This basic introduction guide is for people without any prior knowledge of sign. The approach to "Signed English" is based upon the way a child would first be taught a language. In 17 sections, The Art of Sign Language teaches by using themed exercises about topics such as everyday communication, the body, home, school, leisure, eating, and drinking.

    The book features case discussions, USMLE-style questions, and a USMLE-style practice exam.

    It covers social and interpersonal skills, as well as the underlying cultural assumptions and values of the Russian people.

    Introduces the sub-fields of linguistics: the sounds of language, grammar, semantics, language change, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, language and culture.

    The timely provision of relevant information with minimal 'noise' is critical to modern society and this is what information retrieval (IR) is all about. It is a dynamic subject, with current changes driven by the expansion of the World Wide Web, the advent of modern and inexpensive graphical user interfaces and the development of reliable and low-cost mass storage devices. Modern Information Retrieval discusses all these changes in great detail and can be used for a first course on IR as well as graduate courses on the topic.The organization of the book, which includes a comprehensive glossary, allows the reader to either obtain a broad overview or detailed knowledge of all the key topics in modern IR. The heart of the book is the nine chapters written by Baeza-Yates and Ribeiro-Neto, two leading exponents in the field. For those wishing to delve deeper into key areas there are further state-of-the-art ch

    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.

    In the Philosophical Investigations, his most important work, he introduces the famous 'private language argument' which changed the whole philosophical view of language. Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations introduces and assesses: * Wittgenstein's life, and its connection with his thought* the text of the Philosophical Investigations* the importance of Wittgenstein's work to contemporary philosophy.

    This fully revised textbook is a new edition of Ronald Wardhaugh's popular and accessible An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.Provides an accessible, comprehensive introduction to sociolinguistics that reflects new developments in the field.Fully revised, with 130 new and updated references to bring the book completely up-to-date.Includes suggested readings, discussion sections, and exercises.Features increased emphasis on issues of identity, solidarity, and powerDiscusses topics such as language dialects, pidgins and creoles, codes, bilingualism, speech communities, variation, words and culture, ethnographies, solidarity and politeness, talk and action, gender, disadvantage, and planning.Designed for introductory and post-introductory students, and ideal for courses including introduction to sociolinguistics, aspects of sociolinguistics, and language and society.

    It is a branch of linguistics that looks less at the shape or sound of words--morphology or phonology--and more at how our words and sentences are influenced by the society around us--for instance, how the accent or the dialect we use has been shaped by where we come from or which social class we belong to. In this Very Short Introduction, John Edwards offers the most up-to-date brief overview available of sociolinguistics, with side trips into the sociology of language and psycholinguistics. He considers such topics as the different social evaluations of languages and dialects, the loaded significance of names, and the importance of politically-driven language planning and policy. The relationship between language and gender, sexist language, the language of poverty, and the intertwining of language and religion are also dealt with here. Edwards stresses that, while linguists see all dialects as equally valid, in the wider world powerful attitudes have always placed language varieties in social hierarchies. The author also looks at language more broadly, examining the ways in which languages rise or fall, the attempts to revive flagging or endangered varieties, the reasons why some languages came to dominate others, and the special dynamics that affect contact between "big" and "small" languages. In both its role as our most powerful tool of communication and as the most immediate symbolic marker of human affiliation, language is pre-eminently a social phenomenon. This compact volume offers an invaluable introduction to this vital aspect of language. About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    Bridging the chasm between educational and social history, this book was one of the first to examine developments in higher education in the context of the social, economic, and political forces that were shaping the nation at large.Surveying higher education from the colonial era through the mid-twentieth century, Rudolph explores a multitude of issues from the financing of institutions and the development of curriculum to the education of women and blacks, the rise of college athletics, and the complexities of student life. In his foreword to this new edition, John Thelin assesses the impact that Rudolph's work has had on higher education studies. The new edition also includes a bibliographic essay by Thelin covering significant works in the field that have appeared since the publication of the first edition.At a time when our educational system as a whole is under intense scrutiny, Rudolph's seminal work offers an important historical perspective on the development of higher education in the United States.

    Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate.There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab. In effect, media now begs to be redefined. In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.

    Here are all the tools pastors and teachers need to mine the Greek text and other language resources for the enhancement of personal study and sermon content.

    He demonstrates that beneath both language & myth there lies an unconscious "grammar" of experience, whose categories & canons aren't those of logical thought. He shows that this prelogical "logic" is not merely an undeveloped state of rationality, but something basically different, & that this archaic mode of thought still has enormous Power over even our most rigorous thought, in language, poetry & myth. The author analyzes such seemingly diverse (yet related) phenomena as the metaphysics of the Bhagavat Gita, the Melanesian concept of Mana, the Naturphilosophie of Schelling, modern poetry, Ancient Egyptian religion & symbolic logic. He covers a vast range of material that is all too often neglected in studies of human thought. These six essays are of great interest to the student of philosophy or the philosophy of science, the historian, or the anthropologist. They are also timely for students of literature, what with the enormous emphasis placed upon "myth" in modern literary speculation. This book isn't superficial speculation by a dabbler, but a penetrating study by one of the most profound & sensitive philosophic minds of our time.

    Are you also struggling with the same problems as other people who learn languages? Do you recognize any of these? Many of us have families, a full-time job, and problems finding enough time to study. It’s difficult to ensure that we study regularly and make progress in the new language. We try to force ourselves to study regularly, so we register for language courses and pay for access to Internet apps, but this artificial motivation becomes quickly a flash in the pan. When we try to study we don’t know how to do it efficiently. What techniques should we use? How can we remember the vocabulary? How do we deal with the grammar? We try different solutions, but none brings the desired results. Why is it that some people are able to master more than ten languages? How do the polyglots find the time? What do they do to learn any language in a matter of months? As a teenager, Konrad Jerzak vel Dobosz wanted to become a polyglot, but like most of us he needed to deal with the same challenges: lack of time, lack of an efficient method of learning, difficulties memorizing the vocabulary, lack of motivation and the fear of making mistakes. He decided to analyze the methods of well-known polyglots, including Heinrich Schliemann, Emil Krebs and Giuseppe Mezzofanti. He took a close look at the approaches proposed by modern language learning experts Richard Simcott, Luca Lampariello, Moses McCormick and Benny Lewis. This book, The Secrets of Polyglots is the result of his analysis of the methods developed by the greatest polyglots. You can find here the description of the techniques used by the biggest experts, and also a step-by-step method, which Konrad Jerzak vel Dobosz used himself to learn more than ten languages. The Secrets of Polyglots was written especially for people who: - Need to learn a foreign language, but don’t have much time to study - Have registered for language courses, but aren’t happy with the results - Learn by themselves, but want more efficient techniques - Want to learn several languages simultaneously, but don’t know how to - Desire to be able to master any foreign language in a couple of months The first part is a description of 17 extremely efficient techniques and concepts that will improve your language learning process. The second part explains, step-by-step, the learning system used by the author, including a practical example of how to apply all the “secrets” described in the first part. Testimonials: “I need to say that I skip all kind of self-help guide type of books. But ‘The Secrets of Polyglots’ grabbed immediately my attention and, after reading just a couple of pages, I knew that I needed to buy this book. And it was worth it, because it opened my eyes to many different aspects of language learning that I had ignored previously. The great advantage of this book is lack of catchy slogans promising us language fluency just after a month of study. Instead, the author delivers reliable and very useful knowledge on how to gradually learn vocabulary and grammar, and also how to find motivation and develop our linguistic skills. I myself used the advice from Konrad’s book, and I can proudly say that after 1.5 years of studying Portuguese, I began communicating fluently in this language.

    "Fake Science 101" is here to tackle those questions that are too tough to really answer. Like why is the sky blue? Where did the dinosaurs go? And what's with Einstein's hair?If you love Fake Science on the World Wide Web, you will love it even more on paper.* This cutting-edge volume shares the freshest discoveries to date made by the Fake Science lab--and completely ignores the sneers from the scientific community over its lack of research. "Fake Science 101" is your go-to textbook for when the facts are just too confusing.*Unless you are a tree.