close analogy between the randomness produced by phonological play and that involved in the mutation of DNA. It is a challenging but fascinating argument.

In the final two chapters of the book, Cook turns to the role of play in language teaching. It is important to be clear that he is not in favor of language teaching becoming play (for example, through the introduction of games), especially if play is regarded as the opposite of work. Rather, he invites us to consider that in the classroom there is a triad of work, play, and learning, and that these have areas of overlap. The argument, then, is for play to infuse language teaching, but not for play to replace language teaching. For me, this was the best chapter: Cook challenges the current orthodoxy in language teaching, which regards needs, reality, and focus on meaning as primary. Cook proposes that we consider wants, unreality, and focus on form as ways to introduce a more play-oriented approach into language teaching. Cook provides a first-class history of modern language teaching in which he challenges the avoidance of taboo topics as subject matter, advocates for decontextualized example sentences, which he feels might just be exploited more imaginatively, and argues (though somewhat fleetingly) for the use of literature in language teaching. If you happen to find this book in your library and can only read one chapter of it, read this one.

I found the last chapter, "Future prospects for language teaching" to be something of a denouement. Cook tentatively suggests the advantages that might be gained from a language-play influenced teaching approach, and makes only mild proposals. Anyone looking for a radical new approach will be disappointed, but it is in keeping with Cook's role as an applied linguist to make suggestions to the language teaching field based on research and insight.

I studied with Dr. Cook briefly in the 1990s at the Institute of Education in London, and was impressed by his willingness to challenge orthodoxy and get his students to question their assumptions and those of textbook writers and teacher trainers. This book is perfectly consistent with his skeptical but constructive approach. It is a challenging read, but ultimately very rewarding. I recommend it.

... Read more

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This is a new introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use, written by two of the leading experts in the field.It covers the main topics, beginning with a clear discussion of gender and of the resources that the linguistic system offers for the construction of social meaning.The body of the book offers unprecedented breadth and depth in its coverage of the interaction between language and social life.It is the ideal textbook for students in language and gender courses in several disciplines, including linguistics, gender studies, women's studies, sociology, and anthropology. ... Read more

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How do we make sense of our experience? In order to understand how we construct meaning, the varied and complex relationships among language, mind, and culture need to be understood. While cognitive linguists typically study the cognitive aspects of language, and linguistic anthropologists typically study language and culture, Language, Mind, and Cultureis the first book to combine all three and provide an account of meaning-making in language and culture by examining the many cognitive operations in this process.

In addition to providing a comprehensive theory of how we can account for meaning making, Language, Mind, and Culture is a textbook for anyone interested in the fascinating issues surrounding the relationship between language, mind, and culture. Further, the book is also a "practical" introduction: most of the chapters include exercises that help the student understand the theoretical issues. No prior knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and the material is accessible and useful to students in a variety of other disciplines, such as anthropology, English, sociology, philosophy, psychology, communication, rhetoric, and others.

Language, Mind, and Culture helps us make sense of not only linguistic meaning but also of some of the important personal and social issues we encounter in our lives as members of particular cultures and as human beings. ... Read more

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Serious work using computers to support language teaching and learning began in the 1960s, but it was not until the beginning of the 1980s when microcomputers began to proliferate that groups of practitioners began forming professional groups and a formal identification of the field occurred. Although the early promise of computer-assisted language learning (or ‘CALL’), to revolutionize second-language learning has not been met, the past quarter century has seen a fascinating range of growth. This is not only because of lessons learned from research and practice, but also due to the rapid and continuing shifts in the technology itself.

Nominally a branch of applied linguistics, 'CALL' is truly interdisciplinary, drawing its core concepts not only from linguistics, but also from computer science, speech engineering, psychology, sociology, second-language acquisition, and general education.

This new four-volume title from Routledge will allow 'CALL' practitioners, researchers, and students to easily access the best and most influential foundational and cutting-edge scholarship. The is also a comprehensive introduction to critical concepts in 'CALL' for applied linguists and language educators interested in the growing role of technology in second-language acquisition.

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What do the following have in common?
Let there be light -- A fly in the ointment -- A rod of iron -- New wine in old bottles -- Lick the dust -- How are the mighty fallen -- Kick against the pricks -- Wheels within wheels.

They're all in the King James Bible. This astonishing book "has contributed far more to English in the way of idiomatic or quasi-proverbial expressions than any other literary source." So wrote David Crystal in 2004. In Begat he returns to the subject: he asks how a work published in 1611 could have had such an influence on the language and looks closely at what the influence has been. He comes to some surprising conclusions.

