LINGUIST List 5.526

Sun 08 May 1994

Qs: E-mail language, Monographs, Agni, OCR for Cyrillic

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Shannon M Walbran, E-mail language itself
2. Ali Aghbar, Q: Language Awareness Monogrphs
3. "Williams J. Ekou", Agni language
4. , OCR packages for Cyrillic

Dear thinkers,
What do you think are the primary distinctions of language used in e-mail
conversations? How is e-mail language different from corresponding on
paper? I'm thinking about abbreviations, informality, and other quirks
of the medium.
Thanks for thinking.
Shannon Walbran
Hamline University , St. Paul, MN

I am going to teach a course on language awareness this fall to a
group of non-language major students. I am looking for a recent
MONOGRAPH that would cover the areas listed below:

I. Human language
 A. Human language vs. animal communication
 B. Human language vs. artificial languages
 C. Humans and robots
II. Ground rules for interactions
 A. Language as part of its speakers
 B. Unconscious nature of politeness rules
 C. Words as actions
 D. Maxims of conversation
 E. Presuppositions
III. Strategies of Communication
 A. The speakable and the unspeakable
 B. Verbal dueling
 C. Creative playing with language
 D. Linguistic Chauvinism
IV. Language and thought
 A. Humans at the mercy of Language
 B. The problem of meaning
 C. Multiple ways of expressing the same intention
 and their effects
V. Humans and Language
 A. Humans as talkers
 B. The language of children
 C. The power of the spoken word
 D. The way words are combined to make new meanings
VI. Language and Change
 A. Language in flux
 B. Language and diversity
VII. Language variety
 A. Dialects as complete systems of communication
 B. Registers and styles

There is already a good monograph in the market from which I have taken
most of the items in my outline. It is:

 Farb, Peter. (1973, reprinted 1993). WORD PLAY: WHAT HAPPENS
 WHEN PEOPLE TALK. Vantage Books.

However, this book has not been revised since its original 1973
publication. I was wondering if someone could recommend a more
recent monograph with SIMILAR contents.

I already know about the following edited collections, which come
close:

 Eschholz, P., Rosa, A., and Clark, V. (eds.) 1994. LANGUAGE
 AWARENESS. New York: St. Martin's Press.

 Davis, Boyd H. (ed.) (1993) DIMENSIONS OF LANGUAGE. New York:
 Macmillan.

What I am looking for is a clearly written MONOGRAPH. I know that
there are dozens of introduction to language texts that cover many
areas including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics... To save
you the trouble of mentioning them, I am not interested in such
texts.

If I get some good responses, I will summarize. I would greatly
appreciate your assistance.

Ali
 ===============================================================================
 Ali-Asghar Aghbar, Dept. of English, Indiana U. of PA, Indiana, PA 15705
 Bitnet: aaghbariup Internet: aaghbargrove.iup.edu Phone: 357 2262

 Hello!
Iam doing my thesis on Agni language of Ivory Coast(it is spoken in Ghana too)
and am looking for all king of information,especially bibliographies in
Spanish,French,English or Portuguese.
Many thanks.

Williams.
Williamsjcpd.uva.es

Williams jacob Ekou
resid.Univ.Alfonso VIII
c/Real de Burgos s/n
47011 Valladolid
SPAIN.

Does anyone know of a satisfactory or semi-satisfactory OCR package that can
handle non-Latin character sets with training? Do you, if you know of such
a beast, know what its error rate is like?
thanks a lot
Adger Williams
adgerwhope.cit.hope.edu