Language Interrupted

Download or read book Language Interrupted written by John McWhorter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-18 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreigners often say that English language is "easy." A language like Spanish is challenging in its variety of verb endings (the verb speak is conjugated hablo, hablas, hablamos), and gender for nouns, whereas English is more straight forward (I speak, you speak, we speak). But linguists generally swat down claims that certain languages are "easier" than others, since it is assumed all languages are complex to the same degree. For example, they will point to English's use of the word "do" -- Do you know French? This usage is counter-intuitive and difficult for non-native speakers. Linguist John McWhorter agrees that all languages are complex, but questions whether or not they are all equally complex. The topic of complexity has become a hot issue in recent years, particularly in creole studies, historical linguistics, and language contact. As McWhorter describes, when languages came into contact over the years (when French speakers ruled the English for a few centuries, or the vikings invaded England), a large number of speakers are forced to learn a new language quickly, and this came up with a simplified version, a pidgin. When this ultimately turns into a "real" language, a creole, the result is still simpler and less complex than a "non-interrupted" language that has been around for a long time. McWhorter makes the case that this kind of simplification happens in degrees, and criticizes linguists who are reluctant to say that, for example, English is simply simpler than Spanish for socio-historical reasons. He analyzes how various languages that seem simple but are not creoles, actually are simpler than they would be if they had not been broken down by large numbers of adult learners. In addition to English, he looks at Mandarin Chinese, Persian, Malay, and some Arabic varieties. His work will interest not just experts in creole studies and historical linguistics, but the wider community interested in language complexity.

Download or read book Language Interrupted written by John McWhorter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-18 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreigners often say that English language is "easy." A language like Spanish is challenging in its variety of verb endings (the verb speak is conjugated hablo, hablas, hablamos), and gender for nouns, whereas English is more straight forward (I speak, you speak, we speak). But linguists generally swat down claims that certain languages are "easier" than others, since it is assumed all languages are complex to the same degree. For example, they will point to English's use of the word "do" -- Do you know French? This usage is counter-intuitive and difficult for non-native speakers. Linguist John McWhorter agrees that all languages are complex, but questions whether or not they are all equally complex. The topic of complexity has become a hot issue in recent years, particularly in creole studies, historical linguistics, and language contact. As McWhorter describes, when languages came into contact over the years (when French speakers ruled the English for a few centuries, or the vikings invaded England), a large number of speakers are forced to learn a new language quickly, and this came up with a simplified version, a pidgin. When this ultimately turns into a "real" language, a creole, the result is still simpler and less complex than a "non-interrupted" language that has been around for a long time. McWhorter makes the case that this kind of simplification happens in degrees, and criticizes linguists who are reluctant to say that, for example, English is simply simpler than Spanish for socio-historical reasons. He analyzes how various languages that seem simple but are not creoles, actually are simpler than they would be if they had not been broken down by large numbers of adult learners. In addition to English, he looks at Mandarin Chinese, Persian, Malay, and some Arabic varieties. His work will interest not just experts in creole studies and historical linguistics, but the wider community interested in language complexity.

Download or read book Native Speakers, Interrupted written by Silvina Montrul and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heritage language is the term given to a language spoken at home by bilingual children of immigrant parents. Written by a leading figure in the field, this pioneering, in-depth study brings together three heritage languages – Hindu, Spanish and Romanian - spoken in the United States. It demonstrates how heritage speakers drive morphosyntactic change when certain environmental characteristics are met, and considers the relationship between social and cognitive factors and timing in language acquisition, bilingualism, and language change. It also discusses the implications of the findings for the language education of heritage speakers in the USA and considers how the heritage language can be maintained in the English-speaking school system. Advancing our understanding of heritage language development and change, this book is essential reading for students and researchers of linguistics and multilingualism, immigration, education studies and language policy, as well as educators and policy makers.

Download or read book Students With Interrupted Formal Education written by Brenda Custodio and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New hope for our most vulnerable English learners “One of the guiding principles of effective English language teaching is for educators to know their students. And that in a nutshell captures the value of this book. . . . The compassion that Custodio and O’Loughlin feel for our SIFE students, the commitment they have to educating them well, and the comprehension they have of the assets these learners bring to the classroom are evident in the writing, tools, and vignettes they share.” -Deborah J. Short Under the best of circumstances, the academic demands of today’s classrooms can be daunting to our English learners. But for the tens of thousands of newly arrived students with interrupted formal education, even the social challenges can be outright overwhelming. Rely on this all-in-one guide from Brenda Custodio and Judith O’Loughlin for expert insight on how to build the skills these students need for success in school and beyond. Inside you’ll find Essential background on factors leading to interrupted education Specific focus on refugee children and Latino immigrants Guidance on building internal resilience for long-term social and emotional health Recommendations for creating supportive environments at the classroom, school, and district level About one thing, Brenda and Judith are absolutely convinced: our SIFE students can learn and make progress, often at a remarkable speed. But it’s up to us, their educators, to provide the time, attention, and a specific focus. Consider this book your first step forward.

Download or read book Bias Interrupted written by Joan C. Williams and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cutting-edge, relentless, objective approach to inclusion. Companies spend billions of dollars annually on diversity efforts with remarkably few results. Too often diversity efforts rest on the assumption that all that's needed is an earnest conversation about "privilege." That's not enough. To truly make progress we need to stop celebrating the problem and instead take effective steps to solve it. In Bias Interrupted, Joan C. Williams shows how it's done, and, reassuringly, how easy it is to get started. One of today's preeminent voices on inclusive workplaces, Williams explains how leaders can use standard business tools—data, metrics, and persistence—to interrupt the bias that is continually transmitted through formal systems like performance appraisals, as well as the informal systems that control access to career-enhancing opportunities. The book presents fresh evidence, based on Williams's exhaustive research and work with companies, that interrupting bias helps every group—including white men. Comprehensive, though compact and straightforward, Bias Interrupted delivers real, practical value in an efficient and accessible manner to an audience that has never needed it more. It's possible to interrupt bias. Here's where you start.

Download or read book Climate Change, Interrupted written by Barbara Leckie and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moment of climate precarity, Victorian studies scholar Barbara Leckie considers the climate crisis as a problem of time. Spanning the long nineteenth century through our current moment, her interdisciplinary treatment of climate change at once rethinks time and illustrates that the time for climate action is now. Climate Change, Interrupted argues that linear, progress-inflected temporalities are not adequate to a crisis that defies their terms. Instead, this book advances a theory and practice of interruption to rethink prevailing temporal frameworks. At the same time, it models the anachronistic, time-blending, and time-layering temporality it advances. In a series of experimental chapters informed by the unlikely trio of Walter Benjamin, Donna Haraway, and Virginia Woolf, Leckie reinflects and cowrites the traditions and knowledges of the long nineteenth century and the current period in the spirit of climate action collaboration. The current moment demands as many approaches as possible, invites us to take risks, and asks scholars and activists adept at storytelling to participate in the conversation. Climate Change, Interrupted, accordingly, invests in interruption to tell a different story of the climate crisis.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact written by Anthony P. Grant and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-07 with total page 788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In thirty-three chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition, it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world."-- Jaquette.