Showing titles in Linguistics

A New York Times bestseller One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power--and why we love them so much. Profanity has always been a deliciously vibrant part of...

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...

A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar. Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.

"Du côté de chez Swann" est à la fois l'ouverture de toute l'œuvre, et un roman complet, pourvu d'une conclusion, certes provisoire, mais dont la désillusion peut paraître, à qui ne lirait pas plus loin, le dernier mot de "La recherche".

‘Beautiful, thought-provoking, and compelling' SUSIE DENT 'An extremely moving, passionate plea' CAL FLYN ________________________________ As Sophia Smith Galer’s Nonna lay dying, she realised it wasn’t just a beloved grandmother she was losing – it was the language she spoke, too. From...

Machen's novella The Great God Pan is often cited as one of Lovecraft's most notable influences. In it, Dr. Raymond's ultimate goal is to devise a way to open the mind of man so that he may experience all the world has to offer. He calls this "seeing the great god Pan". After much study of the human mind, he devises an experiment that involves minor brain surgery. He performs this experiment on a young woman named Mary, but when she awakens she is terrified and mentally crippled.

Drawing on evidence from many fields, including archaeology, anthropology, neurology and linguistics, Sverker Johansson weaves these disparate threads together to show how our human ancestors evolved into language users. The Dawn of Language provides a fascinating survey of how grammar came into being and the differences or similarities between languages spoken around the world, before exploring how language eventually emerged in the very remote human past.

Brought to you by Penguin. Narrated by Kirsty King featuring the voices of Alix Dunmore, Sebastian Humphreys and Georgina Sadler. How can you tell if someone is lying to you? Is it possible to separate the truth from lies in what people say? And when should you trust what you hear? Everyone lies...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition if First You Write a Sentence by Joe Moran, read by Roy McMillan. The sentence is the common ground where every writer walks. A poet writes in sentences, but so does the unsung author who came up with Items trapped in doors cause delays. A good sentence can...

Follow the journey of Horace Holly and his ward, Leo Vincey, to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen named Ayesha who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World subgenre, which many later authors emulated.

This course offers an overview of the English language that is literary, historical, cultural, political, and scientific in its scope and designed to give you greater insight into the written and spoken word.The lectures provide a thorough understanding of the history of the English language - from its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span to the state of American speech today.

A bonzer (p. 288) discussion of the strange but dinkum (p. 289) pedigree (p. 224) of the naughty (p. 202), nice (p. 212), and, sometimes, obscene (p. 217) English language. We live in a torrent of words — from radio and television, books and newspapers, and now from the internet. But, as Julian Burnside reminds us in this new edition of the bestselling Wordwatching, words are a source both of pleasure and power, and can be deployed for good or for ill.

“So many people have written and claimed that their families were the original of the Forsytes,” wrote Galsworthy, “that one has almost been encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagine species.” It is the Spring of 1920, 34 years on from the beginning of the Saga. “Young Jolyon” is married to Irene after her divorce from Soames, and they now have a son, Jon. Soames has re-married and has a daughter, Fleur. A new generation of Forsytes comes of age and the Saga continues.

David Whyte's Consolations use everyday words to present us with a prism through which to better understand ourselves and the lives we walk through. At the request of readers globally, Whyte returns with fifty-two short, elegant meditations on a single word ranging from 'Anxiety' to 'Body', 'Freedom', 'Shame' and 'Moon'. He embraces their nuances, amplitudes and depths, and, in doing so, confronts realities that many of us would spend a lifetime trying senselessly to avoid.

'Ingenious… a glorious portrait of the great 15th-century prince of learning' Daily Telegraph 'A deeply fascinating, sui generis book by a brilliant scholar-writer, which uses the life story of a Renaissance prodigy to summon an angel-host of ideas, people and stories, all circling the...

When his ship is wrecked in a storm, Robinson Crusoe finds himself stranded on a desert island with no one to help him and no chance of rescue. Scared and alone, he tries to make a life for himself, building shelters, hunting food, taming animals, crafting boats, and making clothes. But just as his life appears to be settled, he sees someone else's footprint on the beach, and a different struggle for survival begins, this time against cannibals and pirates.

The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor, James Murray, devoted 36 years to the project, as far as the letter T. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By the time it was finished in 1928 its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from archaeologists and astronomers to murderers, naturists, novelists, pornographers, queer couples, suffragists, vicars and vegetarians.

The Napoleonic Wars are at their height, and upheaval and uncertainty plague British soil. In the midst of it all, the impoverished beauty Anne Garland finds herself at the center of a love quadrangle. She is torn between the persistent and annoying Festus Derryman, her womanizing childhood sweetheart Bob Loveday, and the reliable and thoughtful John Loveday, the eponymous Trumpet-Major. Who will she choose?

The Language Puzzle explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to our capabilities of today, with over 6000 languages in the world and each of us knowing over 50,000 words. Drawing on the latest discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and genetics, Steven Mithen reconstructs the steps by which language evolved; he explains how it transformed the nature of thought and culture, and how we talked our way out of the Stone Age into the world of farming and into today's Digital Age.

In The Gaeilge Guide, Mollie Guidera - Ireland's leading online Irish teacher and creator of the hit platform 'Irish with Mollie' - brings her joyful, down-to-earth approach to the page in a book guaranteed to spark your connection to the Irish language and legacy. Mollie shows us how to reconnect with our ancient and endangered language - and with ourselves - by demystifying the shame and frustration many still feel around Irish, and replacing it with a fun, accessible path back to the richness of our native tongue.