One of the biggest hurdles to mastering a second language is learning how to speak naturally. Here is a humorous, one-of-a-kind program that teaches readers how to carry a conversation without sounding stilted or awkward. Spanish Among Amigosallows language learners to eavesdrop on two native speakers and their befuddled English-speaking friend Tom. As they talk about a host of topics, the reader becomes accustomed to conversing naturally in Spanish.

Each of the books 21 units of dialogue includes:

• A multiple-choice comprehension check
  
• A vocabulary quiz
  
• Hints on grammar and usage
  

Anyone who wants to start a youth storytelling group or troupe will find a wealth of practical information and inspiration in this guide. Written by two veteran storytellers and storytelling group leaders, this book takes you step by step through the entire process of planning, starting, managing, and growing your storytelling group-even up through taking the show on the road. Complete instructions for teaching storytelling skills and performing are accompanied by dozens of reproducible activities and practical tips-from how to recruit members and how to adapt stories for telling to what to wear when performing, and fundraising ideas. Storytelling is a powerful teaching and learning tool. It increases literacy and language skills, builds creativity and imagination, instills confidence, encourages cooperation and collaboration-and it's great fun for everyone! Share the gift of storytelling with young people and watch them grow. Grades 4-12.

The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a widely accepted instrument for assessing second and foreign language ability. It is used by the Foreign Language Institute, the Defense Language Institute, Educational Testing Service, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, and at many universities in the United States. The Art of Non-Conversation examines the components of speaking ability and asks whether the OPI is a valid instrument for assessing them. Marysia Johnson applies the latest insights from discourse and conversational analysis to determine the nature of the OPI's communicative speech event and investigate its construct validity within Messick's definition of validity. She discusses models of speaking ability-several communicative competence models, an interactional competence model, and a model of spoken interaction based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning. Finally she proposes a new model to test language proficiency drawn from sociocultural theory, one that considers language ability to be reflective of the sociocultural and institutional contexts in which the language has been acquired.

A follow-on from Actors' Audition Speeches" this title includes speeches from plays written and produced in the 1990s, with extracts from West End productions ("Art" and "Cressida"), and films ("Pulp Fiction"). Comments from directors, casting directors, actors and teachers are included."

This enhanced edition of French Phonetics is intended for college-level instruction, for self-study and for reference purposes. The text, including Cahier d'Exercices, helps the student to become proficient in the pronunciation of French by explaining the characteristics of the French sound system clearly and systematically and by giving precise rules of pronunciation throughout. After introducing the learner to the International Phonetic Alphabet, the manual proceeds to a thorough examination of every sound in the French language in relation to its spelling and its phonological surroundings. If the book is used as a reference tool, the reader will be able to verify the pronunciation of many difficult verb forms and names not found in a dictionary. Students will be able to phonetically transcribe French words, to read a phonetically transcribed text, and most importantly to pronounce correctly any French word that they encounter, even if they have never seen it before. Cassettes or CD's for French Phonetics and the Cahier d'Exercices are available by contacting the author at [email protected]; Please cc her alternate e-mail address in your request: [email protected]

The volume contains papers given at the 30th Colloquium of Linguistics, whose leading (but not exclusive) theme was 'Language and Cognition'. The papers represent various domains of linguistics and range from purely theoretical (e.g. those dealing with language sign and categorical grammar), through descriptive and historical, to application-oriented (glottodidactics and translation). Computer linguistics is also represented. The papers deal with a number of languages (English, French, German, Gothic, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Icelandic, Polish, including Kashubian, and others). The problem of artificial languages is considered, too.

Dieses Buch gibt eine Einführung in das sonderpädagogische Fachgebiet der Unterstützten Kommunikation. Unterstützte Kommunikation zielt darauf, nichtsprechenden Menschen möglichst effektive Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten zur Verfügung zu stellen. Zu diesem Zweck werden Hilfsmittel, Techniken und Strategien entwickelt, die Lautsprache ergänzen oder ersetzen können. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit wird ein Beitrag zur Bewertung moderner elektronischer Kommunikationshilfen geleistet. Die gesprächsanalytisch orientierte Studie untersucht ein Videomaterial von insgesamt 240 Minuten 1:1-Interaktionen zwischen nichtsprechenden Menschen und ihren natürlichsprechenden Partnern/Partnerinnen. Die Auswirkungen des Einsatzes von Sprachcomputern im Vergleich zu Kommunikationstafeln auf die Gesprächssituation werden analysiert.