No other version of the Bible however popular (such as the Good News Bible) or put upon the church (like the New English Bible) has had anything like the same impact. David Crystal shows how its words and phrases found independent life in the work of poets, playwrights, novelists, and politicians, and how more recently they have been taken up by journalists, advertisers, Hollywood, and hip-hop. He reveals the great debt the King James Bible owes to its English forbears, especially John Wycliffe's in the fourteenth century and William Tyndale's in the sixteenth. He also shows that the revisions and changes made by King James's translators were crucial to its universal success.

"A person who professes to be a critic in the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at his finger's ends," Lord Macaulay advised Lady Holland in 1831. David Crystal shows how true this is. His book is a revelation. ... Read more

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Language in the Real World challenges traditional approaches to linguistics to provide an innovative introduction to the subject. By first examining the real world applications of core areas of linguistics and then addressing the theory behind these applications, this text offers an inductive, illustrative, and interactive overview for students. Key areas covered include animal communication, phonology, language variation, gender and power, lexicography, translation, forensic linguistics, language acquisition, ASL, and language disorders. Each chapter, written by an expert in the field, is introduced by boxed notes listing the key points covered and features an author’s note to readers that situates the chapter in its real world context. Activities and pointers for further study and reading are also integrated into the chapters and an end of text glossary is provided to aid study.

Professors and students will benefit from the interactive companion website that includes a student section featuring comments and hints on the chapter exercises within the book, a series of flash cards to test knowledge and further reading and links to key resources. Material for professors includes essay and multiple choice questions based on each chapter and additional general discussion topics.

Language in the Real World shows that linguistics can be appreciated, studied, and enjoyed by actively engaging real world applications of linguistic knowledge and principles and will be essential reading for students with an interest in language.

Customer Reviews (1)

An effective introduction for undergraduates in various disciplines
Behrens and Parker take an interesting approach to language studies with original essays by more than two dozen professionals representing a variety of physical and social sciences. By describing how language studies relate to areas ranging from psychology and computer science to philosophy and literature, the editors deliver a broad overview of the field of linguistics in the context of its myriad "real world" applications. Their approach makes this book suitable not only for undergraduate linguistics majors, but also for students in other disciplines looking for a deeper understanding of how language is structured and used.

I found the essays generally engaging and clearly written. Their value was enhanced by the book's intelligent and flexible organization, and the inclusion of exercises to test readers' comprehension and spark further discussion.

The editors organize the essays into the following broad categories:
1. Language, Education and Cultural Change
2. Literature, Translation and Computers
3. Language, Power and Identity
4. Forms of Language and Communications
5. Language and Communications Science

For more traditional linguistics curricula, they also provide an alternate table of contents:
1. Discourse Analysis
2. Lexicon/Semantics
3. Morphology
4. Neurolinguistics/Psycholinguistics
5. Pragmatics
6. Phonetics/Phonology
7. Sociolinguistics
8. Syntax ... Read more

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Drawing on both original texts and critical literature, Linguistics in a Colonial World surveys the methods, meanings, and uses of early linguistic projects around the world.

• Explores how early endeavours in linguistics were used to aid in overcoming practical and ideological difficulties of colonial rule
  
• Traces the uses and effects of colonial linguistic projects in the shaping of identities and communities that were under, or in opposition to, imperial regimes
  
• Examines enduring influences of colonial linguistics in contemporary thinking about language and cultural difference
  
• Brings new insight into post-colonial controversies including endangered languages and language rights in the globalized twenty-first century

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Seven essays, collected here for the first time, define some of the central concerns of linguistic anthropology through the close study of Western Apache, a language of astonishing complexity.All of the essays have been revised for this anthology. Basso, a major authority in the field of linguistic anthropology, has drawn on fieldwork at the village of Cibecue, whose residents speak a dialect of Western Apache that is spoken nowhere else.He shows how intricacies of language—place names, metaphor, uses of silence—help a people define their very existence, so that, in the words of one Apache woman, "If we lose our language, we will lose our breath; then we will die and blow away like leaves."His essays amply demonstrate that, while Apache language and culture are changing in response to modernization, they remain intricate, vital and unique. These essays illustrate not only the complexity of a particular cultural world as it has emerged to one observer over a protracted period of intensive fieldwork, but also the natural movement from the study of grammatical categories to that of language use and on to the study of the conceptual system underlying it.Each essay addresses a significant theoretical problem; taken together they constitute a microcosm of the anthropological understanding of language.CONTENTS
The Western Apache Classificatory Verb System: A Semantic Analysis
Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation
A Western Apache Writing System: The Symbols of Silas John
"Wise Words" of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory
"To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture
"Stalking With Stories": Names, Places, and Moral Narratives among the Western Apache
"Speaking with Names": Language and Landscapes among the Western Apache ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Buy
I bought this book for an Anthropology class.The syntax is complex and sometimes difficult to understand, but for the subject matter, it's a great buy.

