LINGUIST List 7.1708

Thu Dec 5 1996

Sum: Linguistically significant films

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdarunix.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. "steven h. weinberger", SUM: linguistically significant films

Almost a month ago i requested suggestions for linguistically
significant films for an upcoming film festival at George Mason
University. Here is an abridged list of your suggestions. The GMU
Linguistics club will select 14 films from this list for our film
series.


1. The Human Language Series . 1995. director: Gene Searchinger.
NY: Ways of Knowing.
	part 1. Discovering Human Language		
	part 2. Acquiring Human Language		
	part 3. The Human Language Evolves	
(general linguistics and linguistic theory)

2. American Tongues. 1987.
By Andrew Kolker and Louis Alvarez. NY: Center for New American
Media.
(American dialects)

3. The Singer's Voice. 1993. By Joan Wall and Robert Caldwell.
Dallas TX: Pst... Inc.
(the vocal tract and articulatory phonetics)

4. The Secret of the Wild Child. 1994. director: Linda Garmon.
(NOVA documentary about Genie)

5. L'enfant Sauvage. 1970. director: Francois Truffaut. subtitled.
(wild child language deprivation)

6. Nell. 1994. director: Michael Apted.
(language deprivation in a child)

7. Enemy Mine. 1985. director: Wolfgang Petersen.
(sci-fi film with alien language acquisition)

8. Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales. 1988. director: Linda
Harrar.
(Nova documentary about animal language)

9. Daughters of the Dust. 1992. director: Julie Dash.
(film with lots of Gullah, spoken on Dafauskie Island on the Georgia
coast.)

10. Pygmalion. 1938. director: Anthony Asquith.
(film adaptation of G. B. Shaw play about phonetician's relationship
with dialect modification)

11. My Fair Lady. 1964. director: George Cukor.
(musical version of Pygmalion)

12. Ball of Fire. 1941. director: Howard Hawks.
(a professor researches local slang terms)

13. Stargate. 1994. director: Roland Emmerich.
(historical linguistics, Ancient Egyptian?)

14. Grand Illusion. 1937. director: Jean Renoir.
(use of French, German, and English as a marker of social standing
among WWI prisoners of war)

15. El Norte. 1983. director: Gregory Nava.	
(English, Spanish, and Maya used by Guatemalan immigrants exhibit
the sociolinguistic complexity of their predicament)

16. Children of a Lesser God. 1986. director: Randa Haines.
 (ASL and lip reading)

17. The Gods Must be Crazy. 1981. director: Jamie Uys.
(language with clicks)

18. Singing in the Rain. 1952. director: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen.
(dialect modification and phonetics)

19. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. 1982. director: Robert M. Young.
(languages in contact issue. It shows how the mistranslation of a
word by an interpreter causes a man to be sent to jail.)

20. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. 1985. director: George Miller.
(includes a creole spoken by children)

21. The Miracle Worker. 1962. director: Arthur Penn.
(Helen Keller's acquisition of sign language)

22. Robinson Crusoe on Mars. 1964. director: Byron Haskin.
(language teaching to an alien)

23. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder fur sich und Gott gegen alle)
1974. director: Werner Herzog.
(language deprivation)

24. Black Robe. 1991. director: Bruce Beresford.
(Algonquian language in the 17th or 18th century)

25. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. 1984.
director: Hugh Hudson.
 (ape-man acquires language in record time)

26. Iceman. 1984. director: Fred Schepisi.
(linguistic decoding of Neanderthal language)

27. Bladerunner. 1982. director: Ridley Scott.
(evidence of a futuristic linguafranca)

28. Star Trek:TNG "Darmok" episode 102. 1991.
(alien language based upon metaphor and analogy)

29. Quest for Fire. 1981. director: Jean-Jacques Annaud.
(early human language)

30. A Great Wall. 1986. director: Peter Wang.	
(cross-cultural communication in China)

31. The Harder they Come. 1973. director: Perry Henzell.
( lots of Jamaican creole)

32. A Clockwork Orange. 1971. director: Stanley Kubrick.
(language change)

33. Princess Caraboo. 1994. director: Michael Austin.
(language creation)

34. Picture Bride. 1994. director: Kayo Hatta.
(dialogue mostly Hawaiian plantation pidgin. some discussion of
lexical differences)

35. Stepping Razor Red X. 1992. director: Nicholas Campbell.	
( documentary with Jamaican Creole)

Thanks to:

The GMU Linguistics Club
Barbara Abbott
Valery Belyanin
Jon Bernard
Virginia Brennan
Ursula Brinkmanni
Lyle Campbell
Paula Cavanaugh
Jane Edwards
Susan Fischer
Claret Fitch
Nancy Frishberg
Louanna Furbee
Asli Goksel
Rob Hagiwara
Lynne Hewitt
Harry Howard
Pamela Jordan
Rebecca Kavanagh
Paul Kilpatrick
Terry Klokeid
David Kuipers
Elsa Lattey
Jian Li
Jeff Lilly
Ricardo Lima
Linda Lombardi
Gerardo Lorenzino
Mark Mandel
Jack Martin
Alejandro Martinez
Liz McKeown
Mela
Lynn Messing
Chris Miller
Guy Modica
Rebecca Larche Moreton
Moulay Nadia
Geoff Nathan
Barbara Pearson
Terhi Rissanen
Charlie Rowe
Cindy Schneider
Mary Shapiro
Jack Sidnell
Karen Stanley
H. Stephen Straight
R. Tanner
Brian Ulicny
Thierry van Steenberghe
Wim Vandenbussche
Andreas Westerhoff

- ---------------------------------------------
- steven weinberger
dept. of english
program in linguistics
george mason university
fairfax, va 22030
weinberggmu.edu