The third volume in a ongoing series of primary references for researchers, teachers, and clinicians in all areas of human language, presenting reviews and summaries of research, and relating theoretical concerns to specific experimental findings and empirical observations. Covers developmental prag

This book begins the Spoken Standard Chinese series, which emphasizes natural dialogue and familiarity with a modern, adult vocabulary. Book One uses pinyin romanization and no Chinese characters. An accompanying audio program is available.

This second book of the Spoken Standard Chinese series completes the presentation of the major grammatical patterns of modern Mandarin, and introduces an additional 700 words. Book Two uses pinyin romanization. An accompanying audio program is available.

This second book of the Spoken Standard Chinese series completes the presentation of the major grammatical patterns of mdoern Mandarin and introduces an additional 700 words. Book Two uses pinyin romanization. An accompanying audio program is available.

The book Communicative English Language Skills emphasizes on the importance of learning English, it being the most widely spoken around the world. The book takes the readers through the various communicative aspects of English and explains each part of speech and communication with utmost clarity, citing several examples and taking the readers through the various skills that are needed to master the language. The book is full of exercises and questions that enhance the knowledge and learning of the readers. The book is in itself a complete guide to spoken and communicative English.

The Revelations of Asher: Toward Supreme Love in Self is an endarkened, feminist, new literacies event. It critically and creatively explores Black women's terror in love. With poetry, prose, and analytic memos, Jeanine Staples shows how a group of Black women's talk and writings about relationships revealed epistemological and ontological revelations, after 9/11. These revelations are presented in the context of a third wave new literacies framework. They are voiced and storied dynamically by the women's seven fragmented selves. Through the selves, we learn the five ways the women lived as lovers: Main Chick, Side Chick, Bonnie, Bitch, and Victim. As an alternative-response to these identities in love, the author presents a new way. She introduces the Supreme Lover Identity and illuminates its integral connection to social and emotional justice for and through Black women's wisdom.

This volume brings together a number of corpus-based studies dealing with language varieties. These contributions focus on contemporary lines of research interests, and include language teaching and learning, translation, domain-specific grammatical and textual phenomena, linguistic variation and gender, among others. Corpora used in these studies range from highly specialized texts, including earlier scientific texts, to regional varieties. Under the umbrella of corpus linguistics, scholars also apply other distinct methodological approaches to their data in order to offer new insights into old and new topics in linguistics and applied linguistics. Another important contribution of this book lies in the obvious didactic implications of the results obtained in the individual chapters for domain-based language teaching.

This book discusses the nature of optionality in second language grammars and the indeterminacy observed in second language users' linguistic representations. For these purposes, experimental data from 213 learners of German and 150 learners of Russian have been collected and analysed with a special focus on the acquisition of various "subjectless" and impersonal constructions as well as argument licensing. Whereas voice alternations and argument licensing are topics amply discussed in theoretical domains, their practical implementation within second language research has remained a research lacuna. This piece of work intends to fill the gap.

The volume takes a close look at discourse perspectives on academic genres. In the context of scientific communication and the evolution of postmodern culture and society, academic genres have undergone various changes. The study shows that cultural heterogeneity of academic genres, styles and discourses now gives way to an increasing hybridization and discusses theoretical aspects of this process. The second part focuses on specific dimensions of hybridization, in particular between global and local academic genres and discourses, and between real and virtual ones.

Somali Oral Poetry and the Failed She-Camel Nation State: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Deelley Poetry Debate (1979-1980) examines the most expressive medium in Somali culture and politics, that is, oral poetry, in its ideological and discursive dimension. Oral poetry has a formidable impact on Somali society and its internal dynamics. Somali Oral Poetry is the first critical discourse analysis of the connection between oral poetry and politics in Somalia. The book brings out contradictions and conflicts between the ways of thinking of a society structured in clans and a rightful claim for nationhood and the state of law. In addition, it highlights the difficulty the society finds in renouncing clan mentality that requires loyalty to the clan rather than to the State. The present volume illuminates, through the critical analysis of the Deelley poetry debate, the circumstances and issues that preceded the civil war in Somalia. Therefore, the book is of particular interest for its original explanation and understanding of the extraordinary subsequent failure of the State in Somalia.