Interpretive Analysis of Western Apache Language and Culture
Author Keith Basso has compiled seven essays over a span of twenty-five years to create a thourough and interpretive look at importance of symbol in Western Apache language and culture. Through his study of NativeAmerican language, he adresses several topics including the influencialnature of metaphor and placenames, and the use of silence for the WesternApache. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

I wouldn't if I was in a rush.
I am a college student and ordered all of my texts books at about the same time. All of them came in a timely manner, accept this book. It has been over 4 weeks and I still have no clue where my book is, even though it is well past the delivery date I was given. Although the book was cheap it was not worth this hassle.

Great condition of the book! Great seller!
The bookarrived home quickly and it was in great condition (just minor pencil markings). I will buy from this seller again, no doubt about it.

Thank you!

Highly recommend
This is an excellent book for anyone studying linguistics. It is detailed and easy to read. I have bought a couple of previous editions and the changes are always up to date in the field. I would highly recommend.

Good buy
Thisdefinitely beats buying books from the textbook store. It was a great purchase, considering I'm a linguistics major and a book I'll probably always keep!

my first linguistic book
This is a awesome book to get a grasp of understanding languages and to start you off on a good foot if you are learning, or want to learn to be a linguist or teach english as a second laguage. If you are just wanting to see what languages and linguistics is all about, get this book. It goes over phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, and other areas of language.I recommend this book if this field of learning interests you. ... Read more

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This is the first account of the transformation of the Turkish language in the years following 1930--probably the most extensive piece of language engineering ever attempted. The book is important both for the study of linguistic change and for the light it throws on twentieth-century Turkish politics and society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Readable but occasionally over-detailed look at Turkish language reform
I just finished the book -- reading 1-2 hours daily for 3 days -- and a very brief summary of what I learned might be:

*** Ataturk's insistence on converting from the Arabic script to Latin letters was a huge success in pushing Turkish citizens towards literacy (1924=9%, 1995=82.3%), no doubt among the highest literacy rates in the Muslim world;

*** For some hyper-nationalistic intellectuals, the reform became a grand excuse for ridding Turkish of Arabic vocabulary and Persian phrases/grammar, regardless of whether a) These "foreign" words had already been well integrated into Turkish anyway; b) Feasible, "truly" Turkish synonyms actually existed. The result: A 21st-century Turkish language greatly impoverished -- and not noticeably clearer -- than the one inherited from the centuries-old Ottoman empire when the republic was founded in 1923.

*** The language "engineers" who peopled the official "Language Society" during and after Ataturk's death were big on intervention and nationalist thinking but sadly lacking in professional qualifications, to put it mildly. The role of the Language Society is documented in (painstaking) detail, and this case study confirms that language is too dynamic to be shaped by committee!

I found the book well written, well researched and even witty at times. The author knows his subject inside and out, and insists on translating almost all the Turkish words and short texts into English, which made it readable even for me, a beginning student of Turkish.

However, I found the book did not address certain questions of great interest to me personally! These are:

*** One of the strongest motivations for the language reform was to rid it of unnecessary foreign vocabulary in favor of so-called "Turkish" words. Frustratingly, at no point does the author detail the history of Turkish prior to the 20th century: Where do the roots of "Turkish" lie, geographically and ethnically speaking? What is the relation of Turkish spoken in Anatolia with other Turkic languages/dialects, and when synonyms (or inspiration for neologisms) were sought in languages/dialects outside Turkey, which languages did scholars look to? And why were these languages/dialects considered "valid" when others were not?

