This book contributes to the literature of interlanguage pragmatics by building an interface between researching and teaching speech acts in the Chinese context. It is written for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers and readers who are interested in interlanguage pragmatics research, acquisition and teaching, with particular reference to speech acts performed by Chinese learners of English, and their relationships with the learners' first language and cultural concepts. It provides a more advanced understanding of the production and development of speech acts of Chinese learners of English from the cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, L1 and L2 developmental perspectives, drawing on relevant second language acquisition theoretical frameworks. It also recommends research-informed pedagogies that are applicable to other learners of English.

Communication and Language play a foundational role in the overall pursuit of equity and social justice in education. This volume does not take up the majority and dominant views which are especially visible in developments in the field of linguistic education and English language instruction. Rather, it travels the path less followed, to attend to the language and communication concerns of populations that possess little political and economic power and whose academic and social needs are often neglected. The volume attends to the role of language acquisition in "levelling the playing field" to enable ALL students to develop into contented family members, good neighbours, and productive citizens in an increasingly diverse and global society. The issue takes on far greater importance, as it gradually comes to light that the capacity for language corresponds to and even implements the ability to interrelate with others. Far from being a mere utilitarian tool this is now appreciated as constituting the realm of abilities to take the position of the other, to share a field of meaning, and to project and pursue truly humane and indeed inter-humane attitudes and goals. In this light communication and language, whether verbal or preverbal, constitute the field in which one first attains and progressively evolves one's humanity. In this volume scholars from ten different countries examine issues related to the influence of language and communication patterns on equity and social justice in the lives of disadvantaged and marginalized populations around the globe (i.e., educational opportunities, community stability, economic prospects, and political power). Critical issues addressed include: education in traditional, national, or Western languages; language integration through dialects and code switching; non-verbal academic engagement through art, signing, and photography; cross-cultural engagement through language equity in higher education; and the influence of Western language acquisition on the self-concepts of disadvantaged students. As the succession of sections in this volume makes clear, success in the realization of language and communication abilities is not simple. Rather it reflects human life and interaction in all its complexity.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

"Lee's book is a compelling and well-informed analysis of the issues raised when courts confront questions of reasonableness in high-profile, headline-grabbing cases."
-- "Choice"

"Lee challenges readers to question the concept of 'reasonableness' and how it has been applied. . . Scholars, students, professionals and the educated public will appreciate the careful, well-documented argument and pertinent examples."
--"Library Journal"

"Ms. Lee offers an extended argument for reforming the provocation doctrine by requiring judges and jurors to reflect more carefully about the reasonableness of the defendant's behavior."
--"The Chronicle of Higher Education"

aEven readers who do not view Leeas recommendations through a theoretical lens will be drawn to Leeas suggestions as practical solutions to the complicated social norms problem she has identified."
--"Michigan Law Review"

"Provocative and persuasive. In this well-written and meticulously documented book, Cynthia Lee demonstrates how the law has defined 'reasonableness' in criminal law to favor men against women, straight men against gay men, and whites against blacks. Lee's synthesis of many seemingly different examples, with thoughtful responses to the various objections that might be raised, is legal scholarship that can make a difference in our social practices. This is a serious and compelling book that should lead to reform."
--Frank H. Wu, author of "Yellow: Race in America beyond Black and White"

A man murders his wife after she has admitted her infidelity; another man kills an openly gay teammate after receiving a massage; a third man, white, goes for a jog in a "bad" neighborhood, carrying a pistol, and shoots an African American teenager who had his hands in his pockets. When brought before the criminal justice system, all three men argue that they should be found "not guilty"; the first two use the defense of provocation, while the third argues he used his gun in self-defense.

Drawing upon these and similar cases, Cynthia Lee shows how two well-established, traditional criminal law defenses--the doctrines of provocation and self-defense--enable majority-culture defendants to justify their acts of violence. While the reasonableness requirement, inherent in both defenses, is designed to allow community input and provide greater flexibility in legal decision-making, the requirement also allows majority-culture defendants to rely on dominant social norms, such as masculinity, heterosexuality, and race (i.e., racial stereotypes), to bolster their claims of reasonableness. At the same time, Lee examines other cases that demonstrate that the reasonableness requirement tends to exclude the perspectives of minorities, such as heterosexual women, gays and lesbians, and persons of color.

Murder and the Reasonable Man not only shows how largely invisible social norms and beliefs influence the outcomes of certain criminal cases, but goes further, suggesting three tentative legal reforms to address problems of bias and undue leniency. Ultimately, Lee cautions that the true solution lies in a change in social attitudes.

This edited collection addresses the link between second language pragmatics (including interlanguage and intercultural) research and English language education. The chapters use different contemporary research methods and theoretical frameworks such as conversation analysis, language-learners-as-ethnographers, discourse and interactional approaches and data in contexts (either in the region or overseas). The content explores and discusses the significance of learning and teaching of second language (L2) pragmatics in language education for learners who use English as a lingua franca for academic and intercultural communication purposes with native and non-native speakers of English, focusing on pragmatic actions, social behaviours, perceptions and awareness levels in three regions in East Asia - China, Japan and South Korea. It is an important contribution to the area of second language pragmatics in language education for East Asian learners. It recommends research-informed pedagogies for the learning and teaching of interlanguage or intercultural pragmatics in regions and places where similar cultural beliefs or practices are found. This is an essential read for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers, readers who are interested in second language pragmatics research and those interested in second language acquisition and English language education in the East Asian context.

A comprehensive guide to Russian-language instruction combining the latest research, pedagogy, and practice. The Art of Teaching Russian offers practitioners current research, pedagogical thinking, and specific methodologies for teaching the Russian language and culture in the twenty-first century. With contributions from the leading professionals in the field, this collection covers the most important aspects of teaching the Russian language. The book begins with an overview of the past and current trends in foreign language education and in Russian instruction in the United States. Other topics include the effects of ACTFL's World-Readiness Standards on the field; different pedagogical approaches to teaching at various levels of proficiency; curriculum and materials development; and teaching Russian culture to develop students' intercultural competence. The collection concludes with a discussion on how to use technology in the Russian-language classroom to enhance students' learning. The Art of Teaching Russian includes practical approaches for successful teaching, supported by original research. Teachers and graduate students will rely upon this collection to enhance their instruction.

Katona has compiled a complete handbook for general students and readers of literature. Developed out of a thirty-one year career of teaching Introduction to Literature to community college freshmen, this book aims not just to teach how to read literature, but how to actually enjoy it. Beginning with the state of reading in America, Katona gives eleven good reasons to make reading a regular part of life, and supplies an annotated list of tried and true page-turners. Besides giving the standard bibliographical information (i.e. title, author, number of pages, and date), the annotated book list gives the book's genre, its level of challenge, a brief synopsis, quotations showing off the writer's style, reading hints, other works by the author, and finally the book's movie counterparts. From seasoned lovers of literature to newcomers to the reading addiction, Katona's accessible style makes this book appealing to a wide audience. Book Savvy will serve as an effective guide for the burgeoning book club community as well as a welcome tool for literature teachers struggling to spark the interest of their students.

From divorce court to popular culture, alimony is a dirty word. Unpopular and rarely ordered, the awards are frequently inconsistent and unpredictable. The institution itself is often viewed as an historical relic that harkens back to a gendered past in which women lacked the economic independence to free themselves from economic support by their spouses. In short, critics of alimony claim it has no place in contemporary visions of marriage as a partnership of equals. But as Cynthia Lee Starnes argues in The Marriage Buyout, alimony is often the only practical tool for ensuring that divorce does not treat today's primary caregivers as if they were suckers. Her solution is to radically reconceptualize alimony as a marriage buyout. Starnes's buyouts draw on a partnership model of marriage that reinforces communal norms of marriage, providing a gender-neutral alternative to alimony that assumes equality in spousal contribution, responsibility, and right. Her quantification formulae support new default rules that make buyouts more certain and predictable than their current alimony counterparts. Looking beyond alimony, Starnes outlines a new vision of marriages with children, describing a co-parenting partnership between committed couples, and the conceptual basis for income sharing between divorced parents of minor children. Ultimately, under a partnership model, the focus of alimony is on gain rather than loss and equality rather than power: a spouse with disparately low earnings isn't a sucker or a victim dependent on a fixed alimony payment, but rather an equal stakeholder in marriage who is entitled at divorce to share any gains the marriage produced.

This edited collection addresses the link between second language pragmatics (including interlanguage and intercultural) research and English language education. The chapters use different contemporary research methods and theoretical frameworks such as conversation analysis, language-learners-as-ethnographers, discourse and interactional approaches and data in contexts (either in the region or overseas). The content explores and discusses the significance of learning and teaching of second language (L2) pragmatics in language education for learners who use English as a lingua franca for academic and intercultural communication purposes with native and non-native speakers of English, focusing on pragmatic actions, social behaviours, perceptions and awareness levels in three regions in East Asia - China, Japan and South Korea. It is an important contribution to the area of second language pragmatics in language education for East Asian learners. It recommends research-informed pedagogies for the learning and teaching of interlanguage or intercultural pragmatics in regions and places where similar cultural beliefs or practices are found. This is an essential read for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers, readers who are interested in second language pragmatics research and those interested in second language acquisition and English language education in the East Asian context.

