Showing titles in Linguistics

Brought to you by Penguin. How do two languages co-exist in the same brain? Why is it possible to forget a language? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? Over half of the world's population is bilingual and yet this fascinating, complex ability is understood by few. In The...

First published in 1766 and a perennial favorite since then, The Vicar of Wakefield is built around the naïve but loveable figure of Dr Primrose. He and his family live in rural bliss until disaster threatens to destroy their happiness: abduction, impoverishment and betrayal combine to lay them low, but a surprising figure brings hope when all seems lost.

This delightful sequel to Webster's Daddy Long-Legs centers on socialite Sallie McBride, who reluctantly agrees to become director of an orphan asylum. The asylum's benefactors, her friends Judy and Jervis Pendleton, insist she is just the person to institute the sweeping reforms the institution needs. The exuberant Sallie soon begins ruffling feathers of the staff, filling the children's lives with hope and love, and locking horns with the new Scotch doctor, the Dear Enemy of the title.

Since dyslexia was first described in the British Medical Journal in 1896, there has been debate about the definitions and diagnostic procedures used, with some casting doubt on its very existence. However, there is now a considerable body of research regarding the nature and characteristics of this relatively common learning disorder. The contemporary view of dyslexia has emerged from a century of research in medicine, psychology, and more recently, neuroscience, and we now understand enough about this learning disorder to guide policy and practice.

From the whistling languages of La Gomera in the Canary Islands and the Hmong people in East and Southeast Asia, to the wars and clashes in Sri Lanka and the conservation efforts in Hawaii and New Zealand, Rare Tongues draws attention to how language and culture are becoming increasingly homogenous, and what we risk losing as a result.

A fun, smart and surprising dive into the past, present and future of accents – and the enduring power of sounding different Accents have long held our fascination. As far back as the 7th century BCE, Egyptian pharaohs experimented with babies to test out theories about the “original”...

An insider’s tour through the construction of invented languages from the bestselling author and creator of languages for Legendary's Dune, the HBO series Game of Thrones and the Syfy series Defiance From master language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative guide to language construction...

Brought to you by Penguin. Literacy. Numeracy. Oracy? For generations our education system has been built on the twin pillars of literacy and numeracy. But what if a third – and equally vital – pillar has been ignored? Enter oracy: communicating effectively, articulating ideas and engaging...

If you had been a court poet during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, irritating the megalomaniac ruler would not have been wise. And one of the things which would have really angered Nero would have been the effort to write an epic poem about the struggle between Pompey and Caesar in which the noble hero (portrayed by Pompey) was the man who fought to preserve the Republic, and the selfish villain (portrayed by Caesar), the man who destroyed it. Yet Lucan wrote just such a poem.

An urgent, globe-spanning exploration of languages at risk, from Kichwa to Ukrainian, that asks: What do we lose—culturally, politically, and personally—when a language is silenced? “A vivid, hopeful portrait of how people around the world are staying connected to their linguistic roots...

Brought to you by Penguin. In Future Words, Dominique Chen invites readers into a life shaped by multiple languages, cultures and disciplines. Born in Tokyo, Chen grew up moving between Japan, France and the United States, speaking several languages in overlapping ways. Here his journey – from...

Brought to you by Penguin. A new collection of literary criticism and brilliant insights from one of the giants of contemporary thinking Who owns language? In Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas, Ngugi wa Thiong’o presents a series of essays that build on his vast wealth of...

How to Do Discourse Analysis provides a comprehensive toolkit for conducting discourse analysis, offering twenty-six practical tools to examine how language is used to construct meaning, enact identities, and shape social realities. Written by renowned linguist James Paul Gee, it introduces key concepts like situated meanings, social languages, and discourses, showing how language both reflects and creates social contexts.

In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo...

George Horace Lorimer is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post, where he was credited with promoting and discovering authors like Jack London. Lorimer compiled his life advice into the fictional letters from John "Old Gorgon" Graham to his son Pierrepont. John Graham is a Chicago-based pork and finance baron. In the letters Pierrepont receives advice for his different stages of life. Old Gorgon's advice is packed throughout the book, easy to understand, and still rings true today.

Here is the remarkable story of how this humble language took vigorous root in Eastern European shtetls and in the Jewish quarters of cities across Europe; how it achieved a rich literary flowering between the wars in Europe and America; how it was rejected by emancipated Jews; and how it fell victim to the Holocaust. And also how, in yet another twist of destiny, Yiddish today is becoming the darling of academia. Yiddish is a history as story; a tale of flesh-and-blood people with manic humor.

In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.

Nearly everyone swears - whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies, and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.

For high-beginner to low-intermediate learners. Master tricky Spanish irregular verbs in the next 30 days, with this innovative, story-based immersion method. Just listen to one section per day, complete the exercises, and watch as irregular verbs fall into place and improve your speech without a hitch! With 30-Day Mastery: Invincible Irregular Verbs you'll learn through example and context, just like native speakers do! The magic of learning through story is that your main focus is actually not on memorising anything...you concentrate on understanding and enjoying the story!

The story chronicles the class movement of the time and gives us a remarkable description of social, political and industrial change. Set in Gloucestershire in the heart of England and told by Phineas, his soul mate and lifelong friend, who observes John through all his glorious moments, self-doubt and resolution, the story is simple, uplifting and heroic. It is a detailed study of a man and his family that also presents the listener with a broad view of Britain during one of its most troubled times.