LINGUIST List 9.1220

Sat Sep 5 1998

Books: Socioling & Anthropological Ling

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Linguistics Mailbox, Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PAKISTAN
Edited by Robert J. Baumgardner

In its present context of use, English in Pakistan has assimilated
diverse linguistic features which reflect the multilingual,
multicultural character of the language's "new" South Asian home. The
present volume brings together for the first time essays on
historical, sociological, pedagogical, and linguistic perspectives of
the Pakistani the English language in Pakistan.

September 1998 344 pp.; 37 halftones and linecuts
0-19-577444-2 $29.95
Oxford University Press
 
KIDS TALK: Strategic Language Use in Later Childhood

Edited by Susan M. Hoyle, National Library of Medicine, and Carolyn
Temple Adger, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington DC

(Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)

Between early childhood and adulthood, language acquisition is
succeeded by a bloom of repertoire for managing interaction, a growing
sensitivity to the relation of language and society, an expanding
ability to wield power through the strategic use of language, and an
increasing sophistication in framing speech activities. This book
examines a wide range of language practices among school-age children
and teenagers, using data from naturally occurring recorded talk and
from careful observation of interaction in peer groups. The
contributors analyze talk at play, at school, and at work, documenting
the growing communicative skills of young people while always focusing
on what young speakers themselves do with (and through)
language. Theoretical constructs to which the contributors appeal
include Goffman's notion of footing and Hymes' communicative
competence, as well as multiple characterizations of discourse
structure. The chapters show older children as strategic language
users, dynamic actors who are often concerned with defining themselves
as a distinctive group, different from adults, yet who just as often
display proficiency at sophisticated discourse activities that presage
those of adulthood.

September 1998 312 pp.; 10 halftones, 6 linecuts
0-19-509893-5 paper $35.00 0-19-509892-7 cloth $75.00 
OxfordUniversity Press
 
IDEOLOGY IN THE LANGUAGE OF JUDGES: How Judges Practice Law,
Politics, and Courtroom Control
Susan U. Philips, University of Arizona

(Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 17)

"A masterful achievement.... [This] will quickly become a major text
in the literatures both on ideology in discourse and on legal
discourse."--Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University A study that will
appeal to any reader interested in the relationship between our
language and our laws, Ideology in the Language of Judges focuses on
the way judges take guilty pleas from criminal defendants and on the
judges' views of their own courtroom behavior. This book argues that
variation in the discourse structure of the guilty pleas can best be
understood as enactments of the judges' differing interpretations of
due process law and the proper role of the judge in the courtroom.
Susan Philips demonstrates how legal and professional ideologies are
expressed differently in interviews and socially occurring speech, and
reveals how bounded written and spoken genres of legal discourse play
a role in containing and ordering ideological diversity in language
use. She also shows how the ideological struggles in a given
courtroom are central yet largely hidden or denied. Such findings will
contribute significantly to the study of how speakers create realities
through their use of language.

April 1998 224 pp. 0-19-511341-1
paper $29.95 0-19-511340-3 cloth $59.00 
Oxford University Press
 

ON RECONSTRUCTING GRAMMAR: Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax
Spike Gildea, Rice University

(Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 18)

This book has two important aims. The first is to argue that
grammaticalization theory has advanced to the point where it can be
used with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of
Proto-Languages. The second is to give a detailed case-study of this
methodology by examining the typologically interesting Cariban
language family of South America--a language group that has, according
to most linguists, an impossible (that is, far too technical)
syntactic structure. Spike Gildea's findings answer long-standing
questions about the historical reconstruction of grammar and will
interest linguists concerned with South American languages and with
grammaticalization, as well as those working in the descriptive or
functional traditions.

September 1998 304 pp.; 15 linecuts
0-19-510952-X $85.00
Oxford University Press
 
_________________________________________________________

For more information about Linguistics titles from Oxford:
Visit the Oxford University Press USA web site at
http://www.oup-usa.org or 
e-mail: linguisticsoup-usa.org
 

The following contributing LINGUIST publishers have made their backlists available on the World Wide Web:

1998 Contributors