Download or read book The Search for the Perfect Language written by Umberto Eco and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1997-04-08 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, mystics and others for at least two millennia. This is an investigation into the history of that idea and of its profound influence on European thought, culture and history. From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was just such a language, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants from the catastrophe of the Fall and at Babel. The recovery of that language would, for theologians, express the nature of divinity, for cabbalists allow access to hidden knowledge and power, and for philosophers reveal the nature of truth. Versions of these ideas remained current in the Enlightenment, and have recently received fresh impetus in attempts to create a natural language for artificial intelligence. The story that Umberto Eco tells ranges widely from the writings of Augustine, Dante, Descartes and Rousseau, arcane treatises on cabbalism and magic, to the history of the study of language and its origins. He demonstrates the initimate relation between language and identity and describes, for example, how and why the Irish, English, Germans and Swedes - one of whom presented God talking in Swedish to Adam, who replied in Danish, while the serpent tempted Eve in French - have variously claimed their language as closest to the original. He also shows how the late eighteenth-century discovery of a proto-language (Indo-European) for the Aryan peoples was perverted to support notions of racial superiority. To this subtle exposition of a history of extraordinary complexity, Umberto Eco links the associated history of the manner in which the sounds of language and concepts have been written and symbolized. Lucidly and wittily written, the book is, in sum, a tour de force of scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, providing a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European History. The paperback edition of this book is not available through Blackwell outside of North America.

Download or read book The Loom of Language written by Frederick Bodmer and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1985 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples. It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages -- Teutonic, Romance, Greek -- helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a language as it is actually used in everyday life.

Download or read book The Making of a Mixed Language written by Maarten Mous and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mbugu (or Ma'á) language (Tanzania) is one of the few genuine mixed languages, reputedly combining Bantu grammar with Cushitic vocabulary. In fact the people speak two languages: one mixed and one closely related to the Bantu language Pare. This book is the first comprehensive description of these languages. It shows that these two languages share one grammar while their lexicon is parallel. In the distant past the people shifted from a Cushitic to a Bantu language and in the process rebuilt a language of their own that expresses their separate ethnic identity in a Bantu environment. This linguistic history is explained in the context of the intricate history of the people. The discussion of the processes that were involved in the formation of Ma'a/Mbugu is extremely relevant for both creole studies and for contact linguistics in general.

Download or read book Making Language Visible in the University written by Bee Bond and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2020-08-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the nexus of language, disciplinary content and knowledge communication against the background of the economic, cultural and ideological forces of Higher Education’s current push for internationalisation. It suggests the need for a greater synergy between language and content experts and argues that change needs to be implemented through policy rather than on an ad-hoc basis by individual teachers. It is a call to action for English for Academic Purposes practitioners to find a way out of the silo of their own centres and work to assert influence over the wider context in which they work. The book begins and ends in the practice of teaching, with a focus throughout on understanding the barriers and enablers to that practice within a particular context.

Download or read book Language Making Nature written by David Lukas and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Making of Language written by Mike Beaken and published by Dunedin Academic Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an introduction to the evolution of language, from gestural communication to the development of complex syntax. The author asserts that the form of language is not biologically derived, but can be explained in terms of human activity.

Download or read book Language and the Making of Modern India written by Pritipuspa Mishra and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the ways linguistic nationalism has enabled and deepened the reach of All-India nationalism. This title is also available as Open Access.

Download or read book Making Sense of Language written by Susan Debra Blum and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chosen for their accessibility and variety, the readings in Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication, Third Edition, engage students in thinking about the nature of language--arguably the most uniquely human of all our characteristics--and its involvement in every aspect of human society and experience. Instead of taking an ideological stance on specific issues, the text presents a range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives and bolsters them with pedagogical support, including unit and chapter introductions; critical-thinking, reading, and application questions; suggested further reading; and a comprehensive glossary. Questions of power, identity, interaction, ideology, and the nature of language and other semiotic systems are woven throughout the third edition of Making Sense of Language, making it an exemplary text for courses in language and culture, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and four-field anthropology.

Download or read book Language Globalization and the Making of a Tanzanian Beauty Queen written by Sabrina Billings and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2013-11-29 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through micro-analysis of language use, this book chronicles young women's pathways to becoming a Tanzanian beauty queen, offering an original perspective on the intersection of language with globalization, nationalism, and inequality in urban East Africa. This compelling linguistic ethnography considers the real-life effects, both on- and off-stage, of language policy, education, and gender dynamics for the women competing in the pageants. While highlighting many contestants' struggles for escape from poverty and patriarchy, the book also emphasizes their creative strategies – linguistic and otherwise – for bettering their lives and shows how people living in a global economic periphery take part in, and sometimes feel left out of, the wider world.

Download or read book Language Emotion and Politics in South India written by Lisa Mitchell and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The charged emotional politics of language and identity in India

Download or read book Taming Babel written by Rachel Leow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a study of Malaysia, Taming Babel examines how empires and postcolonial nation-states struggle to govern multilingual and polyglot subjects.

Download or read book The Language s of Politics written by Nils Ringe and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multilingualism is an ever-present feature in political contexts around the world, including multilingual states and international organizations. Increasingly, consequential political decisions are negotiated between politicians who do not share a common native language. Nils Ringe uses the European Union to investigate how politicians’ reliance on shared foreign languages and translation services affects politics and policy-making. Ringe's research illustrates how multilingualism is an inherent and consequential feature of EU politics—that it depoliticizes policy-making by reducing its political nature and potential for conflict. An atmosphere with both foreign language use and a reliance on translation leads to communication that is simple, utilitarian, neutralized, and involves commonly shared phrases and expressions. Policymakers tend to disregard politically charged language and they are constrained in their ability to use vague or ambiguous language to gloss over disagreements by the need for consistency across languages.

Download or read book Teach Me to Talk written by and published by . This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Making of Monolingual Japan written by Patrick Heinrich and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2012 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan is regarded as a model case of successful language modernization. It is also often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. This book explores the debates relating to language modernization from a language ideology perspective, and in doing so reveals the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity.

Download or read book The Making of a Language written by Tomasz Wicherkiewicz and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2003 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volumes in the Trends in Linguistics. Documentation series focus on the presentation of linguistic data. The series addresses the sustained interest in linguistic descriptions, dictionaries, grammars and editions of under-described and hitherto undocumented languages. All world-regions and time periods are represented.

Download or read book Making and Using Word Lists for Language Learning and Testing written by I.S.P. Nation and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Word lists lie at the heart of good vocabulary course design, the development of graded materials for extensive listening and extensive reading, research on vocabulary load, and vocabulary test development. This book has been written for vocabulary researchers and curriculum designers to describe the factors they need to consider when they create frequency-based word lists. These include the purpose for which the word list is to be used, the design of the corpus from which the list will be made, the unit of counting, and what should and should not be counted as words. The book draws on research to show the current state of knowledge of these factors and provides very practical guidelines for making word lists for language teaching and testing. The writer is well known for his work in the teaching and learning of vocabulary and in the creation of word lists and vocabulary size tests based on word lists.

Download or read book MAKING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING HAPPEN written by James F. Lee and published by . This book was released on 2003-05-19 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents