Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication

Chosen for their accessibility and variety, the readings in Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication, Third Edition, engage students in thinking about the nature of language--arguably the most uniquely human of all our characteristics--and its involvement in every aspect of human society and experience. Instead of taking an ideological stance on specific issues, the text presents a range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives and bolsters them with pedagogical support, including unit and chapter introductions; critical-thinking, reading, and application questions; suggested further reading; and a comprehensive glossary. Questions of power, identity, interaction, ideology, and the nature of language and other semiotic systems are woven throughout the third edition of Making Sense of Language, making it an exemplary text for courses in language and culture, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and four-field anthropology.

Table of Contents:
* = Readings that are new to this edition Preface Introduction to the revised edition Part I: The Nature of Language Unit 1: What Is Language? *1. Eduardo Kohn, The Open Whole *2. Daniel Chandler, Models of the Sign 3. Charles Hockett, The Origin of Speech *4. Jeffrey V. Peterson, Semiotic Communication in Nonhumans Primates Unit 2: Language and Thought 5. Benjamin Lee Whorf, The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language *6. John A. Lucy, Through the Window 7. Stephen C. Levinson, Language and Mind: Let's Get the Issues Straight! Unit 3: Language Socialization 8. Shirley Brice Heath, What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and at School *9. Patricia M. Clancy, The Acquisition of Communicative Style in Japanese *10. Peggy J. Miller and Douglas E. Sperry, Déjà vu: The Continuing Misrecognition of Low-Income Children's Verbal Abilities *11. Kathleen C. Riley, Learning to Exchange Food and Talk in the Marquesas Unit 4: (New) Media *12. Plato, Phaedrus *13. Laura R. Graham, Quoting Mario Juruna: Linguistic Imagery and the Transformation of Indigenous Voice in the Brazilian Print Press *14. dana boyd, It's Complicated. Introduction *15. Thomas W. Cooper, Of Scripts and Scriptures: Why Plain People Perpetuate a Media Fast *16. Lee Skallerup Bessette, On Reading Part II: Language as Social Action Unit 5: Discourse and Performance 17. John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words 18. Mikhail Bakhtin, Discourse in the Novel 19. Susan D. Blum, Naming Practices and the Power of Words in China *20. Rupert Stasch, Word Avoidance as a Relation-Making Act: A Paradigm for Analysis of Name Utterance Taboos Unit 6: Language Ideologies *21. Ethel M. Albert, "Rhetoric," "Logic," and "Poetics" among the Burundi: Cultural Patterning of Speech Behavior 22. Benjamin Bailey, Communication of Respect in Interethnic Service Encounters *23. Don Kulick, Animal Communicators 24. Keith Basso, "To Give Up on Words": Silence in Western Apache Culture Unit 7: Verbal Art, Affect, Embodiment *25. Roger D. Abrahams, Joking: The Training of the Man-of-Words in Talking Broad *26. Alex E. Chávez, So You Got Screwed?: Humor, U.S.-Mexico Migration, and the Embodied Poetics of Transgression Part III: Language and Society Unit 8: Indexing Identity Region and Class *27. Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, Language Evolution or Dying Traditions? The State of American Dialects 28. William Labov, The Social Stratification of (r) in New York City Department Stores? 29. Deborah Tannen, New York Jewish Conversational Style "Race" and Ethnicity *30. H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman, "Nah, We Straight": Black Language and America's First Black President *31. Donald L. Rubin, Nonlanguage Factors Affecting Undergraduates' Judgments of Nonnative English-Speaking Teaching Assistants *32. John Baugh, Linguistic Profiling Gender and Sexuality 33. William M. O'Barr and Bowman K. Atkins, "Women's Language" or "Powerless Language"? 34. Kira Hall, "Unnatural" Gender in Hindi *35. Deborah Cameron, Just Don't Do It Generation 36. Scott F. Kiesling, Dude *37. Penelope Eckert, Where Does the Social Stop? *38. Tadeusz Lewandowski, Uptalk, Vocal Fry and, Like, Totally Slang: Assessing Stylistic Trends in American Speech *39. Gretchen McCulloch, Move over Shakespeare: Teen Girls are the Real Language Disruptors Unit 10: Diversity and Complexity Societal Multilingualism *40. Shifra Kisch, Al-Sayyid: A Sociolinguistic Sketch *41. Jan Blommaert and Ben Rampton, Language and Superdiversity *42. Lionel Wee, Language Politics and Global City *43. Flora Veit-Wild, 'Zimbolicious' -The Creative Potential of Linguistic Innovation: The Case of Shona-English in Zimbabwe 44. Tom McArthur, Chinese, English, Spanish - and the Rest *45. K. David Harrison, Language Endangerment among the Tofa Individual Multilingualism 46. Ana Celia Zentella, Bilingualism en casa 47. Inmaculada M. García-Sánchez, Serious Games: Code-Switching and Gendered Identities in Moroccan Immigrant Girls' Pretend Play *48. Aneta Pavlenko, Bilingual Selves Coda: Action in the World 49. Betsy Rymes and Andrea R. Leone, Citizen Sociolinguistics: A New Media Methodology for Understanding Language and Social Life Glossary Index