Consequences Of Language

Download or read book Consequences of Language written by N. J. Enfield and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it about humans that makes language possible, and what is it about language that makes us human? If you are reading this, you have done something that only our species has evolved to do. You have acquired a natural language. This book asks, How has this changed us? Where scholars have long wondered what it is about humans that makes language possible, N. J. Enfield and Jack Sidnell ask instead, What is it about humans that is made possible by language? In Consequences of Language their objective is to understand what modern language really is and to identify its logical and conceptual consequences for social life. Central to this undertaking is the concept of intersubjectivity, the open sharing of subjective experience. There is, Enfield and Sidnell contend, a uniquely human form of intersubjectivity, and it is essentially intertwined with language in two ways: a primary form of intersubjectivity was necessary for language to have begun evolving in our species in the first place and then language, through its defining reflexive properties, transformed the nature of our intersubjectivity. In the authors’ analysis, social accountability—the bedrock of society—is grounded in this linguistically transformed, enhanced kind of intersubjectivity. The account of the language-mind-society connection put forward in Consequences of Language is one of unprecedented reach, suggesting new connections across disciplines centrally concerned with language—from anthropology and philosophy to sociology and cognitive science—and among those who would understand the foundational role of language in making us human.

Download or read book Language Choices written by Martin Pütz and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume concerns various aspects of the theory and application of language conflict phenomena seen from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on linguistic, social, psychological and educational issues (conditions, constraints and consequences) involved in the status and use of languages in multilingual settings. The book is divided into four sections, which deal with: theoretical issues - such as the nature of the concepts of language maintenance; language policy and language planning; attitudes towards languages; and codeswitching and language choice.

Download or read book Investigating Obsolescence written by Nancy C. Dorian and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-09-03 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection will certainly stimulate further and better co-ordinated research into a topic of direct relevance to sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

Download or read book Language and Exclusion written by Ayọ Bamgboṣe and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language is a critical factor in nation-building, and in a continent such as Africa, where language groups do not necessarily correspond with national boundaries, it is potentially contentious as well. Ayo Bamgbose's new book focuses on the problem of language exclusion, whereby certain languages -- and groups -- are omitted from language policies, particularly in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Originally based on a series of lectures given in South Africa, the individual chapters largely preserve the original style of presentation. Consequently, the book is readable, and a valuable introduction to some of the more important issues in African sociolinguistics. The book makes special reference to the language situation in post-apartheid South Africa. The appendices provide access to some of the most important documents on language policies such as the Organization of African Unity's Language Plan of Action For Africa (1986), the language provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of South Africa (1996), and the Barcelona Universal Declaration on Linguistics Rights.

Download or read book Language vs. Reality written by N.J. Enfield and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention. Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts of experience. Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), why it can be dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, and why it deserves our deepest respect. Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.

Download or read book Consequences of Contact written by Miki Makihara and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-27 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pacific is historically an area of enormous linguistic diversity, where talk figures as a central component of social life. Pacific communities also represent diverse contact zones, where between indigenous and introduced institutions and ideas; between local actors and outsiders; and involving different lingua franca, colonial, and local language varieties. Contact between colonial and post-colonial governments, religious institutions, and indigenous communities has spurred profound social change, irrevocably transforming linguistic ideologies and practices. Drawing on ethnographic and linguistic analyses, this edited volume examines situations of intertwined linguistic and cultural change unfolding in specific Pacific locations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Its overarching concern is with the multiple ways that processes of historical change have shaped and been shaped by linguistic ideologies reflexive sensibilities about languages and language useheld by Pacific peoples and other agents of change. The essays demonstrate that language and linguistic practices are linked to changing consciousness of self and community through notions of agency, morality, affect, authority, and authenticity. In times of cultural contact, communities often experience language change at an accelerated rate. This is particularly so in small-scale communities where innovations and continuity routinely depend on the imagination, creativity, and charisma of fewer individuals. The essays in this volume provide evidence of this potential and a record of their voices, as they document new types of local actors, e.g., pastors, Bible translators, teachers, political activists, spirit mediums, and tour guides, some of whom introduce, innovate, legitimate, or resist new ideas and ways to express them through language. Drawing on and transforming metalinguistic concepts, local actors (re)shape language, reproducing and changing the communicative economy. In the process, they cultivate new cultural conceptions of language, for example, as a medium for communicating religious knowledge and political authority, and for constructing social boundaries and transforming relationships of domination.

Download or read book Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development written by Eric Amsel and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text's goal is to go beyond traditional accounts of human symbol skills to examine the development and consequences of symbolic communication. The editors explore the significance of communicationg symbolically as a means for understanding human symbol skills.