LINGUIST List 9.417

Thu Mar 19 1998

Books: General Ling

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



Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers are available at the end of this issue.

Directory

  • Kristen Mitchell, New books in GENERAL LINGUISTICS

    Message 1: New books in GENERAL LINGUISTICS

     Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 12:40:13 -0500
    From: Kristen Mitchell <KKMOUP-USA.ORG>
    Subject: New books in GENERAL LINGUISTICS


    DIFFERENT GAMES, DIFFERENT RULES: Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other Haru Yamada, University of Westminster, UK

    With a foreword by Deborah Tannen

    Japan and the United States are in closer contact politically and economically than ever before, yet in many ways our nations are as far from mutual understanding as ever. Misconceptions and miscommunications between East and West continue to plague this important relationship, frustrating the best efforts of both cultures to work together. Stereotypes abound: Americans see Japanese as evasive and inscrutable, while Japanese see Americans as pushy and selfish. What causes these persistent misunderst andings, and what can be done to avoid them? Fluent in both languages and at home in both cultures, Haru Yamada brings an insiders perspective and a linguists training to this difficult question, illuminating the many reasons why Americans and Japanese misunderstand one another. Social organization, she explains, shapes the way we talk. Because American and Japanese cultures value different kinds of social relationships, they play different language games with different sets of rules. In America, for instance, Aesop's fable about the grasshopper and the ants ends with the ants scorning the foolhardy grasshopper. In Japan, however, the story has a very different ending: the ants invite the grasshopper in to share their winter meal, as they appreciate how his singing spurred them on during their summer labors. In the difference between these two endings, argues Yamada, lies an important lesson: Americans, because of their unique political history, value independence and individuality, while Japanese value mutual dependency and interconnectedness. The language of both cultures is designed to display and reinforce these values so that words, phrases and expressions in one language can have completely different connotations in another, leading to all manner of misunderstanding. Yamada provides numerous examples. In Japan, for instance, silence is valued and halting speech is considered more honest and thoughtful than fluid speech, while in America forthright, polished speech is valued. Likewise, the Japanese use word order to express emphasis, while Americans use vocal stress: a listener unaware of this difference may easily misunderstand the import of a sentence. In a lucid and insightful discussion, Yamada outlines the basic differences between Japanese and American English and analyzes a number of real-life business and social interactions in which these differences led to miscommunication. By understanding how and why each culture speaks in the way that it does, Yamada shows, we can learn to avoid frustrating and damaging failures of communication. Different Games, Different Rules is essential reading for anyone who travels to or communicates regularly with Japan, whether they are scientists, scholars, tourists, or business executives. But as Deborah Tannen notes in her Foreword to the book, even those who will never travel to Japan, do business with a Japanese company, or talk to a person from that part of the world, will find the insights of this book illuminating and helpful, because the greatest benefit that comes of understanding another culture is a better and deeper understanding of one's own.

    April 1997 192 pp. 0-19-509488-3 $24.00 Oxford University Press

    AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD Anatole V. Lyovin, University of Hawaii at Manoa

    "The author succeeds in covering a broad range of important and interesting information, and I am not aware of any other work that could serve as an all-round textbook for a course on the Languages of the World."--Bernard Comrie, University of Southern California, author of The World's Major Languages "...clearly exhibits the author's very considerable erudition in several language areas."--Joseph Grimes, Cornell University

    The only textbook of its kind, An Introduction to the Languages of the World is designed to introduce beginning linguistics students, who now typically start their study with little background in languages, to the variety of the languages of the world. It is ideal for use in courses where students have mastered the basic principles of linguistics but lack background in the broad range of language phenomena found in the world's languages, such as vowel harmony and ergative constructions. It offers students an opportunity to explore, at various levels, structures of very different, highly interesting languages without necessarily possessing a speaking or reading knowledge of these languages. Lyovin explains the classification of languages, discussing not only genetic classification but typological and sociolinguistic classification as well. He follows this with an explication of writing systems. A chapter is devoted to each of the world's continents, with in-depth analyses of representative languages of Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and America, and a separate chapter covers pidgins and creoles. Helpful features include an appendix of nineteen maps, student exercises, and suggestions for further reading.

    March 1997 512 pp.; 18 linecuts, 19 maps 0-19-508116-1 paper $35.00 Oxford University Press

    LINGUISTIC CHANGE IN FRENCH Rebecca Posner, Oxford University

    Rebecca Posner explores the history of the French language in all its manifestations. Within the framework of modern linguistic theory, she concentrates on how French acquired its distinctive identity and how different varieties of French relate to each other. This book richly illustrates the more technical aspects of linguistic change, and sets evidence of social history against the way the language has changed over time.

    December 1997 536 pp.; 31 tables 0-19-824036-8 $120.00 Oxford University Press

    A PRACTICAL DICTIONARY OF GERMAN USAGE K. B. Beaton, University of Sydney

    One of the most difficult tasks confronting the English speaker learning German is that of finding exactly the right German word to translate an English word in a particular context. Many common English words have several German equivalents. Thus it is all too easy to find yourself saying the equivalent of Have you extinguished the trash? instead of Have you taken out the trash? Bilingual dictionaries list equivalents, but give little or no information about their use. The articles in this practical dictionary are much longer than those to be found in a bilingual dictionary, and the number of words treated is fewer, with a concentration on those which cause particular difficulties for speakers of English.

