Download or read book Understanding Language through Humor written by Stanley Dubinsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students often struggle to understand linguistic concepts through examples of language data provided in class or in texts. Presented with ambiguous information, students frequently respond that they do not 'get it'. The solution is to find an example of humour that relies on the targeted ambiguity. Once they laugh at the joke, they have tacitly understood the concept, and then it is only a matter of explaining why they found it funny. Utilizing cartoons and jokes illustrating linguistic concepts, this book makes it easy to understand these concepts, while keeping the reader's attention and interest. Organized like a course textbook in linguistics, it covers all the major topics in a typical linguistics survey course, including communication systems, phonetics and phonology, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, language use, discourses, child language acquisition and language variation, while avoiding technical terminology.
Download or read book Polyglot How I Learn Languages written by Kat— Lomb and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: KAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.
Download or read book Intelligibility Oral Communication and the Teaching of Pronunciation written by John M. Levis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intelligibility-based approach to teaching that presents pronunciation as critical, yet neglected, in communicative language teaching.
Download or read book The Only Language They Understand written by Nathan Thrall and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: confrontation. Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly thwarted by the use of violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative and forceful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling counter-history. He shows that Israelis and Palestinians have persistently been marching toward partition, but not through the high politics of diplomacy or the incremental building of a Palestinian state. In fact, negotiation, collaboration and state-building--the prescription of successive American administrations--have paradoxically entrenched the conflict in multiple ways. They have created the illusion that a solution is at hand, lessened Israel's incentives to end its control over the West Bank and Gaza and undermined Palestinian unity. Ultimately, it is those who have embraced confrontation through boycotts, lawsuits, resolutions imposed by outside powers, protests, civil disobedience, and even violence who have brought about the most significant change. Published as Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza reaches its fiftieth year, which is also the centenary of the Balfour Declaration that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine, The Only Language They Understand advances a bold thesis that shatters ingrained positions of both left and right and provides a new and eye-opening understanding of this most vexed of lands.
Download or read book Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding written by Georgia M. Green and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book differs from other introductions to pragmatics in approaching the problems of interpreting language use in terms of interpersonal modelling of beliefs and intentions. It is intended to make issues involved in language understanding, such as speech, text, and discourse, accessible to the widest group possible -- not just specialists in linguistics or communication theorists -- but all scholars and researchers whose enterprises depend on having a useful model of how communicative agents understand utterances and expect their own utterances to be understood. Based on feedback from readers over the past seven years, explanations in every chapter have been improved and updated in this thoroughly revised version of the original text published in 1989. The most extensive revisions concern the relevance of technical notions of mutual and normal belief, and the futility of using the notion 'null context' to describe meaning. In addition, the discussion of implicature now includes an extended explication of "Grice's Cooperative Principle" which attempts to put it in the context of his theory of meaning and rationality, and to preclude misinterpretations which it has suffered over the past 20 years. The revised chapter exploits the notion of normal belief to improve the account of conversational implicature.
Download or read book The Encyclopaedia Britannica written by Hugh Chisholm and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 1016 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Semantic Theory written by Jerrold J. Katz and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book You Just Don t Understand written by Deborah Tannen and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of New York Times bestseller You're Wearing That? this bestselling classic work draws upon groundbreaking research by an acclaimed sociolinguist to show that women and men live in different worlds, made of different words. Women and men live in different worlds...made of different words. Spending nearly four years on the New York Times bestseller list, including eight months at number one, You Just Don't Understand is a true cultural and intellectual phenomenon. This is the book that brought gender differences in ways of speaking to the forefront of public awareness. With a rare combination of scientific insight and delightful, humorous writing, Tannen shows why women and men can walk away from the same conversation with completely different impressions of what was said. Studded with lively and entertaining examples of real conversations, this book gives you the tools to understand what went wrong -- and to find a common language in which to strengthen relationships at work and at home. A classic in the field of interpersonal relations, this book will change forever the way you approach conversations.
Download or read book The Language Game written by Morten H. Christiansen and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the language instinct—this is the story of how we make up language as we go Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity—and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.
Download or read book A Principled Approach to Language Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2020-09-19 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is formally represented around the world by approximately 14,000 Foreign Service officers and other personnel in the U.S. Department of State. Roughly one-third of them are required to be proficient in the local languages of the countries to which they are posted. To achieve this language proficiency for its staff, the State Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) provides intensive language instruction and assesses the proficiency of personnel before they are posted to a foreign country. The requirement for language proficiency is established in law and is incorporated in personnel decisions related to job placement, promotion, retention, and pay. A Principled Approach to Language Assessment: Considerations for the U.S. Foreign Service Institute evaluates the different approaches that exist to assess foreign language proficiency that FSI could potentially use. This report considers the key assessment approaches in the research literature that are appropriate for language testing, including, but not limited to, assessments that use task-based or performance-based approaches, adaptive online test administration, and portfolios.
