Dwight Bolinger

Language - The Loaded Weapon (eBook, PDF)

The Use and Abuse of Language Today

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Today there is a reawakening interest in how language affects our lives. It comes with every threat to our safety and every promise of better times. It is a burning issue among minorities and a running debate between the attackers and defenders of our schools. Our deepest problems all are entangled with it: What shall be the official speech of emerging nations like Zambia and the Philippines, or even in certain areas of established ones like Belgium and Canada? What kind of English should be taught, or should there be no standard at all? How is government to make its regulations understandable? What are the verbal persuasions of television doing to our children? Which way does information flow, what are its biases, when does it inform and when conceal, and who benefits? Are the people who consider themselves experts in these matters as expert as they pretend to be? We feel adrift in a sea of words, and would welcome and a chart and a compass.



Language âEUR" The Loaded Weapon offers a glimpse of what the recent study of language is beginning to tell us about these things. It explains in simple terms the essentials of linguistic form and meaning, and applies them to illuminate questions of correctness, truth, class and dialect, manipulation through advertising and propaganda, sexual and other discrimination, official obfuscation and the maintenance of power, and âEUR" most pervasive of all âEUR" language as the vital agent with which we build our worlds. Explaining language has been Dwight BolingerâEUR(TM)s life work, and as his invigorating new book amply shows he believes that what is true and important can also be made clear and pleasurable.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, BG, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, HR, H, IRL, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 11. Juni 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781317887874
• Artikelnr.: 41067020

Autorenporträt

Dwight Bolinger (1907-1992) was Emeritus Professor of Romance Languages and Literature at Harvard University (1973-1992) and Visiting Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, Stanford University (1978-1992).

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgements; Preface; Foreword to the Classic Edition; 1. Lo the
shaman 2. The nonverbal womb 3. Signs and symbols 4. Above the word 5.
Appointment in Babylon 6. Stigma, status, and standard 7. We reduced the
size because we didn't want to increase the price 8. Guns don't kill
people, people kill people 9. A case in point: sexism 10. Power and
deception 11. Another case in point: the jargonauts and the not-so-golden
fleece 12. Rival metaphors and the confection of reality 13. A last case in
point: bluenoses and coffin nails 14. School for shamans 15. An ecology of
language; Notes to chapters; Further reading; Index