Ngugi describes this book as 'a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism and in teaching of literature.' East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda): EAEP

I'm not a racist, but... You look good, for your age... She was asking for it... You're crazy... That's so gay... Have you ever wondered why certain language has the power to offend? It is often difficult to recognize the veiled racism, sexism, ageism (and other -isms) that hide in our everyday discourse. This book sheds light on the derogatory phrases, insults, slurs, stereotypes, tropes and more that make up linguistic discrimination. Each chapter addresses a different area of prejudice: race and ethnicity; gender identity; sexuality; religion; health and disability; physical appearance; and age. Drawing on hot button topics and real-life case studies, and delving into the history of offensive terms, a vivid picture of modern discrimination in language emerges. By identifying offensive language, both overt and hidden, past and present, we uncover vast amounts about our own attitudes, beliefs and values and reveal exactly how and why words can offend.

Senegal Abroad explores the fascinating role of language in national, transnational, postcolonial, racial, and migrant identities. Capturing the experiences of Senegalese in Paris, Rome, and New York, it depicts how they make sense of who they are-and how they fit into their communities, countries, and the larger global Senegalese diaspora. Drawing on extensive interviews with a wide range of emigrants as well as people of Senegalese heritage, Maya Angela Smith contends that they shape their identity as they purposefully switch between languages and structure their discourse. The Senegalese are notable, Smith suggests, both in their capacity for movement and in their multifaceted approach to language. She finds that, although the emigrants she interviews express complicated relationships to the multiple languages they speak and the places they inhabit, they also convey pleasure in both travel and language. Offering a mix of poignant, funny, reflexive, introspective, and witty stories, they blur the lines between the utility and pleasure of language, allowing a more nuanced understanding of why and how Senegalese move.

The global spread of English has had widespread linguistic, social, and cultural implications, affecting the lives of millions of people around the world. This textbook provides a lively and accessible introduction to world Englishes, describing varieties used in regions as diverse as America, the Caribbean, Australia, Africa, and Asia, and setting them within their historical and social contexts. Students are guided through the material with chapter summaries, discussion questions and exercises, and a comprehensive glossary, helping them to understand different varieties of English. The second edition is substantially updated, including new sections on English as a Lingua Franca, blurring boundaries, and research methods and resources. The book is accompanied by a useful website, containing textual and audio examples of the varieties introduced in the text. Providing essential knowledge and skills for those embarking on the study of world Englishes, this is a timely update of the leading introduction to the subject.

Assuming no prior linguistics background, this introductory textbook summarises key topics and issues from workplace discourse research in a clear and accessible manner. The topics covered include how people issue directives, use humour and social talk, and how they manage conflict and disagreement. The role of language in the enactment of identity is also explored, in particular leadership, gender, and cultural identity, along with the implications and applications of workplace research for training and communications skills development. Over 160 international examples are provided as illustration, which come from a wide range of workplace settings, countries and languages. The examples focus on authentic spoken discourse, to demonstrate how theory captures the patterns found in everyday interaction. Introducing Language in the Workplace provides an excellent up-to-date resource for linguistics courses as well as other courses that cover workplace discourse, such as business communication or management studies.

This highly accessible introduction explores the core systems and subsystems of the languages of mainland Southeast Asia, applying the main concepts of language typology, phonology, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistics, language variation, and language contact, to this diverse language area. Written by a leading expert in the languages of this region, N. J. Enfield draws upon nearly a thousand data examples from over a hundred languages from Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam to show the many ways in which these languages resemble each other, and differ from each other, in the context of what is known globally about the diversity of human language. The book highlights the diversity of the area's languages, with a special emphasis on the minority languages, which outnumber the national languages by nearly a hundred to one. The result is a welcome corrective to widespread beliefs about the nature of a 'typical' Southeast Asian language.

Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, this book combines his original research with an up-to-date introduction to key concepts, to provide a holistic, original theory of contact linguistics. Going beyond a descriptive outline of contact phenomena, it introduces a theory of contact-induced language change, linking structural change to motivations in discourse and language processing. Since the first edition was published, the field has rapidly grown, and this fully revised edition covers all of the most recent developments, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students in linguistics.

