Book picks similar to
The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics by Dirk Geeraerts
linguistics
language
non-fiction
cognitive
You Are Ready For Takeoff: A Short Trip
Susan Orlean - 2021
With her trademark curiosity, she decides to rewire her thinking through hypnosis. Along the way, Susan discovers a lot about the unconscious mind, suggestibility, Mesmer, Freud, today’s cutting-edge treatments, and the dulling power of a sonorous voice. Most of all, she learns what it takes to close her eyes, open them again at thirty thousand feet, and finally be able to exhale. And you can too.
Machiavelli, Volume I
Niccolò Machiavelli - 1989
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
A Mouthful of Air: Languages and Language, Especially English
Anthony Burgess - 1992
Anthony Burgess covers everything from Shakespeare's pronunciation, to the politics of speech, to the place of English in the world, and more.
The Mathematical Theory of Communication
Claude Shannon - 1949
Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.
The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives
Shankar Vedantam - 2009
But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of?The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside our conscious awareness but have a decisive effect on how we behave. The hidden brain has its finger on the scale when we make all our most complex and important decisions: It decides whom we fall in love with, whether we should convict someone of murder, and which way to run when someone yells “Fire!” It explains why we can become riveted by the story of a single puppy adrift on the ocean but are quickly bored by a story of genocide. The hidden brain can also be deliberately manipulated to convince people to vote against their own interests, or even become suicide terrorists. But the most disturbing thing is that it does all this without our knowing.Shankar Vedantam, author of The Washington Post’s popular “Department of Human Behavior” column, takes us on a tour of this phenomenon and explores its consequences. Using original reporting that combines the latest scientific research with compulsively readable narratives that take readers from the American campaign trail to terrorist indoctrination camps, from the World Trade Center on 9/11 to, yes, a puppy adrift on the Pacific Ocean, Vedantam illuminates the dark recesses of our minds while making an original argument about how we can compensate for our blind spots and what happens when we don’t.
Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics
Rick Shenkman - 2016
But as bestselling historian Rick Shenkman explains in Political Animals, our world is anything but rational. Drawing on science, politics, and history, Shenkman explores the hidden forces behind our often illogical choices.Political Animals challenges us to go beyond the headlines, which often focus on what politicians do (or say they'll do), and to concentrate instead on what's really important: what shapes our response. Shenkman argues that, contrary to what we tell ourselves, it's our instincts rather than arguments appealing to reason that usually prevail. Pop culture tells us we can trust our instincts, but science is proving that when it comes to politics our Stone Age brain often malfunctions, misfires, and leads us astray. Fortunately, we can learn to make our instincts work in our favor. Shenkman takes readers on a whirlwind tour of laboratories where scientists are exploring how sea slugs remember, chimpanzees practice deception, and patients whose brains have been split in two tell stories. The scientists' findings give us new ways of understanding our history and ourselves -- and prove we don't have to be prisoners of our evolutionary past." In this engaging, illuminating, and often riotous chronicle of our political culture, Shenkman probes the depths of the human mind to explore how we can become more political, and less animal.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes - 1976
The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion -- and indeed our future.
Spellbound: The Surprising Origins and Astonishing Secrets of English Spelling
James Essinger - 2006
The story of how this ragtag collection of words evolved is a winding tale replete with intriguing accidents and bizarre twists of fate. In this eye-opening, fabulously entertaining book, James Essinger unlocks the mysteries that have confounded linguists and scholars for millennia.From the sophisticated writing systems of the ancient Sumerians through the tongue twisters of Middle English, the popular National Spelling Bee, and the mobile phone text-messaging of today, Spellbound chronicles the fascinating history of English spelling, including insights about the vast number of words English has borrowed from other languages (“orange,” “vanilla,” and “ketchup,” to name a few), and how their meanings differ from country to country. Featuring a lively cast of characters ranging from the fictional to the historically noteworthy (Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, Shakespeare, Bill Gates), this affectionate tribute to English spelling shows why our whimsical, capricious common language continues to hold us spellbound.
