This classroom-tested volume aspires to be a brief but technically and factually accurate exposition of linguistic description and history. Whether studied as prime subject or as background information, it should help students understand the assumptions and reasoning that underlie the contents of their handbooks and etymological dictionaries.This book should be a useful guide for anyone unfamiliar with (historical) linguistics who is studying the history of a language, and also for those who are enrolled in courses devoted to reading texts in old languages.
This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations of modern linguistics. Some of today's burning questions about language date back a long way: in 1400 BC Plato was asking how words relate to reality. Other questions go back just a few generations, such as our interest in the mechanisms of language change, or in the social factors that shape the way we speak. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. A survey chapter brings the coverage of the book up to the present day. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources and the qualities the historian of linguistics needs to develop, provide the reader with the tools to go further.
A “monumental” account of the rise and fall of languages, with “many fresh insights, useful historical anecdotes, and charming linguistic oddities” (Chicago Tribune). Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world’s great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that bind communities together and make possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once “universal” languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet’s diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises. “Readers learn how languages ancient and modern spread and how they dwindle. . . . Few books bring more intellectual excitement to the study of language.” —Booklist (starred review) “Sparkles with arcane knowledge, shrewd perceptions, and fresh ideas…The sheer sweep of his analysis is breathtaking.” —Times Literary Supplement “Ambitious and accessible . . . Ostler stresses the role of culture, commerce and conquest in the rise and fall of languages, whether Spanish, Portuguese and French in the Americas or Dutch in Asia and Africa.” —Publishers Weekly “A marvelous book.” —National Review
This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Potsdam 2008) which are especially representative of the concerns of the conference and its thematic range. The reflection about language and the individual languages has characterized cultures since ancient times and has brought forth different traditions of the language sciences. The contributions cover the period from antiquity to contemporary history. In addition to terminological and social history approaches, they also include research results based on corpora or which reconstruct theoretical approaches. More than other scholars, linguists are turning to the history of their science for answers to current questions. This underscores the value of the history of language sciences for understanding the present state of linguistics and its development. Interdisciplinarity necessary for the research of many issues and manifestations of language makes historical reflections on the disciplines indispensable.
The second edition of this collection of 13 original papers contains an updated introductory section detailing the significance that the original articles published in 1992 have for the further development of research into linguistic politeness into the 21st century. The original articles focus on the phenomenon of politeness in language. They present the most important problems in developing a theory of linguistic politeness, which must deal with the crucial differences between lay notions of politeness in different cultures and the term 'politeness' as a concept within a theory of linguistic politeness. The universal validity of the term itself is called into question, as are models such as those developed by Brown and Levinson, Lakoff, and Leech. New approaches are suggested. In addition to this theoretical discussion, an empirical section presents a number of case studies and research projects in linguistic politeness. These show what has been achieved within current models and what still remains to be done, in particular with reference to cross-cultural studies in politeness and differences between a Western and a non-Western approach to the subject. The publication of this second edition demonstrates that the significance of the collection is just as salient in the first decade of the new millennium as it was at the beginning of the 1990s.
This book provides one perspective on how Applied Linguistics has been defined and how the field of Applied Linguistics has developed over the last 30 years. The author addresses themes like why formal linguistic theories lost so much ground and how the interest in more socially oriented approaches grew? He also addresses the impact of Applied Linguistics on language teaching. Adopting a theme-based approach, the structure of this book is largely defined by the topics covered in interviews with 40 leading international figures selected by the author including Rod Ellis, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Susan Gass, Henry Widdowson, Suresh Canagarajah and Claire Kramsch. These data are supplemented by questionnaires from a further fifty applied linguists, also selected by the author. This will be of interest to anyone studying or researching Applied Linguistics and will also be relevant to those in the related area of English Language Teaching.
Anthropology and linguistics, as historically developing disciplines, have had partly separate roots and traditions. In particular settings and in general, the two disciplines have partly shared, partly differed in the nature of their materials, their favorite types of problem the personalities of their dominant figures, their relations with other disciplines and intellectual current. The two disciplines have also varied in their interrelation with each other and the society about them. Institutional arrangements have reflected the varying degrees of kinship, kithship, and separation. Such relationships themselves form a topic that is central to a history of linguistic anthropology yet marginal to a self-contained history of linguistics or anthropology as either would be conceived by most authors. There exists not only a subject matter for a history of linguistic anthropology, but also a definite need.