*** Access to pre-1920 Turkish culture and history: The author mentions in passing that only a very small amount of Turkish writing from Ottoman times (in Arabic script) has been transcribed and published in modern Turkish using Latin letters. He also implies that most 21st-century Turks cannot read Turkish written in the former Arabic script. Which piqued my interest: How many of Ottoman Turkish works have been reprinted in the modern script? Are students regularly taught "classical" Turkish (script and texts) in the way that some Westerners study Latin, or Chinese in the PRC might study their own classics in traditional characters? If not, hasn't language reform effectively cut 21st-century Turkey off from an understanding of their society's role as one of the largest and ethnically diverse empires in the history of mankind?

*** Turkish as spoken by the man-in-the-street: Geoffrey Lewis focuses almost entirely on how patriotic, but often blindly nationalistic or ideologically driven intellectuals have made modern written Turkish a bit of a mish-mash. But what about "spoken" Turkish: What impact, if any, has the official language reform movement had on it?

Bruce Humes
Shenzhen, China

Making Sense of Mishmash
Absolutely first rate explication of the mishmash modern Turkish has become because of the misguided, so-called language reform.For an elderly Turkish speaker such as I am, I have to keep a dictionary at hand just to read newspapers and books even.Ugly, ugly words, though they are not, of course, for the younger generations to whom they come quite naturally. I would be foolish to be deadset against neologisms, neologisms that arise naturally to meet a need. I suppose that's something that annoys me most:how terribly ugly so many of the artificially contrived neologisms are.But the worse thing is that I can see the range of concise, precise expression in the language has steadily narrowed.The author Geoffrey Lewis is quite correct when he states that the vocabulary of Turkish once rivalled that of English. If the country had stressed education without dumbed-down nationalism,it might still. One longs for writers of the caliber of Resat Nuri Guntekin, for instance.The modern novelist Sulhi Dolek does approach that standard as does the journalist Ebru Capa who fearlessly for precision's sake often uses words that I'm sure cause her younger readers to reach for the dictionary (if they have any sense of language at all). Orhan Pamuk, who I don't consider a particularly inspiring writer in his use of language per se, at least has the good sense not to overload his work with obscure and often laughable neologisms.Language is all about change, of course, but heaven help it when the ignorant, nationalistic, government-sanctioned get their hands on it.Modern Turkish is a perfect example.

Did not explore the realities of the language reform
I found this book some what lacking in describing the process used to select the new set of Latin letters; I thought the public outcry against this reform was not explored and that the reasons cited for switching over to the Latin letters were poor at best as it merely reiterated the anti-Arab propaganda of the time;

The increase in literacy rates being attributed to the language reform is surely misleading and would undoubtedly be due to the emphasis placed on education by the government and the access to remote-areas with the advent of telecommunications and transportation by motor cars and the like. I am personally not even sure if the literacy rate was really as poor as indicated, because firstly the population was never really surveyed until after 1930s, post the language reform, and it is also well known that the Quran, the religious book of the Turkish people, emphasises reading/learning/researching/reflecting which can all be summed up in the very first word revealed to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.v), "Iqra" which literary means "Read!", an imperative word at that. The word "Quran" literary means "to read continuously". This is one of the reasons why Muslim countries have for hundreds of centuries enjoyed a very high level of literacy rates.

The language reform was not scientific it was political in nature. Based on the research I have done, the reform was introduced in an effort to cut-off the Turkish nation from the cultural and spiritual ties imbued in the Ottoman generation, otherwise there was absolutely no justifiable reason to turn an entire nation into illiterates over night. Israel, whose language is Hebrew (also a Semitic language) has a higher literacy rate than Turkey even today, so what does this say about the Turkish language reform and its so called success ??

The examples quoted from certain individuals in this book in an attempt to discredit the Ottoman script is certainly not based on scientific merit but alas praised by the author nonetheless.

For instance, the following sentence is used to demonstrate the supposed perplexity offered by the Ottoman script: "Mehmed pasa oldu" written in the ottoman script can be understood either as "Mehmet became a Pasha" or "Pasha Mehmet has died", however this does not even register as a problem if the additional diacritical marks are used to spell out this sentence (but these marks are often not used because Ottoman is cursive and thus can be written rapidly using only consonants and long vowels, which generally does not hinder continuity or coherence. This in itself is a big advantage over other forms of writing where each vowel is spelt out) but even if these additional case markings are not used, the sentence can easily be understood from its context, otherwise as is the case in Ottoman style of writing which is indicative of their culture, polite, respectful and sometimes elaborate language is used to communicate the message.

The equivalent of the cited example in the English language could be like in the case of the sentence; "John read already"; does this sentence mean, John has completed reading already or is this an invitation for John to start reading already. This can only be understood from its context, even the word "read" in this case can only be pronounced correctly (reed or red) once the context is understood.