    January 1997 944 pp. 0-19-824002-3 $153.00 Oxford University Press

    LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION John Roberts, University of Reading

    (An Arnold Publication)

    This book is an introduction to the training and development of language teachers. The author provides an overview of the theories of how trainees learn to teach, supported by case studies of various training programs and discussions of the fundamental issues involved.

    1998 (paper 1997) 352 pp. 0-340-64625-X paper $19.95 0-340-64626-8 cloth $70.00 Oxford University Press

    A STUDENT'S DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS R. L. Trask, University of Sussex

    (An Arnold Publication)

    "Its coverage of the terminology of linguistics as a mature academic discipline is thorough and informative. A field that, although it deals with a phenomenon all of us enagage in daily has developed a vocabulary as abstract as the vocabulary used to describe fine wines or beautiful music, needs good dictionaries. It has another in Trask's Student's Dictionary ."--Rettig on Reference

    The terminology used in linguistics can be confusing for those encountering the subject for the first time. This dictionary provides accessible and authoritative explanations of the terms and concepts currently in use in all the major areas of language and linguistics, (pronunciation, word structure, sentence structure, meaning) as well as in the study of the social, anthropological, psychological and neurological aspects of language.

    1997 256 pp. 0-340-65266-7 paper $16.95 0-340-65267-5 cloth $60.00 Oxford University Press

    THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF LINGUISTICS P. H. Matthews, Cambridge University

    (Oxford Paperback Reference)

    The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics is the most authoritative and up-to-date dictionary of linguistics available. Written by distinguished and highly respected scholar Peter Matthews, this handy reference contains over 3,000 concise and informative entries on everything from phonetics to formal semantics. Including world-wide coverage of languages and language families, the Concise provides grammatical terms in English as well as grammatical categories in other languages. Matthews also offers extensive coverage of the theory of language, language history, and important ideas and figures in linguistics. A directory of symbols is included for quick and easy reference. With entries ranging from epiglottal and morpheme to Austronesian and Navajo, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics is the ideal reference for anyone with an interest in language and its study.

    January 1998 432 pp. 0-19-280008-6 paper $13.95 Oxford University Press

    LEXICOGRAPHY AND PHYSICKE: The Record of Sixteenth-Century English Medical Terminology R. W. McConchie, University of Helsinki

    (Oxford Studies in Lexicography and Lexicology)

    Medical practitioners of the sixteenth century had their own body of special terms, just like the doctors of this century. McConchie here examines medical terminology used in a selection of thirteen medical works published between 1530 and 1612, and compares it with the treatment of these words in the OED and other dictionaries of today. His study reveals errors, omissions, and biases that raise important questions for lexicograp hical tools in general.

    December 1997 464 pp. 0-19-823630-1 $100.00 Oxford University Press

    INTRODUCTION TO INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUISTICS Oswald J. L. SzemerE9nyi, University of Freiburg

    This translation of the German edition first published in 1970, introduces the standard text on the comparative-historical method to an English-speaki ng audience. After surveying the general principles of diachronic-comparati ve linguistics, the book uses these principles to analyze the phonological and morphological structure of the Indo-European language group. Each section of the book has a detailed bibliography, so readers can progress from the general overview to a more in-depth examination of particular topics.

    April 1997 390 pp. 0-19-824015-5 $98.00 Oxford University Press INSIDE LANGUAGE Vivian J. Cook

    (An Arnold Publication)

    What makes human language unique? How did language begin? This book is a wide-ranging and stimulating introduction to language which students and general readers alike will read for enjoyment as well as instruction. It explores the most intriguing questions about the nature of human language, drawing on basic insights that have been developed by linguistics this century.

    1997 304 pp. 0-340-60761-0 paper $22.95 0-340-69'0-7 cloth $70.00 Oxford University Press

    JOHN PALSGRAVE AS RENAISSANCE LINGUIST: A Pioneer in Vernacular Language Description Gabriele Stein

    (Oxford Studies in Lexicography and Lexicology)

    When Henry VIII charged John Palsgrave with teaching his sister French, there were no dictionaries or grammars of either French or English. In Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse, a vast work of over 1000 pages, this brilliant priest and linguist, with a dramatist's eye for contempora ry life and an ear for colloquial idiom, provided the first bilingual dictionary and contrastive grammar of the two languages. Stein presents a detailed study of his achievement.

    October 1997 528 pp. 0-19-823505-4 $145.00 Oxford University Press

    PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS: An Introduction to Syntactic Theory Peter W. Culicover, Ohio State University

    (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics)

    This authoritative new survey shows readers how specific methodological assumptions underlie the core analyses on which syntactic theory is based. The author, an internationally respected figure in the field, gives extensive treatment of Government and Binding (GB) theory, and summarizes the major proposals and results of Case theory, Theta theory, X' theory, Binding theory, the theory of A-and A' movement, locality conditions, and the theory of Logical Form (LF). He also provides an up-to-date introduction to a number of more recent proposals, including Chomsky's Minminalist Program, Larsonian Shells, and Kaynes's Antisymmetry theory. The most coherent and organized account of syntactic theory currently available, this volume is further enhanced by carefully selected and extensive sets of exercises, annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms.

    February 1997 464 pp. 0-19-870014-8 paper $28.95 Oxford University Press



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






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



    1998 Contributors

  • Blackwell Publishers
  • Edinburgh University Press
  • Holland Academic Graphics (HAG)


  • Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
  • Oxford University Press
  • Routledge


  • Walter de Gruyter