Download Free Myth And Language Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Myth And Language and write the review.

A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining English; Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Anymore; America is Ruining the English Language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury andThe Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.
In this important study, Cassirer analyzes the non-rational thought processes that go to make up culture. Includes studies of the metaphysics of the Bhagavat Gita, Ancient Egyptian religion, symbolic logic, and more.
Drawing on cutting-edge research, Evans presents an alternative to the received wisdom, showing how language and the mind really work.
This volume was conceived as a first book in SLA for advanced undergraduate or introductory master’s courses that include education majors, foreign language education majors, and English majors. It’s also an excellent resource for practicing teachers. Both the research and pedagogy in this book are based on the newest research in the field of second language acquisition. It is not the goal of this book to address every SLA theory or teach research methodology. It does however address the myths and questions that non-specialist teacher candidates have about language learning. Steven Brown is the co-author of the introductory applied linguistics textbook Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation textbook (and workbook). The myths challenged in this book are: § Children learn languages quickly and easily while adults are ineffective in comparison. § A true bilingual is someone who speaks two languages perfectly. § You can acquire a language simply through listening or reading. § Practice makes perfect. § Language students learn (and retain) what they are taught. § Language learners always benefit from correction. § Individual differences are a major, perhaps the major, factor in SLA. § Language acquisition is the individual acquisition of grammar.
A detailed look at language-related myths that explores both what we know and how we know it.
The basic claim of this book is that for 2000 years and more the western tradition has relied on two very dubious assumptions about human communication: that each national language is a unique code and that linguistic communication consists in the utilization of such codes to transfer messages from mind to mind.
Language Myths and the History of English deconstructs common myths about the historical development of English and looks at the ideological reasons for their existence.
A linguist’s entertaining and highly informed guide to what languages are and how they function. Think you know language? Think again. There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present. The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents. Swear words are produced in a special part of your brain. Over the past few decades, we have reached new frontiers of linguistic knowledge. Linguists can now explain how and why language changes, describe its structures, and map its activity in the brain. But despite these advances, much of what people believe about language is based on folklore, instinct, or hearsay. We imagine a word’s origin is it’s “true” meaning, that foreign languages are full of “untranslatable” words, or that grammatical mistakes undermine English. In Don’t Believe A Word, linguist David Shariatmadari takes us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, urging us to abandon our prejudices in a bid to uncover the (far more interesting) truth about what we do with words. Exploding nine widely held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics, Shariatmadari is an energetic guide to the beauty and quirkiness of humanity’s greatest achievement.
Do you "know" that posh comes from an acronym meaning "port out, starboard home"? That "the whole nine yards" comes from (pick one) the length of a WWII gunner's belt; the amount of fabric needed to make a kilt; a sarcastic football expression? That Chicago is called "The Windy City" because of the bloviating habits of its politicians, and not the breeze off the lake? If so, you need this book. David Wilton debunks the most persistently wrong word histories, and gives, to the best of our actual knowledge, the real stories behind these perennially mis-etymologized words. In addition, he explains why these wrong stories are created, disseminated, and persist, even after being corrected time and time again. What makes us cling to these stories, when the truth behind these words and phrases is available, for the most part, at any library or on the Internet? Arranged by chapters, this book avoids a dry A-Z format. Chapters separate misetymologies by kind, including The Perils of Political Correctness (picnics have nothing to do with lynchings), Posh, Phat Pommies (the problems of bacronyming--the desire to make every word into an acronym), and CANOE (which stands for the Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything). Word Myths corrects long-held and far-flung examples of wrong etymologies, without taking the fun out of etymology itself. It's the best of both worlds: not only do you learn the many wrong stories behind these words, you also learn why and how they are created--and what the real story is.