| Edition |
Third edition. |
| Description |
xvi, 345 pages ; 23 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Contents |
Why learn about language? / Robert Rodman -- You're a linguist? How many languages do you speak? / Paul Chapin -- What is the difference between dialects and languages? / G. Tucker Childs -- Do all languages have the same grammar? / Mark C. Baker -- How many languages are there in the world? / M. Paul Lewis -- Why is Chomsky such a big deal in linguistics? / Greg Carlson -- How are the sounds of language made? / Peter Ladefoged -- What is the right way to put words together? / Dennis R. Preston -- What makes a word 'real'? / Anne Curzan -- What is grammatical gender? / Caroline Myrick -- What is an artificial language? / Christopher Moseley -- Do animals use language? / Donna Jo Napoli -- What happens if you are raised without language? / Susan Curtiss -- Can animals understand us? / Robin Queen -- What is 'speaking in tongues'? / Walt Wolfram -- How many kinds of writing system are there? / Peter T. Daniels -- Whatever happened to Esperanto? / Arika Okrent and E.M. Rickerson -- Why do linguists study brains? / Lise Menn -- Does our language influence the way we think? / Geoffrey K. Pullum -- How does the brain handle multiple languages? / Judith F. Kroll and Kinsey Bice -- Can you lose language? / Daniel Kempler and Mira Goral -- What was the original language? / Barry Hilton -- Do all languages come from the same source? / Allan R. Bomhard -- What language did Adam and Eve speak? / E.M. Rickerson -- Where does grammar come from? / Joan Bybee -- Where did writing come from? / Peter T. Daniels -- Where did English come from? / John Algeo -- Is Latin really dead? / Frank Morris -- Do languages have to change? / John McWhorter -- Aren't pidgins and creoles just bad English? / John M. Lipski -- Do deaf people everywhere use the same sign language? / Leila Monaghan -- Do men and women talk differently? / Deborah Cameron -- Can someone 'sound gay'? / Rusty Barrett -- Why do languages die? / Christopher Moseley -- How do babies learn their mother tongue? / Lauren J. Stites, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek -- How many languages can a person learn? / Richard Hudson -- What causes foreign accents? / Steven H. Weinberger -- What does it mean to be bilingual? / Agnes Bolonyai -- What makes some languages harder to learn than others? / Barry Hilton -- Can monolingualism be cured? / Katherine Sprang -- How have our ideas about language learning changed through the years? / June K. Phillips -- What is the connection between language and society? / Jon Forrest -- What are lingua francas? / Nicholas Ostler -- How can a country function with more than one official language? / Vijay Gambhir -- Why do people fight over language? / Paul B. Garrett -- What is gendered language? / Caroline Myrick -- What is the language of the United States? / David Goldberg -- Is there a language crisis in the United States? / Julie Tetel Andresen -- Are American dialects dying? / Walt Wolfram -- How many Native American languages are there? / Marianne Mithun -- What is African American English? / Nicole Holliday -- What is the future of Spanish in the United States? / Maria Carreira -- How is language used on social media? / Lauren Squires -- Can computers teach languages faster and better? / Trude Heift -- How good is machine translation? / Kevin Knight -- Is text messaging changing how I write and speak? / Joel Schneier -- Why should educators care about linguistics? / Anne H. Charity Hudley and Christine Mallinson -- Should schools teach grammar? / Richard Hudson -- Is elementary school too early to teach foreign languages? / Gladys C. Lipton -- Why study languages abroad? / Sheri Spaine Long -- What is bilingual education? / Phillip M. Carter -- How are dictionaries made? / Erin McKean -- Why do we need translators if we have dictionaries? / Kevin Hendzel -- How are endangered and sleeping languages being revitalized? / Tracy Hirata-Edds, Mary S. Linn, Marcellino Berardo, Lizette Peter, Gloria Sly and Tracy Williams -- Can you use language to solve crimes? / Natalie Schilling -- How can you keep languages in a museum? / Jill Robbins, Pat Barr-Harrison and Gregory J. Nedved. |
| Summary |
"The book is intended for non-specialists, an upbeat introduction to language and linguistics for general readers. The chapters are short (three to five pages), suitable for browsing or reading on the move, and its style is intentionally light--more like what used to be called 'fireside chats'--or, somewhat more currently, 'speed-dating events.' In fact, it was born as a series of radio chats called Talkin' About Talk, which in 2005 was part of a celebration of the 'Year of Languages' in the United States. The essays have an informal tone because of the on-air persona of the narrator, a knowledgeable and amiable guide whose task it was to de-mystify the sometimes complex subject of language for a wide range of listeners. Each week the narrator talked about a language-related topic in a relaxed, conversational style for exactly five minutes--thus the title of the book. The third edition of this has been expanded by 14 new chapters covering contemporary topics of interest or subjects overlooked in the earlier editions (2006, 2011). Furthermore, chapters from previous editions were updated. We hope that this expansion has made the collection more comprehensive and current while remaining faithful to its guiding principles: What do people who are not in the language field want to know about language? What are some of their major misconceptions? What do our readers want to know about learning or using languages? The resulting essays, each with a question as its title, are what we like to think of as a savory platter of linguistic hors d'oeuvres, something to whet your appetite and invite you to proceed to a more substantial dish of linguistics"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Subject |
Linguistics -- Miscellanea.
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Language and languages -- Miscellanea.
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Language and languages. (OCoLC)fst00992154
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Linguistics. (OCoLC)fst00999202
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| Genre/Form |
Trivia and miscellanea. (OCoLC)fst01921748
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Trivia and miscellanea.
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| Added Author |
Myrick, Caroline, editor.
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Wolfram, Walt, 1941- editor.
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| Added Title |
5 minute linguist |
| ISBN |
9781781798546 hardcover |
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1781798540 hardcover |
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9781781798553 paperback |
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1781798559 paperback |
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9781781798560 electronic book |
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