Evolving Nature of the English Language

Evolving Nature of the English Language
Author: Robert Kiełtyka
Publisher: Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Literatures and Cultures
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: English language
ISBN: 9783631676257

This volume presents a collection of interdisciplinary papers pertaining to the most thought-provoking problems in the areas of morphological, semantic and pragmatic theorizing as well as various aspects of the methodology of teaching English and intricacies of translation.

The Evolving Nature of Universities

The Evolving Nature of Universities
Author: Judith Lamie
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2023-08-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000935310

Using analysis and review of international case studies and emerging models, Lamie and Hill’s edited book explores the very nature of a university and discusses growth, sustainability, and risk as universities navigate their role, value and purpose. As universities continue to emerge from the pandemic, there is new room to critically reflect on the role of higher education, both locally and abroad, and how it impacts a sense of place, identity, and engagement within their communities. The authors contribute their unique perspectives to explore these themes and advise on how a university can best benefit the well-being and development of its students, staff and the local community. To what extent are universities shaped by their environment? How does this provide them a fixed sense of identity or a launching pad to expand beyond their immediate location? Such questions are examined along with the constraints and opportunities open to HEIs as they navigate the waters of international higher education and their impact on communities around the world. This deeply reflective text will appeal to researchers and students in higher education, as well as policymakers interested in the future of international higher education.

Words on the Move

Words on the Move
Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1627794735

A bestselling linguist takes us on a lively tour of how the English language is evolving before our eyes -- and why we should embrace this transformation and not fight it Language is always changing -- but we tend not to like it. We understand that new words must be created for new things, but the way English is spoken today rubs many of us the wrong way. Whether it’s the use of literally to mean “figuratively” rather than “by the letter,” or the way young people use LOL and like, or business jargon like What’s the ask? -- it often seems as if the language is deteriorating before our eyes. But the truth is different and a lot less scary, as John McWhorter shows in this delightful and eye-opening exploration of how English has always been in motion and continues to evolve today. Drawing examples from everyday life and employing a generous helping of humor, he shows that these shifts are a natural process common to all languages, and that we should embrace and appreciate these changes, not condemn them. Words on the Move opens our eyes to the surprising backstories to the words and expressions we use every day. Did you know that silly once meant “blessed”? Or that ought was the original past tense of owe? Or that the suffix -ly in adverbs is actually a remnant of the word like? And have you ever wondered why some people from New Orleans sound as if they come from Brooklyn? McWhorter encourages us to marvel at the dynamism and resilience of the English language, and his book offers a lively journey through which we discover that words are ever on the move and our lives are all the richer for it.

The Evolution of Language

The Evolution of Language
Author: W. Tecumseh Fitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2010-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 052185993X

This book brings together the most important insights from the vast amount of literature on the origin of language.

Englishes in English Language Teaching

Englishes in English Language Teaching
Author: Marzieh Sadeghpour
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0429998988

The unprecedented growth and recognition of new world Englishes, call for English language teaching programs to consider the place and relevance of the paradigm of World Englishes to the content and delivery of their curricula. This concern is particularly compelling in the multi-varietal contexts such as Australia where speakers from different Kachruvian Circles interact frequently with one another. Investigating the place and pertinence of World Englishes in English language teaching in Australia this book explores the perceptions of English language teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds working in Australia. Looking at the effect on teachers’ confidence when dealing with different varieties of English, the pedagogical implications and the causes of varying degrees of perception among teachers. The author highlights the possible changes that could take place that would pave the ground for the development of World Englishes-informed curriculum and pedagogy for English as an International Language, which would in turn provide opportunities for learners to develop requisite competencies for intercultural communication. These are the skills which enable learners to successfully interact with speakers of various Englishes and negotiate and navigate with their interlocutors the differing cultural conceptualisations associated with the varieties of English during international and intercultural communication. Vital reading for anyone researching English language teaching or varieties of English and those teaching English as an international language anywhere in the world.

English as a Global Language

English as a Global Language
Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2012-03-29
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1107611806

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

Politics and the English Language

Politics and the English Language
Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1913724271

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191567663

This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.