Die Beitrage dieses Buches untersuchen verschiedene Fragestellungen zu religioesen Bezugen in nicht-religioeser Sprache, etwa in Redewendungen, Ortsnamen, OEkonomie-Diskursen oder politischer Rhetorik, und zu nicht-(nur-)religioesen Konstruktionen in religioeser Sprache, etwa in Gebeten und anderen sakralen Texten, Ritualen oder religioesen Traktaten. Dabei werden unterschiedliche linguistische Methoden angewandt, von der Diskursanalyse bis zur Onomastik, von der Soziolinguistik bis zur Metaphernanalyse. In vielen Aufsatzen wird interdisziplinar gearbeitet, etwa mit Input aus Bereichen wie der Literaturwissenschaft oder der Geschichtsforschung. Die untersuchten Daten stammen aus verschiedenen Sprachen, darunter Aramaisch, Bosnisch, Deutsch, Englisch, Franzoesisch, Hebraisch, Italienisch, Katalanisch, Kroatisch, Latein, Portugiesisch, Sefardisch und Spanisch. The contributions to this book explore various questions concerning religious aspects and references in non-religious language, whether in idioms, place names, economic discourses or political rhetoric, and non-religious (among other) aspects and references in religious language, whether in prayers, sacred texts, rituals and religious treatises. The research presented applies a variety of methods, ranging from discourse analysis to onomastics, from sociolinguistics to metaphor analysis. The data come from languages such as Aramaic, Bosnian, German, English, French, Hebrew, Italian, Catalan, Croatian, Latin, Portuguese, Ladino and Spanish.

This multidisciplinary collection of articles illuminates the ways in which the concept of female deviance is represented, appropriated, re-inscribed and refigured in a wide range of texts across time, cultures and genres. Such a choice of variety shows that representations of deviance accommodate meaning-making spaces and possibilities for resistance in different socio-cultural and literary contexts. The construct of the deviant woman is analysed from literary, sociolinguistic and historical-cultural perspectives, revealing insights about cultures and societies. Furthermore, the studies recognise and explain the significance of the concept of deviance in relation to gender that bespeaks a contemporary cultural concern about narratives of femininity.

How we communicate with each other matters greatly. Our identity, our friendships and marriages, our families, and our culture are the product of how we speak to one another. Our words affect our hopes and dreams, as well as those of our children. We insult, complain, or criticize. We compliment, offer support, and inspire. These are choices that take place in the crevices of our most private and public conversations with others. This book bridges communication theory and practice to foreground an important message: positive communication matters. By examining closely how people talk to each other at home or at work, this book enables undergraduate and graduate students to communicate more positively. The Art of Positive Communication is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in interpersonal communication courses and as a supplemental text to inspire all students to communicate better.

This volume draws on issues and cases from more than 20 countries to provide empirical evidence and theoretical insights into why discourse matters. Covering a wide range of concepts and topical issues, contributors from media studies, journalism, and linguistics address the following key questions: Why and how does discourse matter pertaining to identity in a mediatized world? Who makes discourse and identity matter, for what reason, in what way, and with what consequences? The volume provokes a new proposition that it is necessary to go beyond the safe havens of disciplinary strongholds with familiar terminology, methodology, and questions to address future inquiries into discourse and identity from a combination of linguistics and journalistic media studies.

The aim of this book and its accompanying audio files is to make accessible a corpus of 40 authentic job interviews conducted in English. The recordings and transcriptions of the interviews published here may be used by students, teachers and researchers alike for linguistic analyses of spoken discourse and as authentic material for language learning in the classroom. The book includes an introduction to corpus linguistics, offering insight into different kinds of corpora and discussing their main characteristics. Furthermore, major features of the discourse genre job interview are outlined and detailed information is given concerning the job interview corpus published in this book.

With drug information rapidly migrating to the Web, the chronically poor standards of drug information available to consumers in the developed and the developing world are being further compromised. This book offers insight into the uncharted waters of prescription drug information and promotion on the internet and suggests how it might be transformed into an unprecedented agent for good. It traces the social and political history of prescription drug information and marketing to Western consumers, offers a social and communicative profile of prescription drug Web sites, and evaluates the most widely used sources of prescription drug information, from government organizations and information companies and TV-related sites, to health service provider sites, manufacturers' brand sites, and social media, including YouTube and Wikipedia. The focus throughout is on practical outcomes: How can information for consumer decision making be optimized and how can consumers use it responsibly?

It has often proven difficult to classify certain words as adpositions or nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. This book looks at the distinctions between adpositions, i.e. prepositions and postpositions, and other word classes with respect to a wide range of languages. In particular, it focuses on how these distinctions have been treated by previous authors and the terminology used to describe items on or close to the adpositional border, e.g. pseudo-postpositions and auxiliary nouns. Chapters are devoted to adpositions as opposed to most of the other traditional parts of speech. Among the criteria for (non-)adpositional status brought up are the presence or absence of inflection on putative adpositions and genitive case marking on complements of such words. Definitive conclusions on how to determine whether words are adpositions seem elusive, but some formal criteria, such as absence of inflection, are problematic; possibly a solution will involve a notion of adpositional function.