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction
William D. O'Grady - 1987
Meticulously prepared, it is one of the most comprehensive, authoritative, up-to-date introductory resources on the market. The book’s extensive examples and exercises help students master the course material, and its lucid writing style makes complex concepts easy to understand.
The American Language
H.L. Mencken - 1919
L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States. Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question. In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks. The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from "English", the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart. The book sold exceptionally well by Mencken's standards-1400 copies in the first two months. Reviews of the book praised it lavishly, with the exception of one by Mencken's old nemesis, Stuart Sherman. source: Wikipedia
The King's English: A Guide to Modern Usage
Kingsley Amis - 1996
More frolicsome than Fowler's Modern Usage, lighter than the Oxford English Dictionary, and brimming with the strong opinions and razor-sharp wit that made Amis so popular--and so controversial--The King's English is a must for fans and language purists.
Think!: Before It's Too Late
Edward de Bono - 2009
So why can we not solve them? According to Edward de Bono, world thinking cannot solve world problems because world thinking is itself the problem. And this is getting worse: we are so accustomed to readily available information online that we search immediately for the answers rather than thinking about them. Our minds function like trying to drive a car using only one wheel. There's nothing wrong with that one wheel - conventional thinking - but we could all get a lot further if we used all four... De Bono examines why we think the way we do from a historical perspective and uses some of his famous thinking techniques, such as lateral thinking, combined with new ideas to show us how to change the way we think. If we strengthen our ability and raise our thinking level, other areas of our life - both personal and business success - will improve.De Bono is the master of the original big 'concept' book and his enticement to us to use our minds as constructively as possible should appeal to a whole new generation of fans.
The Fighter's Mind: Inside the Mental Game
Sam Sheridan - 2010
From a muay Thai bout in Bangkok to Rio, where he trained with jiu-jitsu royalty, to Iowa, where he matched up against the toughest in MMA, Sheridan threw himself into a quest to understand how and why we fight. In The Fighter's Mind, Sheridan does for the brain what his first book did for the body. To uncover the secrets of mental strength and success, Sheridan interviewed dozens of the world's most fascinating and dangerous men, including celebrated trainers Freddie Roach and Greg Jackson; champion fighters Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock, and Marcelo Garcia; ultrarunner David Horton; legendary wrestler Dan Gable, and many more. What are their secrets? How do they stay committed through years of training, craft a game plan, and adjust to the realities of the ring? How do they project strength when weak, and remain mentally tough despite incredible physical pain? A fascinating book, bursting at the seams with incredible stories and insight, The Fighter's Mind answers these questions and many more.
Barron's AP Psychology
Allyson J. Weseley - 2007
All test questions are answered and explained. It also provides extensive subject review covering all test topics. Topics reviewed include research methods, the biological basis of behavior, sensation and perception, states of consciousness, learning, cognition, personality, abnormal psychology, and treatment of disorders. This manual also presents an overview of the test, extra multiple-choice practice questions, test-taking tips, and an analysis of the test’s essay question with a sample essay.
In Other Words: A Language Lover's Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World
C.J. Moore - 2004
Where would we be without saudade, the Portuguese wistful nostalgia which makes their fado music unlike any other in the world? What other word is there for the barefaced gutsy presumption encapsulated by the Yiddish word chutzpah? And wouldn't you like to have a word for that irritating person who buttonholes you to tell you their long stories of woe? They are truly an attaccabottoni (lit. = a person who attacks your buttons). Or what about the Japanese yokomeshi, which means 'horizontal rice', in other words a meal eaten sideways, and describes the difficulty of learning a foreign language---particularly appropriate for Japanese learners, where mastering the written language involves the shift from 'vertical' to 'horizontal' writing. Meticulously researched with dozens of specialist language consultants, and accessibly written by a linguist in the field, this book will appeal to anyone interested in language and world cultures. Exploring the words of different languages by chapter, the volume is lavishly illustrated in colour and extremely browsable. The foreword is written by Simon Winchester. This book is for anyone who has ever travelled and been fascinated by the culture they were visiting. In Other Words is a guide to the linguistic gems that capture a notion, defy translation, and define the cultures of the world.