Showing titles in Linguistics

Fairy tales are not just fairy tales: they are records of historical phenomena, telling us something about how Western civilisation was formed. In The Fairy-Tellers, award-winning travel-writer Nick Jubber explores their secret history of fairy tales: the people who told them, the landscapes that forged them and the cultures that formed them.

In a fascinating tour of creativity and the brain, Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the winner of the National Medal of Science, explores how the human brain achieves creative breakthroughs--in art, literature, music, and science--the role of genes and environment, extraordinary creativity vs. ordinary creativity, and the question of genius and insanity.

Linguistics falls in the gap between arts and science, on the edges of which the most fascinating discoveries and the most important problems are found. Rather than following the conventional organization of many contemporary introductions to the subject, the author of this stimulating guide begins his discussion with the oldest, "arts" end of the subject and moves chronologically through to the newest research - the "science" aspects.

In 1906, without studying navigation, Jack London, his wife Charmian, and a small crew sail to the South Pacific, hoping not to get lost. His adventures and misadventures at sea led him through native uprisings, The Doldrums, and the then unknown sport of surfing. This first person narrative, in its first recording as an audiobook, combines London’s spirit of adventure with his wonderful sense of humor.

“So many people have written and claimed that their families were the original of the Forsytes,” wrote Galsworthy, “that one has almost been encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagine species.” It is the Spring of 1920, 34 years on from the beginning of the Saga. “Young Jolyon” is married to Irene after her divorce from Soames, and they now have a son, Jon. Soames has re-married and has a daughter, Fleur. A new generation of Forsytes comes of age and the Saga continues.

A dead woman is discovered in the parlor of an empty luxury home in New York's famed Gramercy Park. Thus opens Anna Katharine Green's popular detective novel That Affair Next Door.

The Language Puzzle explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to our capabilities of today, with over 6000 languages in the world and each of us knowing over 50,000 words. Drawing on the latest discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and genetics, Steven Mithen reconstructs the steps by which language evolved; he explains how it transformed the nature of thought and culture, and how we talked our way out of the Stone Age into the world of farming and into today's Digital Age.

An insider’s tour through the construction of invented languages from the bestselling author and creator of languages for Legendary's Dune, the HBO series Game of Thrones and the Syfy series Defiance.

This novel, set in 1920s California, tells the tale of Linda Strong who shares her father’s love for the beauty of nature in California. When her parents suddenly pass away, she is left with her sister Eileen, a huge house, and much wealth. Eileen goes on a spending spree, dissipating the inheritance at an alarming pace. When Linda eventually finds out, she meets with their banker and finds a way to earn money in a manner that she enjoys. The narrative includes romance, murder, and delightful descriptions of the state’s fauna and flora.

Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day offers a lively and entertaining method for adding a more impressive list of words to your everyday speech, and for learning how to use them effortlessly and accurately. Besides giving definitions, this invaluable guide also provides root meanings and elements of words so you can increase your vocabulary base by thousands of exciting new words and use them with aplomb in sentences.

In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead of through, tho for though, laf for laugh, beleev for believe, and dawter for daughter (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too).

F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He wrote this collection of eight short stories in 1920 for magazines such as Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. This collection includes: "The Offshore Pirate", "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong", "Head and Shoulders", "Benediction", "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", "The Cut Glass Bowl", "The Four Fists", and "The Ice Palace".

Richard Burton reads Shakespeare's narrative poem about the legendary Lucretia (or 'Lucrece'). The poem tells the story of the Roman leader Tarquin's rape of Lucrece and her subsequent suicide.

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 this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century.

In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences.

There are so many Latin phrases in everyday use that often we use them without understanding the background and context within which they were actually used. 'Carpe diem'; 'Stet'; 'Memento mori'; 'Et tu Brute' – examples would fill a book. And often these phrases are also used in English translation: 'The die is cast'; 'crossing the Rubicon'; 'Rome was not built in a day'.

For high-beginner to low-intermediate learners. Master tricky Spanish irregular verbs in the next 30 days, with this innovative, story-based immersion method. Just listen to one section per day, complete the exercises, and watch as irregular verbs fall into place and improve your speech without a hitch! With 30-Day Mastery: Invincible Irregular Verbs you'll learn through example and context, just like native speakers do! The magic of learning through story is that your main focus is actually not on memorising anything...you concentrate on understanding and enjoying the story!

Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living breathing thing that reflects who we are. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right” and “wrong” to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty or scoldy (yes, that’s a “real” word!), this book explains where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and reveals the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable.

If you had been a court poet during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, irritating the megalomaniac ruler would not have been wise. And one of the things which would have really angered Nero would have been the effort to write an epic poem about the struggle between Pompey and Caesar in which the noble hero (portrayed by Pompey) was the man who fought to preserve the Republic, and the selfish villain (portrayed by Caesar), the man who destroyed it. Yet Lucan wrote just such a poem.