Language in the Real World

An Introduction to Linguistics

Susan J. Behrens, Judith A. Parker, Susan J. Behrens, Judith A. Parker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415774673
• eBook ISBN: 9781136887253
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Language in the Real World challenges traditional approaches to linguistics to provide an innovative introduction to the subject. By first examining the real world applications of core areas of linguistics and then addressing the theory behind these applications, this text offers an inductive, illustrative, and interactive overview for students. Key areas covered include animal communication, phonology, language variation, gender and power, lexicography, translation, forensic linguistics, language acquisition, ASL, and language disorders. Each chapter, written by an expert in the field, is introduced by boxed notes listing the key points covered and features an author's note to readers that situates the chapter in its real world context. Activities and pointers for further study and reading are also integrated into the chapters and an end of text glossary is provided to aid study.

Professors and students will benefit from the interactive Companion Website that includes a student section featuring comments and hints on the chapter exercises within the book, a series of flash cards to test knowledge and further reading and links to key resources. Material for professors includes essay and multiple choice questions based on each chapter and additional general discussion topics.

Language in the Real World shows that linguistics can be appreciated, studied, and enjoyed by actively engaging real world applications of linguistic knowledge and principles and will be essential reading for students with an interest in language.

Visit the Companion Website at www.routledge.com/textbooks/languagerealworld

Index

Page numbers relating to Figures or Tables will be in italic print

Abrams, L., 316

Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, 328

accents, 15–16, 28

acquaintance rape, 143

acquired language disorder, 287

active voice, 147

actual rape, 144

adjectives, 116

affixes, 74

African American English (AAE), 18

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17–19, 32, 37;

taboo words, 124–25, 126, 127

African American women, narratives, 148

agentless passive, 147

aging:

Alzheimer’s disease, 315, 317–20, 323, 324, 328;

auditory comprehension, 317;

differentiation of terms, 318;

healthy, 315–17, 320;

lexical access, 316;

linguistic changes, 316;

neural changes, 316;

spoken discourse, 317

Ainsworth, M. D. S., 335

Alcoff, L., 148, 149, 153

ALIAS _SynAID (Automated Linguistic Identification and Assessment System_Syntactic Author Identification), 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194

All in the Family (TV comedy), 28

allophones, 50–57

alphabetical order, organization by, 69

alternations, 70

Alzheimer’s disease, 315, 317–20, 323, 324, 328;

healthy aging contrasted with Alzheimer’s type dementia, 320

Amasyali, M. F., 196

ambiguity, detecting, 217

ambiguity in machine translation, 110–17;

domain information, 113;

lexical, 112;

multiword phrases, 112;

parsing of input sentence, 113–15;

sentence boundaries, 110;

using semantic information for disambiguation, 116–17;

word boundaries, 111;

words reducing, complete descriptions of, 112–13;

see also machine translation (MT)

American culture, criti...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• ALTERNATE CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• Introduction
• I Language, Education, and Cultural Change
• II Literature, Translation, and Computers
• III Language, Power, and Identity
• IV Forms of Language and Communication
• V Language and Communication Science
• Glossary
• Index