Showing titles in Linguistics

Why does writing exist? What does it mean to those who write? Born from the interplay of natural and cultural history, the seemingly magical act of writing has continually expanded our consciousness. Portrayed in mythology as either a gift from heroes or a curse from the gods, it has been used as both an instrument of power and a channel of the divine, a means of social bonding and of individual self-definition.

Passion and intrigue among the upper classes form the basis of Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar Wilde's first successful play, which displays his trademark wit and wisdom. Beautiful and innocent Lady Windermere finds out that her husband has been keeping company with the scandalous and mysterious Mrs. Erlynne. Her discovery unleashes a host of tensions at her 21st birthday party, where London's elite have gathered to gossip.

Twelve billionaires rule the United States, while those called freemen are forced to serve the rich. But that was 60 years ago, before the Scarlet Plague. In this post-apocalyptic novella, a ragged and tattered old man tells his progeny of what life was like before The Scarlet Plague appeared - and wiped out civilization as they knew it.

When his ship is wrecked in a storm, Robinson Crusoe finds himself stranded on a desert island with no one to help him and no chance of rescue. Scared and alone, he tries to make a life for himself, building shelters, hunting food, taming animals, crafting boats, and making clothes. But just as his life appears to be settled, he sees someone else's footprint on the beach, and a different struggle for survival begins, this time against cannibals and pirates.

In 2003, the book Nigger started an intense conversation about the uses and implications of that epithet. The N Word moves beyond that short, provocative book by revealing how the word has both reflected and spread the scourge of bigotry in America.

Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century, and when they're gone, it will be forever. Ross Perlin, a linguist and codirector of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history: contemporary New York.

What makes us human? Why are we the only animals who wear clothes, drive cars, trawl the internet, and fly helicopters on Mars? It’s all because we’ve learnt to talk, yet remarkably, we still don’t know how we did it. Speech! suggests an answer that’s been hiding in plain sight - the simple yet radical shift that turned our analog grunts and shrieks into words. But, its consequences are far from simple: being able to share ideas through language was an evolutionary tipping point - it allowed us to link up our minds.

George Gissing’s 1893 gripping novel The Odd Women explores themes like the role of women in society, marriage, morals, and the nascent feminist movement. Set in London, Gissing's women range from the independent free-thinker Rhoda Nunn and the idealistic Mary Barfoot to the Madden sisters who struggle to make a living. The characters make their choices - some traditional and some bravely non-traditional, in two main plot lines. A remarkable late Victorian narrative, The Odd Women chronicles the shifting roles of women in a changing society in a most arresting way.

Stanley Featherstonehough Ukridge is positively convinced that his complete ignorance of chicken farming gives him a particular advantage in the subject. A bombastic blowhard, he persuades his wife and his mild-mannered chum to start a chicken farm with him. What could go wrong?

This collection of 18 short stories written by Lucy Maud Montgomery, famous for her Anne of Green Gables series, are part of a wider collection within a prolific portfolio. Written several years before Anne was initially published, these stories exhibit a development of significant themes and narrative styles within Montgomery’s writing. Woven with thematic threads of belonging, isolation, family, class and reputation, this audiobook will delight listeners with its rich narratives.

A dialogue between Socrates and Meno probes the subject of ethics. Can goodness be taught? If it can, then we should be able to find teachers capable of instructing others about what is good and bad, right and wrong, or just and unjust.

Michael O'Halloran is the charming Gene Stratton-Porter novel of an orphaned newspaper seller who asks nothing of the world except to "be square". The book presents a vivid description of American life in 1914 and, though the characters suffer many hardships, the overall tone is so upbeat that it's easy to see why this book outsold Pollyanna in 1916. Stratton-Porter's skills as a naturalist make the country scenes especially vibrant. Her ear for dialogue is unsurpassed, demonstrating to the listener that, if life in America wasn't like this, it should have been.

In this, the first of the Palliser parliamentary novels, the plight of women in marriage, politics and private life is seen through the eyes of Alice and Kate Vavisor, Lady Glencora and the coquettish Mrs. Greenow.

Would you receive a ‘char and a wad’ with a grateful smile? If asked to take a ‘dekko’, would you be offended? And if spotted reading the ‘yellow press’, would you be embarrassed?The meaning of these and many other intriguing phrases are defined, and their loss lamented, in this wonderfully nostalgic look at how language has changed over the past few decades.

Phineas Finn is an Irish M.P.A. climbing the political ladder, largely through the assistance of his string of lovers. The questions he is forced to ask himself about honesty, independence, and parliamentary democracy are questions still asked today.

"Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" is a masterpiece of polished cynicism in which poison, explosive clocks, and finally murder forerun married bliss. Also included are: "The Canterville Ghost", "The Model Millionaire", "The Young King", "The Fisherman and His Soul", "The Happy Prince", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." These eight stories were produced in the heyday of Wilde's career.

Manon is just about to enter a convent when she meets the young Chevalier des Grieux, a philosophy student. They flee to Paris together, where they live extravagantly off the money the Chevalier makes cheating at cards, until they are robbed of their possessions. Manon becomes mistress to a wealthy nobleman, and she and the Chevalier steal his money. They are captured and sent to a penal colony in Louisiana.

Adaptation of Keats' sensual narrative poem about the ill-starred love affair of the serpent Lamia and the innocent mortal Lycius. Starring Paterson Joseph, Charlotte Emmerson, Tom Ferguson, and Jonathan Keeble. With original music by John Harle. Sung by Sarah Leonard.

In The Dictionary Wars, Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.

"Appartengo a quella parte dell'umanità che passa gran parte delle sue ore di veglia in un mondo fatto di righe orizzontali: un mondo che può essere molto ricco, magari ancor più ricco di quello non scritto, ma che comunque richiede un aggiustamento speciale per situarsi al suo interno. Quando mi stacco dal mondo scritto per ritrovare il mio posto nell'altro, in quello che usiamo chiamare il mondo, fatto di tre dimensioni, cinque sensi, popolato da miliardi di nostri simili, questo equivale per me ogni volta a ripetere il trauma della nascita." (Italo Calvino)