Language is central to human experience and our understanding of who we are, whether written or unwritten, sung or spoken. But what is language and how do we record it? Where does it reside? Does it exist and evolve within written sources, in performance, in the mind or in speec…
Policy and planning for endangered languages
"Language policy issues are imbued with a powerful symbolism that is often linked to questions of identity, with the suppression or failure to recognise and support a given endangered variety representing a refusal to grant a 'voice' to the corresponding ethno-cultural community…
Eavesdropping is a form of human communication in which the information gained is stolen. It encompasses cheating to get unfair advantage, espionage to uncover secrets, and supervision to maintain power. John Locke considers the biological drive behind this behaviour as well as …
Up to now, the focus in the field of language documentation has been predominantly on North American and Australian languages. However, the greatest genetic diversity in languages is found in Latin America, home to over 100 distinct language families. This book gives the Latin A…
This volume examines the use of French in European language communities outside France from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. The phenomenon of French language usage is explored in a wide variety of communities, namely Bohemian, Dutch, medieval English, German (Prussian)…
Language Myths and the History of English aims to deconstruct the myths that are traditionally reproduced as factual accounts of the historical development of English. Using concepts and interpretive sensibilities developed in the field of sociolinguistics over the past 40 years…
HateSpeak in Contemporary Arabic Discourse fills in an obvious gap in discourse studies on Arabic. After a detailed semantic and metaphorical account of hate in English and its equivalents in Arabic and an exploration of the causes of hate, the book illustrates major cases of ha…