Geoffrey K. Pullum's writings began as columns in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory in 1983. For six years, in almost every issue, under the banner "TOPIC. . .COMMENT," he published a captivating mélange of commentary, criticism, satire, whimsy, and fiction. Those columns are reproduced here—almost exactly as his friends and colleagues originally warned him not to publish them—along with new material including a foreword by James D. McCawley, a prologue, and a new introduction to each of these clever pieces. Whether making a sneak attack on some sacred cow, delivering a tongue-in-cheek protest against current standards, or supplying a caustic review of some recent development, Pullum remains in touch with serious concerns about language and society. At the same time, he reminds the reader not to take linguistics too seriously all of the time. Pullum will take you on an excursion into the wild and untamed fringes of linguistics. Among the unusual encounters in store are a conversation between Star Trek's Commander Spock and three real earth linguists, the strange tale of the author's imprisonment for embezzling funds from the Campaign for Typographical Freedom, a harrowing account of a day in the research life of four unhappy grammarians, and the true story of how a monograph on syntax was suppressed because the examples were judged to be libelous. You will also find a volley of humorous broadsides aimed at dishonest attributional practices, meddlesome copy editors, mathematical incompetence, and "cracker-barrel philosophy of science." These learned and witty pieces will delight anyone who is fascinated by the quirks of language and linguists.

    One of the most distinguishing features of the show is the innovative way its writers play with language--fabricating new words, morphing existing ones, and throwing usage on its head. The result has been a strikingly resonant lexicon that reflects the power of both youth culture and television in the evolution of American slang. Using the show to illustrate how new slang is formed, transformed, and transmitted, Slayer Slang is one of those rare books that combines a serious explanation of a pop culture phenomenon with an engrossing read for Buffy fans, language mavens, and pop culture critics. Noted linguist Michael Adams offers a synopsis of the program's history, an essay on the nature and evolution of the show's language, and a detailed glossary of slayer slang, annotated with actual dialogue. Introduced by Jane Espenson, one of the show's most inventive writers (and herself a linguist), Slayer Slang offers a quintessential example of contemporary youth culture serving as a vehicle for slang.

    It provides clear, simple explanations and concrete examples of complex concepts, making a wide variety of commonly used critical theories accessible to novices without sacrificing any theoretical rigor or thoroughness.This new edition provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading.

    It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

    Give yourself a Chinese name, see how to haggle in the shops and test yourself to see if you know the key characters.

    In " An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique," Steve Luck offers the first comprehensive guide to the practicalities of conducting ERP experiments in cognitive neuroscience and related fields, including affective neuroscience and experimental psychopathology. The book can serve as a guide for the classroom or the laboratory and as a reference for researchers who do not conduct ERP studies themselves but need to understand and evaluate ERP experiments in the literature. It summarizes the accumulated body of ERP theory and practice, providing detailed, practical advice about how to design, conduct, and interpret ERP experiments, and presents the theoretical background needed to understand why an experiment is carried out in a particular way. Luck focuses on the most fundamental techniques, describing them as they are used in many of the world's leading ERP laboratories. These techniques reflect a long history of electrophysiological recordings and provide an excellent foundation for more advanced approaches.The book also provides advice on the key topic of how to design ERP experiments so that they will be useful in answering questions of broad scientific interest. This reflects the increasing proportion of ERP research that focuses on these broader questions rather than the "ERPology" of early studies, which concentrated primarily on ERP components and methods. Topics covered include the neural origins of ERPs, signal averaging, artifact rejection and correction, filtering, measurement and analysis, localization, and the practicalities of setting up the lab.

    A pioneering introduction to Old English designed for a new generation of students. Assumes no expertise in other languages or in traditional grammar. Opening chapters and 'Quick Start' sections cover the basics. 'Minitexts' give students practice in reading Old English. Includes two chapters on syntax and three on reading poetry. Anthologises fourteen readings, including 'The Wanderer', 'The Dream of the Rood' and 'Judith'. The accompanying 'Old English Aerobics' website features additional readings and exercises.

    All chapters in this best-seller have been substantially revised to reflect recent discoveries and new understanding of linguistics and languages.

    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.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Using translation as his lens, David Bellos shows how much we can learn about ourselves by exploring the ways we use translation, from the historical roots of written language to the stylistic choices of Ingmar Bergman, from the United Nations General Assembly to the significance of James Cameron's Avatar.Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across human experience to describe why translation sits deep within us all, and why we need it in so many situations, from the spread of religion to our appreciation of literature; indeed, Bellos claims that all writers are by definition translators. Written with joie de vivre, reveling both in misunderstanding and communication, littered with wonderful asides, it promises any reader new eyes through which to understand the world. In the words of Bellos: "The practice of translation rests on two presuppositions. The first is that we are all different: we speak different tongues, and see the world in ways that are deeply influenced by the particular features of the tongue that we speak. The second is that we are all the same—that we can share the same broad and narrow kinds of feelings, information, understandings, and so forth. Without both of these suppositions, translation could not exist. Nor could anything we would like to call social life. Translation is another name for the human condition."

    Updated to reflect current research and rewritten to further enhance the clarity of presentation, the fifth edition of this best-seller continues to take a linguistic-analysis approach as well and focus on the facts of language rather than theoretical approaches.

    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.

    The strategies are identified by an examination of authentic examples of translated texts in a variety of languages. No knowledge of linguistics or foreign languages is assumed. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the key linguistic concepts referred to and ends with a series of practical exercises. By striking a balance between theory and practice, the book provides a sound basis for training professional translators.

    She proclaims, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. Using examples from literature, history, neighborhood signage, and her own imagination, Truss shows how meaning is shaped by commas and apostrophes, and the hilarious consequences of punctuation gone awry.Featuring a foreword by Frank McCourt, and interspersed with a lively history of punctuation from the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes a powerful case for the preservation of proper punctuation.