Download or read book Understanding Second Language Acquisition written by Lourdes Ortega and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language Acquisition offers a wide-encompassing survey of this burgeoning field, its accumulated findings and proposed theories, its developed research paradigms, and its pending questions for the future. The book zooms in and out of universal, individual, and social forces, in each case evaluating the research findings that have been generated across diverse naturalistic and formal contexts for second language acquisition. It assumes no background in SLA and provides helpful chapter-by-chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal as a textbook for students of applied linguistics, foreign language education, TESOL, and education, it is also recommended for students of linguistics, developmental psycholinguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Supporting resources for tutors are available free at www.routledge.com/ortega.
Download or read book Educational Research and Innovation Languages in a Global World Learning for Better Cultural Understanding written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the links between globalisation and the way we teach and learn languages.
Download or read book Declarative Language Handbook written by Linda K Murphy and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you know a child with social learning challenges? Do they struggle to see the big picture, be flexible, take the perspective of others, problem solve in real time, and/or read nonverbal communication? Do they have trouble connecting with others by sharing meaningful memories or making plans for the near and distant future? Is it hard for them to express their emotions calmly using language - often getting upset instead? These skills are needed in every interaction and social opportunity that we have in life, but for a child with social learning challenges, they can seem out of reach. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way that you could support growth in these areas for someone you care about? A method that was woven into everyday interactions and social opportunities? That is what this book is about. It's to help you, the person who cares deeply about someone with social learning challenges, use everyday incidental moments to teach and guide your child's social learning. You might be a therapist or a teacher, or you might be a parent, grandparent, or babysitter. This book was written to help you feel equipped to make a difference, simply by being mindful of your own communication and speaking style. What you say, and how you say it, matters!
Download or read book The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner written by James Hogg and published by . This book was released on 1824 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published anonymously in 1824, this gothic mystery novel was written by Scottish author James Hogg. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published as if it were the presentation of a century-old document. The unnamed editor offers the reader a long introduction before presenting the document written by the sinner himself.
Download or read book Vocabulary Studies in First and Second Language Acquisition written by Brian Richards and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-06-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International scholars and researchers present cutting edge contributions on the significance of vocabulary in current thinking on first and second language acquisition in the school and at home. By pursuing common themes across first and second language and bilingual contexts, the editors offer a collection that tackles the most important issues.
Download or read book Who Understands Comics written by Neil Cohn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawings and sequential images are so pervasive in contemporary society that we may take their understanding for granted. But how transparent are they really, and how universally are they understood? Combining recent advances from linguistics, cognitive science, and clinical psychology, this book argues that visual narratives involve greater complexity and require a lot more decoding than widely thought. Although increasingly used beyond the sphere of entertainment as materials in humanitarian, educational, and experimental contexts, Neil Cohn demonstrates that their universal comprehension cannot be assumed. Instead, understanding a visual language requires a fluency that is contingent on exposure and practice with a graphic system. Bringing together a rich but scattered literature on how people comprehend, and learn to comprehend, a sequence of images, this book coalesces research from a diverse range of fields into a broader interdisciplinary view of visual narrative to ask: Who Understands Comics?
Download or read book Constructing a Language written by Michael Tomasello and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-31 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Michael Tomasello presents a comprehensive usage-based theory of language acquisition. Drawing together a vast body of empirical research in cognitive science, linguistics, and developmental psychology, Tomasello demonstrates that we don’t need a self-contained “language instinct” to explain how children learn language. Their linguistic ability is interwoven with other cognitive abilities. Tomasello argues that the essence of language is its symbolic dimension, which rests on the uniquely human ability to comprehend intention. Grammar emerges as the speakers of a language create linguistic constructions out of recurring sequences of symbols; children pick up these patterns in the buzz of words they hear around them. All theories of language acquisition assume these fundamental skills of intention-reading and pattern-finding. Some formal linguistic theories posit a second set of acquisition processes to connect somehow with an innate universal grammar. But these extra processes, Tomasello argues, are completely unnecessary—important to save a theory but not to explain the phenomenon. For all its empirical weaknesses, Chomskian generative grammar has ruled the linguistic world for forty years. Constructing a Language offers a compellingly argued, psychologically sound new vision for the study of language acquisition.
