
Language Through the Looking Glass
Exploring Language and Linguistics
Marina Yaguello(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 5. November 1998
Book
Paperback/Softback
182 pages
978-0-19-870005-0 (ISBN)
Description
To play with language is to break its rules, disrupt its patterns, exploit its weak points. Thus, paradoxically, puns and spoonerisms, neologisms, and slogans reveal and highlight the patterns to which discourse conforms -- patterns which reflect the linguistic competence of language speakers. Only those who have linguistics competence can play with it: thus language games and the poetic use of language are underpinned by unconscious use of linguistic analysis.
Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Marina Yaguello takes the reader on an unconventional voyage around language, charting the major themes of linguistics on the way. She shows that we can come to an understanding of language in general and of particular languages through exploring the devices of humour, word-games, and poetry -- devices which reveal the unconscious linguist in all of us. The result is an entertaining but rigorous introduction to language and linguistics for non-specialists and students alike.
Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Marina Yaguello takes the reader on an unconventional voyage around language, charting the major themes of linguistics on the way. She shows that we can come to an understanding of language in general and of particular languages through exploring the devices of humour, word-games, and poetry -- devices which reveal the unconscious linguist in all of us. The result is an entertaining but rigorous introduction to language and linguistics for non-specialists and students alike.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
9 Fotos bzw. Rasterbilder
9 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
237 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-870005-0 (9780198700050)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
10/1998
Oxford University Press
€154.75
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Marina Yaguello is Professor and Chair of Linguistics in the English Department of the University of Paris &-Denis Diderot. She has been Visiting Professor in London and in Dakar and has lectured all over North America, Europe, and in many African countries. She has written nine other books about language and linguistics, including Lunatic Lovers of Language: Imaginary languages and their inventors (Athlone Press). She specializes in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and the syntax-semantics interface.
Author
, Professor and Chair of Linguistics in the English DepartmentUniversity of Paris VII
Translation
Content
Preface: Why Through a Looking Glass? ; Introduction: So, You are a Linguist... ; 1. What Language is For ; 2. The Tower of Babel ; 3. Pink Elephants ; 4. The Canny Canner ; 5. Anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism ; 6. Did You Say Pig or Fig? ; 7. Words as Signs ; 8. A Rose By Any Other Name ; 9. The Incredible Lightness of Meaning ; 10. The House that Jack Built ; 11. Green Ideas ; 12. Murdering Time ; 13. The Miser and the Prodigal Son ; 14. Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; Conclusion