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The Workings of Language From Prescriptions to Perspectives
(Click to Enlarge)
Rebecca S. Wheeler
Book Code: C6245
ISBN: 0-275-96245-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-96245-6
264 pages, figures,
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 9/30/1999
List Price: $125.00 (UK Sterling Price: £70.00)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Paperback Ebook
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
LC Card Number: 98-50239
LCC Class: P106
Dewey Class: 400
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