Abstract concepts are often embodied through metaphor. For example, we talk about moving through time in metaphorical terms, as if we were moving through space, allowing us to 'look back' on past events. Much of the work on embodied metaphor to date has assumed a single set of universal, shared bodily experiences that motivate our understanding of abstract concepts. This book explores sources of variation in people's experiences of embodied metaphor, including, for example, the shape and size of one's body, one's age, gender, state of mind, physical or linguistic impairments, personality, ideology, political stance, religious beliefs, and linguistic background. It focuses on the ways in which people's experiences of metaphor fluctuate over time within a single communicative event or across a lifetime. Combining theoretical argument with findings from new studies, Littlemore analyses sources of variation in embodied metaphor and provides a deeper understanding of the nature of embodied metaphor itself.

Written by an international team of leading scholars, this engaging textbook on the study of English historical linguistics is uniquely organized in terms of theoretical approaches and perspectives. Each chapter features textboxes, case studies, suggestions for further reading and exercises, enabling students to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and guiding them on undertaking further research. The case studies and exercises guide students in approaching and manipulating empirical data, providing them with hands-on experience of conducting linguistic research. An extensive variety of approaches, from traditional to contemporary, is treated, including generative approaches, historical sociolinguistic and pragmatic approaches, psycholinguistic perspectives, grammaticalization theory, and discourse-based approaches, as well as perspectives on standardization and language variation. Each chapter applies the concepts discussed to data from the history of English, and a glossary of key terms enables easy navigation and quick cross-referencing. An essential resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of the history of English linguistics.

This book describes the astonishing achievements of John Angus Mackay - a man whose intelligence, humanity, political nous, people skills, wit, steely resolve and courage, were such that, what lesser beings regarded as impossible, he made possible. Through his efforts in concert with a small group of others, a thousand year process of 'ethnic cleansing' of the Gaelic language and culture was challenged and new means created to rebuild that which the powers-that-be had long sought to destroy. These efforts were so successful that now, the Scottish Gaelic language and culture has turned the corner and the number of young Gaelic speakers is increasing. How this was achieved, against a sustained barrage of negativity, is described, but perhaps his most obvious achievement is his long, dogged and forensically focused campaign, against huge establishment resistance, to win a Gaelic television channel. That channel now provides a fascinating range of programming at times attracting viewership figures well in excess of the total number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland. But that is only part of the story. John Angus was also a gifted teacher, pivotal in developing community co-operatives in his native Lewis, in paving the way for the creation of the Crofters' Union and leading the development of the Gaelic Comunn na Gaidhlig, Bord na Gaidhlig, An Lanntair multi-arts venue, the University of the Highlands and Islands, and as its chairman, in turning round NHS Western Isles from crisis into a model small health board.

The grammatical category of voice covers a wide range of phenomena, including causatives, applicatives, passives, antipassives, middles, and others. Drawing on data from over 200 languages, Fernando Zuniga and Seppo Kittila illustrate the semantic, morphological, and syntactic variation of voice across languages from a range of families and regions. They approach the topic from a broad and explicit perspective, and discuss a variety of topics that are not always regarded as voice, in order to make a clear and useful conceptual delimitation. Clearly organized and accessibly written, the book will be welcomed by students and scholars of linguistics, especially those interested in how grammatical categories work.

This accessible textbook offers students the opportunity to explore for themselves a wide range of sociolinguistic issues relating to the German language and its role in societies around the world. It is written for undergraduate students who have a sound practical knowledge of German but who have little or no knowledge of linguistics or sociolinguistics. It combines text with practical exercises and discussion questions to stimulate readers to think for themselves and to tackle specific problems.
In Part One Patrick Stevenson invites readers to investigate and reflect on issues about the status and function of the German language in relation to its speakers and to speakers of other languages with which it comes into contact. In Part Two the focus shifts to the forms and functions of individual features of the language. This involves, for example, identifying features of regional speech forms, analysing similarities and differences between written and spoken German, or looking at the 'social meaning' underlying different forms of address. Part Three explores the relationship between the German language and the nature of 'Germanness'. It concentrates on people's attitudes towards the language, the ways in which it is changing, and their views on what it represents for them.
Features and benefits of using this book:
* Comprehensive: provides the basis for a typical one-semester course
* Informative and practical: combines a review of current themes with graded exercises and relevant reading, plus an index of terms
* Topical and contemporary: deals with current situations with the most up-to-date information
* Has a workbook character: encourages students to think and work for themselves.
Patrick Stevenson is a lecturer in German in the School of Modern Languages, Southampton University.

