George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
This second volume in honour of Michael Halliday contains three sections: The Design of Language, Text and Discourse and Exploring Language as Social Semiotic, and concludes with a recent interview conducted by Paul Thibault in which Halliday provides further insights in his theory of language. The essential design features of language are semantic, lexico-grammatical and phonological. Text for Halliday is a semantic unit expressed by the lexico-grammatical and phonological patterns in language. The papers in the first section study aspects of these three strata of language and the relation between them. The second section deals with units higher than the clause complex and the papers there attempt to integrate the analysis of the lexico-grammatical and phonological systems into higher level discourse units. The papers in the third section develop the notion of language as social semiotic which is central to Haliday’s model of language.
This volume highlights some of the main issues and questions surrounding the field of second language (L2) writing, and includes 14 chapters authored by contributors from a wide variety of geographical regions including, but not limited to, North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The authors are all experienced L2 writing researchers, and their contributions will enhance the reader’s understanding of issues related to L2 writing. Considering the breadth and the depth of the issues raised and discussed, the book will appeal to a wide readership, including postgraduate students of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Applied Linguistics (AL), and both early-career and experienced TESOL/AL researchers.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.
First published in 1966, this book is contributed to by authors who share an interest in the literary uses of language. The book gives a close analysis of the language of literature contributed to by critics and linguists, examining linguistic theory and poetry, and as part of this the rhythm and metre of English poetry is deconstructed. Language and its emotive structure is analysed, while the middle chapters of the book address the interaction of linguistic dimensions. Two medievalist scholars conclude the volume, giving a well-rounded examination to the broad and complex study of literary style in the English language. This book is suitable for students and scholars concerned with English literature and linguistics.
Essays are a major form of assessment in higher education today and this is a fact that causes some writers a great deal of anxiety. Fortunately, essay writing is a skill that can be learned, like any other. Through precise explanations, this fully updated edition of Writing Essays gives you the confidence to express yourself coherently and effectively. It demystifies the entire process of essay writing, helping you to become proficient and confident in every aspect. Writing Essays reveals the tricks of the trade, making your student life easier. You’ll learn how to impress tutors by discovering exactly what markers look for when they read your work. Using practical examples selected from real student assignments and tutor feedback, this book covers every aspect of composition, from introductions and conclusions, down to presentation and submission. It also advises you on stress-free methods of revision, helps with exam essays, explains the principles of effective secondary source management, and shows you how to engage meaningfully with other critics’ views. A new chapter will also guide you through the intricacies of the undergraduate dissertation. As a full-time university professor, Richard Marggraf Turley counsels students and assesses their work every day, helping him to recognise the challenges that they face. Accessible, concise and full of practical examples, Writing Essays is a response to these challenges and will be an invaluable companion for Humanities students who wish to improve their grades and become confident in the art of essay writing.
In their subject matter and in their theoretical orientation all the papers in this volume reflect the powerful influence of T. Givón. Most of them deal with questions of morphosyntactic typology, pragmatics, and grammaticalization theory. Many of them are directly based on extensive fieldwork on local languages of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Others are based on statistical analyses of extensive written and spoken corpora of texts.
This book investigates linguistic variation as a complex continuum of language use from standard to nonstandard. In our view, these notions can only be established through mutual definition, and they cannot exist without the opposite pole. What is considered standard English changes according to the approach at hand, and the nonstandard changes accordingly. This book offers an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to this central theme of wide interest.The articles approach writing in nonstandard language through various disciplines and methodologies: sociolinguistics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, dialectology, corpus linguistics, and ideological and political points of view. The theories and methods from these fields are applied to material that ranges from nonliterary writing to canonized authors. Dialects, regional varieties and worldwide Englishes are also addressed.