This innovative book examines the relationship between foreign (L2) language acquisition and task-based learning from an output perspective, with a concentration on the learner's discourse and retrospection. Author Cynthia Lee explores this issue in an experimental context; with particular reference to Hong Kong Chinese tertiary learners of English. Lee's study contributes to research on L2 acquisition and casts light on task-based learning and pedagogy in Hong Kong classrooms and beyond. English language teaching practitioners, researchers, and applied linguists will find special value in this book.

A comprehensive guide to Russian-language instruction combining the latest research, pedagogy, and practice. The Art of Teaching Russian offers practitioners current research, pedagogical thinking, and specific methodologies for teaching the Russian language and culture in the twenty-first century. With contributions from the leading professionals in the field, this collection covers the most important aspects of teaching the Russian language. The book begins with an overview of the past and current trends in foreign language education and in Russian instruction in the United States. Other topics include the effects of ACTFL's World-Readiness Standards on the field; different pedagogical approaches to teaching at various levels of proficiency; curriculum and materials development; and teaching Russian culture to develop students' intercultural competence. The collection concludes with a discussion on how to use technology in the Russian-language classroom to enhance students' learning. The Art of Teaching Russian includes practical approaches for successful teaching, supported by original research. Teachers and graduate students will rely upon this collection to enhance their instruction.

This book contributes to the literature of interlanguage pragmatics by building an interface between researching and teaching speech acts in the Chinese context. It is written for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers and readers who are interested in interlanguage pragmatics research, acquisition and teaching, with particular reference to speech acts performed by Chinese learners of English, and their relationships with the learners' first language and cultural concepts. It provides a more advanced understanding of the production and development of speech acts of Chinese learners of English from the cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, L1 and L2 developmental perspectives, drawing on relevant second language acquisition theoretical frameworks. It also recommends research-informed pedagogies that are applicable to other learners of English.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

"Lee's book is a compelling and well-informed analysis of the issues raised when courts confront questions of reasonableness in high-profile, headline-grabbing cases."
-- "Choice"

"Lee challenges readers to question the concept of 'reasonableness' and how it has been applied. . . Scholars, students, professionals and the educated public will appreciate the careful, well-documented argument and pertinent examples."
--"Library Journal"

"Ms. Lee offers an extended argument for reforming the provocation doctrine by requiring judges and jurors to reflect more carefully about the reasonableness of the defendant's behavior."
--"The Chronicle of Higher Education"

aEven readers who do not view Leeas recommendations through a theoretical lens will be drawn to Leeas suggestions as practical solutions to the complicated social norms problem she has identified."
--"Michigan Law Review"

"Provocative and persuasive. In this well-written and meticulously documented book, Cynthia Lee demonstrates how the law has defined 'reasonableness' in criminal law to favor men against women, straight men against gay men, and whites against blacks. Lee's synthesis of many seemingly different examples, with thoughtful responses to the various objections that might be raised, is legal scholarship that can make a difference in our social practices. This is a serious and compelling book that should lead to reform."
--Frank H. Wu, author of "Yellow: Race in America beyond Black and White"

A man murders his wife after she has admitted her infidelity; another man kills an openly gay teammate after receiving a massage; a third man, white, goes for a jog in a "bad" neighborhood, carrying a pistol, and shoots an African American teenager who had his hands in his pockets. When brought before the criminal justice system, all three men argue that they should be found "not guilty"; the first two use the defense of provocation, while the third argues he used his gun in self-defense.

Drawing upon these and similar cases, Cynthia Lee shows how two well-established, traditional criminal law defenses--the doctrines of provocation and self-defense--enable majority-culture defendants to justify their acts of violence. While the reasonableness requirement, inherent in both defenses, is designed to allow community input and provide greater flexibility in legal decision-making, the requirement also allows majority-culture defendants to rely on dominant social norms, such as masculinity, heterosexuality, and race (i.e., racial stereotypes), to bolster their claims of reasonableness. At the same time, Lee examines other cases that demonstrate that the reasonableness requirement tends to exclude the perspectives of minorities, such as heterosexual women, gays and lesbians, and persons of color.

Murder and the Reasonable Man not only shows how largely invisible social norms and beliefs influence the outcomes of certain criminal cases, but goes further, suggesting three tentative legal reforms to address problems of bias and undue leniency. Ultimately, Lee cautions that the true solution lies in a change in social attitudes.