This book offers a comprehensive linguistic analysis of contemporary US television series. Adopting an interdisciplinary and multimethodological approach, Monika Bednarek brings together linguistic analysis of the Sydney Corpus of Television Dialogue with analysis of scriptwriting manuals, interviews with Hollywood scriptwriters, and a survey undertaken with university students about their consumption of TV series. In so doing, she presents five new and original empirical studies. The focus on language use in a professional context (the television industry), on scriptwriting pedagogy, and on learning and teaching provides an applied linguistic lens on TV series. This is complemented by perspectives taken from media linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociocultural linguistics/sociolinguistics. Throughout the book, multiple dialogue extracts are presented from a wide variety of well-known fictional television series, including The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy and Bones. Researchers in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics and media linguistics will find the book both stimulating and unique in its approach.

Plebeian Prose is a key work by the pioneering Argentine Brazilian anthropologist, sociologist and poet Nestor Perlongher. Perlongher, whose work has been highly influential in the development of Latin American cultural theory and literature, represents an original critical 'queer' voice in Latin American thought. This book is an exploration of the politics of desire, questions of identity, Latin American neo-baroque aesthetics, sexual dissidence, violence and jouissance. Prompted by his reading of Gilles Deleuze, the link between politics and desire remains central to all Perlongher's reflections and gives his writings a lasting topicality. A thinker of the streets with a keen interest in those on the margins of society, the ideas that are developed in this book offer a lucid critique of capitalism and institutional power. Perlongher's approach also reflects a particular Latin American neo-baroque style, a mode of critique whose value endures today. Providing insight into Latin American culture and politics of the late twentieth century, Plebeian Prose will be of particular interest to anyone working on critical theory, literary theory, anthropology, sociology and gender studies.

Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective-one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia's political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals' aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people's lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli's long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.

Fully updated to reflect the most recent scholarship in the field and revised to include many more pedagogical features, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 7th Edition builds on its foundation as the most preeminent textbook in sociolinguistics, updated for today s students. Significantly revised discussions throughout each of the book s four key parts reflect the state of the field today Includes new chapters on Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, and Sociolinguistics and Education Incorporates innovative new perspectives drawn from linguistic anthropology Provides an accessible history of the development of sociolinguistic thought and how this fast-moving field is integral to our lives Includes numerous opportunities for students to engage with ideas presented in the text through a new glossary, new Explorations and end-of-chapter exercises, links, and key concepts New companion website includes links and resources for students

This is an ideal introduction to Japanese th ought and culture and a practical guide, both for anticipati ng Japanese behaviour and avoiding cultural faux pas. The co mpanion will interest tourists, students and business travel lers to Japan. '

What motivates some linguistic minorities to maintain their language? Why do others shift away from it rather quickly? Are there specific conditions - environmental or personal - influencing these dynamics? What can families and communities do to pass on their 'threatened' language to the next generation? These and related questions are investigated in detail in Language Maintenance and Shift. In this fascinating book, Anne Pauwels analyses the patterns of language use exhibited by individuals and groups living in multilingual societies, and explores their efforts to maintain their heritage or minority language. She explores the various methods used to analyse language maintenance, from linguistic demography to linguistic biography, and offers guidance on how to research the language patterns and practices of linguistic minorities around the world.

