It also discusses 'mixed methods research', that is, the various combinations of qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

    They give greater emphasis to the systemic perspective, in which grammaticalization is understoodin the context of an overall model of language. Their description of grammar is grounded in a comprehensive theory, but it is a theory which evolves in the process of being applied.

    What is good English, and why do we need it? The Queen's English shows how the English language, used properly, has great power to instruct, move and entertain people, but used incorrectly, can lead to a lack of clarity and confusion. This book informs in a light-hearted way, reminding readers how to use the basics of grammar, punctuation and spelling, as well as further teaching them new tips and tricks of style, rhetoric, vocabulary and the use of foreign phrases, to give their writing and speech a stylish and impressive flair. The book also shows the perils of using language incorrectly, offering extremely (if unintentionally) humorous examples of where bad English can cause one thing to mean something entirely different! Authoritative yet entertaining, and illustrated with pithy drawings, this is the ideal book for anyone who strives for clear, stylish and accurate communication.

    In Language Shock, Agar reveals how deeply our language and cultural values intertwine to define who we are and how we relate to one another. From paying an electric bill in Austria to opening a bank account in Mexico to handling a parking ticket in the United States, he shows how routine tasks become lessons in the subtleties of conversation when we venture outside our cultural sphere. With humorous, insightful stories from his extensive travels, Agar engages us in a lively study of "languaculture" and enriches our view of the world.

    Assuming no knowledge of the field of morphology on the part of the reader, the book presents a broad range of morphological phenomena from a wide variety of languages. Starting with the core areas of inflection and derivation, the book presents the interfaces between morphology and syntax and between morphology and syntax and morphology and phonology. The synchronic study of word structure is covered as are the phenomena of diachronic change such as analogy and grammaticalization. Theories presented clearly in accessible language with the main purpose of shedding light on the data, rather than as a goal in themselves. The author consistently draws on the best research available, thus utilizing and discussing both functionalist and generative theoretical approaches. Each chapter includes a summary, suggestions for further reading, and exercises. As such this is the ideal book for both beginning students of linguistics, or anyone in a related discipline looking for a first introduction to morphology.

    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.

    But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language —and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water —a "she"— becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial.

    There are good reasons that language fascinates us so. It not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. For example: * How did different languages come to be? * Why isn’t there just a single language? * How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? * How does a language become extinct? Dr. John McWhorter, one of America’s leading linguists and a frequent commentator on network television and National Public Radio, addresses these and other questions as he takes you on an in-depth, 36-lecture tour of the development of human language, showing how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago has evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.An accomplished scholar, Professor McWhorter is also a skilled popularizer, whose book The Power of Babel was called "startling, provocative, and remarkably entertaining," by the San Diego Union-Tribune.The London Times called him "a born teacher." And Steven Pinker, best known as the author of The Language Instinct, offered this praise for the book: "McWhorter’s arguments are sharply reasoned, refreshingly honest, and thoroughly original."Course Lecture Titles1. What Is Language? 2. When Language Began 3. How Language Changes—Sound Change 4. How Language Changes—Building New Material 5. How Language Changes—Meaning and Order 6. How Language Changes—Many Directions 7. How Language Changes—Modern English 8. Language Families—Indo-European 9. Language Families—Tracing Indo-European 10. Language Families—Diversity of Structures 11. Language Families—Clues to the Past 12. The Case Against the World’s First Language 13. The Case For the World’s First Language 14. Dialects—Subspecies of Species 15. Dialects—Where Do You Draw the Line? 16. Dialects—Two Tongues in One Mouth 17. Dialects—The Standard as Token of the Past 18. Dialects—Spoken Style, Written Style 19. Dialects—The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar 20. Language Mixture—Words 21. Language Mixture—Grammar 22. Language Mixture—Language Areas 23. Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty 24. Language Interrupted 25. A New Perspective on the Story of English 26. Does Culture Drive Language Change? 27. Language Starts Over—Pidgins 28. Language Starts Over—Creoles I 29. Language Starts Over—Creoles II 30. Language Starts Over—Signs of the New 31. Language Starts Over—The Creole Continuum 32. What Is Black English? 33. Language Death—The Problem 34. Language Death—Prognosis 35. Artificial Languages 36. Finale—Master Class

    It examines the critical reactions to the different theories of second language acquisition.

    Written with the non-specialist in mind, its user-friendly style and layout, delightful original passages, and exotic scripts, will continue to fascinate the reader. This new edition has been thoroughly revised to include more languages, more countries, and up-to-date data on populations.Features include: *information on nearly 600 languages*individual descriptions of 200 languages, with sample passages and English translations*concise notes on where each language is spoken, its history, alphabet and pronunciation*coverage of every country in the world, its main language and speaker numbers*an introduction to language families

    But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety.  For example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wari’ language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to say” or “to give,” illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined. Combining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.

    This comprehensive work covers both statistical and symbolic approaches to language processing; it shows how they can be applied to important tasks such as speech recognition, spelling and grammar correction, information extraction, search engines, machine translation, and the creation of spoken-language dialog agents. The following distinguishing features make the text both an introduction to the field and an advanced reference guide.- UNIFIED AND COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF THE FIELDCovers the fundamental algorithms of each field, whether proposed for spoken or written language, whether logical or statistical in origin.- EMPHASIS ON WEB AND OTHER PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSGives readers an understanding of how language-related algorithms can be applied to important real-world problems.- EMPHASIS ON SCIENTIFIC EVALUATIONOffers a description of how systems are evaluated with each problem domain.- EMPERICIST/STATISTICAL/MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE PROCESSINGCovers all the new statistical approaches, while still completely covering the earlier more structured and rule-based methods.

    This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

    A ground-breaking book that sets out to demonstrate that Japanese is “simple, logical and beautiful” and that most of the apparently “arbitrary rules” that you “just have to learn” can be reduced to simple, easily intuitive patterns if you just understand how the language really works.