Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it-or at least similar thoughts. -So it is not a textbook. -Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it. The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is mis-understood. The whole sense...

Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? In The Wayfinders, renowned anthropologist, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis leads us on a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world's indigenous cultures. In Polynesia we set sail with navigators whose ancestors settled the Pacific ten centuries before Christ. In...

"Discusses different methods for speaking secret codes"--Provided by publisher.

"In 2205, the Nineteenth Amendment has been repealed and men hold absolute power. The Earth's economy relies on an insular group of linguists who "breed" women to become interstellar translators until they are sent to the Barren House to await death. But instead, these women are secretly creating a language of their own to reclaim their autonomy and make resistance possible for all."--Back cover.

"Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language. The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics. By the end of...

In Part I, Language and Responsibility, Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking. In Part II, Reflections on Language, Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language.

A collection of lectures by the "founder of modern linguistics" discusses fifty years of scientific development in the study of language as he expounds and criticizes a variety of theories. --Publisher's description. "In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language...

Verbal Behavior is a 1957 book by psychologist B. F. Skinner, in which he describes what he calls verbal behavior, or what was traditionally called linguistics. Skinner's work describes the controlling elements of verbal behavior with terminology invented for the analysis-echoics, mands, tacts, autoclitics and others-as well as carefully defined uses of ordinary terms such as audience.

The search for the origin of human language has finally come of age. For centuries, progress in Ur-language research was slow and spasmodic; many scientists came to believe that there was no definitive way to answer its central questions. Then, in the past 20 years, everything changed. Linguist Kenneally shows how linguists, cognitive scientists, animal researchers, biologists, and geneticists have all contributed valuable new insights into language...