Understanding Language
Author: Donald Fairbairn
Publisher: CUA Press
Published: 2011-07-20
Total Pages: 216
ISBN-13: 0813218667
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUnderstanding Language includes major sections on the noun and verb systems of the classical languages.
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Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
Author: Kat— Lomb
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2008-01-01
Total Pages: 220
ISBN-13: 1606437062
DOWNLOAD EBOOKKAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.
Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation
Author: John M. Levis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-10-04
Total Pages: 319
ISBN-13: 1108416624
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn intelligibility-based approach to teaching that presents pronunciation as critical, yet neglected, in communicative language teaching.
The Language Game
Author: Morten H. Christiansen
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2022-02-22
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 1541674979
DOWNLOAD EBOOKForget the language instinct—this is the story of how we make up language as we go Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity—and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.
Dialect
Author: Hakan Seyalioglu
Publisher:
Published: 2018-07
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9780999870013
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPragmatics and Natural Language Understanding
Author: Georgia M. Green
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-11-12
Total Pages: 203
ISBN-13: 1136492828
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book differs from other introductions to pragmatics in approaching the problems of interpreting language use in terms of interpersonal modelling of beliefs and intentions. It is intended to make issues involved in language understanding, such as speech, text, and discourse, accessible to the widest group possible -- not just specialists in linguistics or communication theorists -- but all scholars and researchers whose enterprises depend on having a useful model of how communicative agents understand utterances and expect their own utterances to be understood. Based on feedback from readers over the past seven years, explanations in every chapter have been improved and updated in this thoroughly revised version of the original text published in 1989. The most extensive revisions concern the relevance of technical notions of mutual and normal belief, and the futility of using the notion 'null context' to describe meaning. In addition, the discussion of implicature now includes an extended explication of "Grice's Cooperative Principle" which attempts to put it in the context of his theory of meaning and rationality, and to preclude misinterpretations which it has suffered over the past 20 years. The revised chapter exploits the notion of normal belief to improve the account of conversational implicature.
You Just Don't Understand
Author: Deborah Tannen
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2013-04-23
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 0062210092
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom the author of New York Times bestseller You're Wearing That? this bestselling classic work draws upon groundbreaking research by an acclaimed sociolinguist to show that women and men live in different worlds, made of different words. Women and men live in different worlds...made of different words. Spending nearly four years on the New York Times bestseller list, including eight months at number one, You Just Don't Understand is a true cultural and intellectual phenomenon. This is the book that brought gender differences in ways of speaking to the forefront of public awareness. With a rare combination of scientific insight and delightful, humorous writing, Tannen shows why women and men can walk away from the same conversation with completely different impressions of what was said. Studded with lively and entertaining examples of real conversations, this book gives you the tools to understand what went wrong -- and to find a common language in which to strengthen relationships at work and at home. A classic in the field of interpersonal relations, this book will change forever the way you approach conversations.
A Principled Approach to Language Assessment
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2020-09-19
Total Pages: 113
ISBN-13: 0309675480
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe United States is formally represented around the world by approximately 14,000 Foreign Service officers and other personnel in the U.S. Department of State. Roughly one-third of them are required to be proficient in the local languages of the countries to which they are posted. To achieve this language proficiency for its staff, the State Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) provides intensive language instruction and assesses the proficiency of personnel before they are posted to a foreign country. The requirement for language proficiency is established in law and is incorporated in personnel decisions related to job placement, promotion, retention, and pay. A Principled Approach to Language Assessment: Considerations for the U.S. Foreign Service Institute evaluates the different approaches that exist to assess foreign language proficiency that FSI could potentially use. This report considers the key assessment approaches in the research literature that are appropriate for language testing, including, but not limited to, assessments that use task-based or performance-based approaches, adaptive online test administration, and portfolios.
Understanding Second Language Acquisition
Author: Lourdes Ortega
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-02-04
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 144411705X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language Acquisition offers a wide-encompassing survey of this burgeoning field, its accumulated findings and proposed theories, its developed research paradigms, and its pending questions for the future. The book zooms in and out of universal, individual, and social forces, in each case evaluating the research findings that have been generated across diverse naturalistic and formal contexts for second language acquisition. It assumes no background in SLA and provides helpful chapter-by-chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal as a textbook for students of applied linguistics, foreign language education, TESOL, and education, it is also recommended for students of linguistics, developmental psycholinguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Supporting resources for tutors are available free at www.routledge.com/ortega.
The Way of the Linguist
Author: Steve Kaufmann
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2005-11
Total Pages: 142
ISBN-13: 1420873296
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.
