What do we need to know about language and why do we need to know it?
Providing the essential tools with which to analyse and talk about language, this book demonstrates the relevance of linguistics to our understanding of the world around us.
This second edition includes:
- Discussion of key areas of contemporary interest, such as neo-pronouns, translanguaging, and communication in the digital arena
-Two brand new chapters exploring language and identity, and language and social media
- A range of new and international examples
- New and updated references and suggested readings
- Tasks to aid learning at the end of each chapter
- A glossary of key terms.
Introducing a set of practical tools for language analysis and using numerous examples of authentic communicative activity, such as overheard conversations, social media posts, advertisements and public announcements, Why Do Linguistics? explores language and language use from a social, intercultural and multilingual perspective, showing how this kind of analysis works and what it can tell us about social interaction. Also accompanied by a new companion website featuring audio, video and other supportive resources for students and teachers, this book will help you to become an informed, active noticer of language.
Author(s): Fiona English, Tim Marr
Edition: 2
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2023
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
Preface to the second edition
Acknowledgements
Publisher's Acknowledgements
Introduction
Background to the book
What do we mean by linguistics?
How the book is organized
About the material
About naming
Part I: Reflective linguistics
Chapter 1: About noticing:: Becoming a linguistic ethnographer
1.1 Introduction: The lift on the left
1.2 Paying attention
1.3 Naming what you notice
1.3.1 Text – ‘the stuff of communication’
1.3.2 When is a text not a text?
1.3.3 Why is our graffiti a text?
1.4 How language encodes relationship
1.5 Lost in translation
1.6 Styling as an act of identity
1.7 Conclusion
Task
Suggested reading
Chapter 2: About correctness: What is ‘good’ language?
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Standard and non-standard varieties; well-formed and ill-formed utterances
2.3 Correctness, context, community
2.4 The transience of standardness: Or, in Lisbon and São Paulo do they speak good Portuguese or bad Latin?
2.5 ‘Here even the beggars speak English!’: Language prestige and subjectivity
2.6 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 3: About belonging:: How does language enact community?
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Small talk
3.3 Performing politeness
3.4 The case of ‘sorry’
3.5 Community of practice – identity and identification
3.6 Being a physicist
3.7 Conclusion
3.7.1 An encounter in super-diversity
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 4: About diversity:: How do societies organize language?
4.1 Introduction: The Big Fight on NDTV
4.2 Dealing with diversity
4.3 Language and state control
4.4 Language shift, language attitudes, language prestige
4.5 Language configuration and social structure
4.6 New perspectives on code choice: Using the available resources
4.7 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 5: About difference:: Do all languages work the same way?
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Saying what needs to be said: Grammar and conceptual systems
5.3 Why Yoda sounds other-worldly: Word order and language types
5.4 Easy sounds and difficult
5.5 Brothers under the skin? Language families
5.6 Writing: The technology of language representation
5.7 ‘My language is special’: Language narratives and ideologies
5.8 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Part II: The study of language
Chapter 6: Essential linguistic tools
6.1 Approaches to the study of language
6.2 The study of language meaning: Semantics (and some pragmatics)
6.3 The study of language form: Morphosyntax, or grammar
6.4 The sounds of language
6.4.1 Phonetics
6.4.2 Phonology
6.5 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 7: A framework for analysis
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Discourse analysis
7.3 Defining discourse
7.4 Key concepts
7.4.1 Context
7.4.2 Text
7.4.3 Semiotic Resources
7.5 Conclusion
Task
Suggested reading
Chapter 8: Speaking and spokenness
8.1 Introduction: What do we mean by speaking?
8.2 Representing spoken communication
8.2.1 Literary representations
8.2.2 Linguistics representations
8.3 Spokenness and writtenness
8.3.1 Interactional characteristics
8.3.2 Representational characteristics
8.3.3 Explicitness versus implicitness
8.4 Speech-like writing
8.4.1 Political campaigning
8.4.2 Chatting on Discord
8.5 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 9: Writing and writtenness
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Learning to make use of writing
9.2.1 Public writing
9.2.2 Private writing
9.2.3 Genre awareness
9.3 Being literate
9.4 Literacy between friends
9.4.1 Holiday postcard
9.4.2 Holiday Facebook post
9.5 Literacy in diversity
9.5.1 Reading symbols
9.5.2 Reading without words
9.6 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 10: Choosing our words
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Naming as a semiotic resource
10.3 Mode as a semiotic resource
10.3.1 Power play – modalizing as mitigation
10.3.2 New times, changed attitudes – modalizing as ideology
10.3.3 Point of view – thematic modalizing (arrangement)
Version One
Version Two
10.4 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Part III: Why do linguistics?
Chapter 11: The subject that isn’t a subject:: How schools deal with language, and why it matters
11.1 Introduction: What should everyone know about language?
11.2 How is language dealt with at school?
11.3 The naming of language
11.4 Linguists, government and the public
11.5 What should be the scope of linguistics at school?
11.6 Why does it matter? Myths and misunderstandings about language
11.6.1 Subverting and disregarding
11.6.2 Is speaking a dialect a ‘bad habit’?
11.7 Conclusion: Language problems versus learning experiences at school
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 12: Translanguaging:: When the mixed code is the code
12.1 Introduction
12.2 From languages to language
12.3 Translingual practice, identity and indexing
12.4 Sense and nonsense
12.5 Repertoires
12.6 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 13: The self and others:: Language and identity
13.1 Introduction
13.2 ‘Doing’ identity: Fluidity and flux
13.3 Performance, control and neopronouns
13.3.1 Pronoun choice, neopronouns and the structure of English
13.3.2 Summary: A linguistic view of the pronouns debate
13.4 Naming and addressing: Who and how?
13.4.1 How not to address an Andean villager?
13.4.2 Identity, agency and control: Terms of address at work
13.5 d/Deaf identity, politics and language
13.6 Mollies, malchicks and zeks: Cryptolects and anti-languages
13.7 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 14: Interacting in the digital arena:: Language and social media
14.1 Introduction
14.1.2 Some statistics and a bit of history
14.2 Literacy and the hypertext revolution
14.3 Has hypertext changed the way we read?
14.4 We are all critics now
14.4.1 Profiles, spots and titles: A multimodal analysis
14.5 Chatting on WhatsApp
14.5.1 The emoji as a semiotic resource
14.6 Moments of sharing
14.6.1 What’s going on, between whom and why?
14.6.2 From intention to reflection: Choice of semiotic resources
14.7 Liking, commenting and sharing: Stance and affiliation on social media
14.7.1 Liking on Facebook
14.7.2 Performing stance
14.7.3 Frames, profiles and memes
14.8 Conclusion
Tasks
Suggested reading
Chapter 15: So why do linguistics?
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Why this book and why now?
15.3 First claim: Linguistics opens up different ways of thinking
15.4 Second claim: Linguistics is (or should be) general knowledge
15.5 Third claim: Linguistics empowers
15.6 Fourth claim: Linguistics is fun
15.7 Conclusion
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
References
Glossary
Index
