A Comparative Germanic Grammar by E. Prokosch

$20.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Series: William Dwight Whitney Linguistic series | Reading Level: very good

A History of the English Language by Elly van Gelderen

$15.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Reading Level: very good

THIS INFORMATION REFERS TO AN OLD EDITION. This exceptionally clear text focuses on internal changes in the English language. It outlines the history of English from pre-Old English times to the present. Not only does it present the traditional morphological descriptions of the various stages of the lan guage, it provides many example sentences, texts, and cartoons that are analyzed for the benefit of the student and which make this book ideal for class use. Some language-external topics are covered such as early printing and authorship debates. Tables and figures complement the material covered and exercises review the main points as well as ask further, more challenging, questions. Answers to the exercises are provided, as is a time line listing some of the external events, and some guidance on how to use the OED. Complementary web site information is provided throughout the book, and a companion web site accompanies the book.This book has a companion website: http: //dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.183.website ...Show more

Claiming Power in Doctor-Patient Talk by Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn

$20.00 NZD

Category: Medicine | Series: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics Ser. | Reading Level: very good

Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn studied stories, topic control, "true" questions, and rhetorical questions in 101 medical encounters in US private-practice settings. In exceptionally lucid and accessible style, Ainsworth-Vaughn explains how power was claimed by and co-constructed for both patients and doctors (p revious studies have focused upon doctors' power). The discourse varied along a continuum from interview-like talk to conversational talk. Six chapters are organized around data and include extended examples of actual talk in detailed transcription; four of these data-oriented chapters focus upon dynamic, moment-to-moment use of speech activities in emerging discourse, such as doctors' and patients' stories that co-constructed selves, and a patient's sexual rhetorical questions. Two more chapters offer non-statistical quantitative data on the frequency of questioning and sudden topic changes in relation to gender, diagnosis, and other factors. Contributing to discourse theory, Ainsworth-Vaughn significantly modifies previous definitions for topic transitions and rhetorical questions and discovers the role of storytelling in diagnosis. The final chapter provides implications for physicians and medical educators. ...Show more

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel Everett

$14.00 NZD

Category: Travel | Reading Level: very good

Daniel Everett took his family to convert the Pirahas (pronounced pee-da-HAN), a remote people of the Amazonian jungle whose language no outsider had yet been able to understand. They encountered malaria, snakes, jaguars, spiders, insects, and a plot to kill them as they slept. But Everett gradually gai ned entry to this curious culture, and gave up trying to Christianise it. Along the way he discovered a language which disproved the most established tenets of linguistics.Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahas, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. He describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Piraha language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won.Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book. First published 2008. ...Show more

After Babel - Aspects of Language and Translation by George Steiner

$12.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Reading Level: gvery ood

"A brilliant work . . . A dazzling meditation on the very nature of language itself" from the world-renowned scholar and author of The Poetry of Thought (Kirkus Reviews). In his classic work, literary critic and scholar George Steiner tackles what he considers the Babel "problem" Why, over the course of history, have humans developed thousands of different languages when the social, material, and economic advantages of a single tongue are obvious? Steiner argues that different cultures' desires for privacy and exclusivity led to each developing its own language. Translation, he believes, is at the very heart of human communication, and thus at the heart of human nature. From our everyday perception of the world around us, to creativity and the uninhibited imagination, to the often inexplicable poignancy of poetry, we are constantly translating--even from our native language. ...Show more

Novantiqua: Rhetorics as a Contemporary Theory by Paolo Valesio

$20.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Series: Advances in Semiotics Ser. | Reading Level: good

This is an important book: original, erudite, useful and ambitious." --Quarterly Journal of SpeechA remarkable book... sure to be of lasting interest... to be reckoned with by all rhetorical theorists." --ChoiceThis is the first contemporary attempt at a holistic theory of rhetoric, well grounded in the context of cultural and social history. Arguing that rhetoric has always been an independent, objective, essential factor in human interaction, Valesio views it as coextensive with human speech in use. ...Show more

The Development of English Aspectual Systems by Laurel J. Brinton

$16.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Series: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics Ser. | Reading Level: very good

Laurel Brinton's important study of the development of English aspectual systems provides an exceptionally clear and systematic account of an area of syntax and semantics that continues to be the subject of both terminological and notional confusion. Not only has the study of aspect been confused, but t he variety of aspectual markers in English has also been unduly neglected. In this book Dr Brinton convincingly demonstrates the need to make clear distinction between 'aspect' and 'aktionsart' and betwen the aspectual meaning of individual forms and the meanings that result from the combination of verbs, auxiliaries, particles, and adverbs, as well as nominal arguments within a sentence. This exceptionally clear account of two sets of aspectual forms points to the coherence and systematicity of aspectual marking in Modern English. The wide range of theoretical issues explored makes this a significant contribution to the synchronic study of aspect and to the diachronic study of language change. The book will undoubtedly have applications cross-linguistically. ...Show more

The Story of English by Robert MacNeil

$16.00 NZD

Category: Linguistics | Reading Level: very good