What suspects tell the police may become a crucial piece of evidence when the case comes to court. But what happens to 'the suspect's statement' when it is written down by the police? Based on a unique set of data from over fifteen years' worth of research, Martha Komter examines the trajectory of the suspect's statement from the police interrogation through to the trial. She shows how the suspect's statement is elicited and written down in the police report, how this police report both represents and differs from the original talk in the interrogation, and how it is quoted and referred to in court. The analyses cover interactions in multiple settings, with documents that link one interaction to the next, providing insights into the interactional and documentary foundations of the criminal process and, more generally, into the construction, character and uses of documents in institutional settings.

Exploring Linguistic Science introduces students to the basic principles of complexity theory and then applies these principles to the scientific study of language. It demonstrates how, at every level of linguistic study, we find evidence of language as a complex system. Designed for undergraduate courses in language and linguistics, this essential textbook brings cutting-edge concepts to bear on the traditional components of general introductions to the study of language, such as phonetics, morphology and grammar. The authors maintain a narrative thread throughout the book of 'interaction and emergence', both of which are key terms from the study of complex systems, a new science currently useful in physics, genetics, evolutionary biology, and economics, but also a perfect fit for the humanities. The application of complexity to language highlights the fact that language is an ever-changing, ever-varied product of human behavior.

Where have emoji come from? Why are they so popular? What do they tell us about the technology-enhanced state of modern society? Far from simply being an amusing set of colourful little symbols, emoji are in the front line of a revolution in the way we communicate. As a form of global, image-based communication, they're a perfect example of the ingenuity and creativity at the heart of human interaction. But they're also a parable for the way that consumerism now permeates all parts of our daily existence, taking a controlling interest even in the language we use; and of how technology is becoming ever more entangled in our everyday lives. So how will this split-identity affect the way that online communication develops? Are emoji ushering in a bold new era of empathy and emotional engagement on the internet? Or are they a first sign that we're handing over the future of human interaction to the machines?

Social semiotics reveals language's social meaning its structures, processes, conditions and effects in all social contexts, across all media and modes of discourse. This important new book uses social semiotics as a one-stop shop to analyse language and social meaning, enhancing linguistics with a sociological imagination. Social Semiotics for a Complex World develops ideas, frameworks and strategies for better understanding key problems and issues involving language and social action in today's hyper-complex world driven by globalization and new media. Its semiotic basis incorporates insights from various schools of linguistics (such as cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis and sociolinguistics) as well as from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and literary studies. It employs a multi-modal perspective to follow meaning across all modes of language and media, and a multi-scalar approach that ranges between databases and one-word slogans, the local and global, with examples from English, Chinese and Spanish. Social semiotics analyses twists and turns of meanings big and small in complex contexts. This book uses semiotic principles to build a powerful, flexible analytic toolkit which will be invaluable for students across the humanities and social sciences.

The ability to speak two or more languages is a common human experience, whether for children born into bilingual families, young people enrolled in foreign language classes, or mature and older adults learning and using more than one language to meet life's needs and desires. This Handbook offers a developmentally oriented and socially contextualized survey of research into individual bilingualism, comprising the learning, use and, as the case may be, unlearning of two or more spoken and signed languages and language varieties. A wide range of topics is covered, from ideologies, policy, the law, and economics, to exposure and input, language education, measurement of bilingual abilities, attrition and forgetting, and giftedness in bilinguals. Also explored are cross- and intra-disciplinary connections with psychology, clinical linguistics, second language acquisition, education, cognitive science, neurolinguistics, contact linguistics, and sign language research.

Sociolinguistic Styles presents a new and in-depth, historically rooted overview of the phenomenon of style-shifting in sociolinguistic variation. Written by an internationally acclaimed expert in the field, the text explores why, where and when it occurs. Full examination of the complex phenomenon of style-shifting in sociolinguistics, focusing on its nature and social motivations, as well as on the mechanisms for its usage and its effects In-depth, up-to-date critical overview of the different theoretical approaches accounting for stylistic variation, exploring their historical roots not only in sociolinguistics and stylistics or semiotics but also in classical fields such as rhetoric and oratory Coverage of a wide range of related concepts and issues, from the oldest Greek ethos and pathos or Roman elocutio and pronuntiatio to the contemporary enregisterment, stylisation, stance, or crossing Written by an academic who has been instrumental in developing theory in this area of sociolinguistics