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The Workings of Language From Prescriptions to Perspectives
(Click to Enlarge)
Rebecca S. Wheeler
Book Code: B6246
ISBN: 0-275-96246-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96246-3
264 pages, figures
Praeger Paperback
Publication: 9/30/1999
List Price: $45.00 (UK Sterling Price: £25.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Paperback
Also Available: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
  • Endorsement From Susan Steele
    Vice Provost
    University of Connecticut:     The gap between the results of linguistic research and commonly held views about language seems to widen almost daily. Drawing on topics of immediate public interest--like Ebonics and the differences in communication styles between men and women--The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives attempts to build a bridge across the chasm....[It] will...serve as a welcome addition to the syllabus of any instructor whose responsibility it is to teach the English language and linguistics courses.
Description: Defusing chicken-little prognostications about English, this volume suggests that dark claims about language are not to be taken at face value. Instead, these claims function as a signal: time to step back. Offering just such a time-out, eminent linguists explore the fuller picture underlying language in our society, examining prescriptivism, Black English, Ozark English, American Sign Language, English-Only, and Endangered Languages. After helping stomp out such linguistic fires, the linguists showcase the potent workings of language: world englishes, language and politics, media, prejudice, creativity, gender, and humor, thus opening the way to better informed views on the function of language in schools, and more linguistically-sound public policies.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction by Rebecca S. Wheeler
  • Ways of Talking
  • The Language Mavens by Steven Pinker
  • North American Varieties of English as By-products of Language Contacts by Salikoko S. Mufwene
  • African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes by Geoffrey K. Pullum
  • Home Speech as Springboard to School Speech: Oakland's Commendable Work on Ebonics by Rebecca S. Wheeler
  • Southern Mountain English: The Language of the Ozarks and Southern Appalachia by Bethany K. Dumas
  • On the Other Hand: American Sign Language, Signed Englishes, and Other Visual Language Systems by Lynn S. Messing
  • Englishes, English-Only, and Languages in Danger of Extinction
  • "From Out in Left Field? That's not Cricket": Finding a Focus for the Language Curriculum by David Crystal
  • Investigating English around the World: The International Corpus of English by Gerald Nelson and Bas Aarts
  • Speaking of America: Why English-Only Is a Bad Idea by Geoffrey Nunberg
  • Language Loss, Our Loss by Mari Rhydwen
  • Language and Politics, Prejudice, the Media, Creativity, Humor, and Gender
  • Metaphor, Morality, and Politics: Or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals in the Dust by George Lakoff
  • Language as a Weapon of Hate by Rae A. Moses
  • Language and the News Media: Five Facts about the Fourth Estate by Colleen Cotter
  • Life on Mars: Language and the Instruments of Invention by Mark Turner and Gilles Fauconnier
  • Laughing at and Laughing with: The Linguistics of Humor, and Humor in Literature by Victor Raskin
  • Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen
  • Breaking Mythical Bonds: African American Women's Language by Denise Troutman
  • Index
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