One aspect of the book which does stand out is in reference to the eloquence of the Ottoman language, especially in comparison with the modern day Turkish which is peppered with "made-up" words and bland expressions, that have been rather rudely injected into the diction of the Turkish populace through the press.

Disappointingly the adaptability of the Ottoman script in accommodating varying pronunciations of Ottoman letters within different regions of Anatolia has not been mentioned in this book, for sake of brevity I won't elaborate further, however this advantage the Turks once possessed has been lost with the transition to Latin letters. In fact, Latin letters are so inept in capturing the vocalisation of the Turkish letters, that many words have been "lost in pronunciation" after the adoption of these letters; even today authors don't know how to spell certain words using the limited Latin letters available to them, and as such they resort to using not letters but characters like the apostrophe (for `ayn or hamze) and the hyphen to try and mimic the Ottoman script. They also introduce various other letters which are not found in the new Turkish alphabet like â or î etc...

Despite the national movement of the time, which acted as a catalyst in promoting these reforms, the Turks of Turkiye have ironically been further separated from their counterparts in Turkic countries because of this new language barrier created after the language reform. These Turkic countries have adopted different Latin letters than the ones used in Turkiye and a minority in remote areas kept the Ottoman script altogether .

It must've been a trying time for the generation which were subjected to this kind of a radical change.

Overall the book does have historical value, however as I have indicated above it is lacking in some respects and moreover I don't agree with the conclusions that have been drawn, which I believe to be politically motivated.

A scholarly approach to a highly politicized issue
Turkish Language Reform, from its beginnings in the thirties to this day, has been a highly politicized issue in Turkey. Professor Lewis, a lover of "Beautiful Turkish", gives an excellent account of the historical development of this language engineering while successfully keeping his views out of the realm of language politics of Turkey. Any criticisms he has to make about the Turkish Language Association (Turk Dil Kurumu) come subtly and delicately through the carefully selected quotations from others.

This book is a must for lovers of Turkish language, linguists, historians of language (and surely for the Turkish Language Association), and it can be a fun to read for a non-Turkish taxpayer whose tax money could not be reached to finance the whole project.

For a better grasp of the book, some knowledge of Turkish language helps; the more the better to really get the beautiful "taste" of this excellent book.

excellent although more interesting if you know some Turkish
The changes in the Turkish language over the past century are fascinating, and this book does a great job of explaining some of the political and social background.The author is an expert and extremely knowledgeable on this topic.To me the most telling summary was seeing a paragraph of one of Ataturk's most famous speeches presented in the original, then in a retranslation done later, then a re-retranslation done yet later! The first retranslation was necessary because the original could hardly be understood any more, with all the Arabic-derived words etc.The second retranslation was necessary because even the first retranslation could hardly be understood today!This book will be mostly interesting to those who know at least some Turkish already (and the more the better) or to those interested in linguistic change and social engineering. As the other reviews mention, the changes in Turkish are the result of deliberate re-engineering of the language, not of the more usual processes of linguistic evolution.Imagine taking English and trying to get rid of all the words derived from Latin or French and use only Anglo-Saxon words or words newly derived from other Germanic languages, and you will get a partial picture of what happened with Turkish. The author's views are probably summed up by the subtitle: a catastrophic success.The language reform was effective and some of it was valuable but it may have gone too far in destroying some useful distinctions and making Turkish a somewhat less effective and graceful means of expression. ... Read more

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This state-of-the-art exploration of language, culture, and identity is orchestrated through prominent scholars’ and teachers’ narratives, each weaving together three elements: a personal account based on one or more memorable or critical incidents that occurred in the course of learning or using a second or foreign language; an interpretation of the incidents highlighting their impact in terms of culture, identity, and language; the connections between the experiences and observations of the author and existing literature on language, culture and identity.

What makes this book stand out is the way in which authors meld traditional ‘academic’ approaches to inquiry with their own personalized voices. This opens a window on different ways of viewing and doing research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL. What gives the book its power is the compelling nature of the narratives themselves. Telling stories is a fundamental way of representing and making sense of the human condition. These stories unpack, in an accessible but rigorous fashion, complex socio-cultural constructs of culture, identity, the self and other, and reflexivity, and offer a way into these constructs for teachers, teachers in preparation and neophyte researchers. Contributors from around the world give the book broad and international appeal.

Product Description
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