Language - The Loaded Weapon: The Use and Abuse of Language Today

ISBN-13: 9780582291089 / Angielski / Miękka / 1980 / 224 str.

Dwight Bolinger

Opis

Language – The Loaded Weapon offers a glimpse of what the recent study of language is beginning to tell us about these things. It explains in simple terms the essentials of linguistic form and meaning, and applies them to illuminate questions of correctness, truth, class and dialect, manipulation through advertising and propaganda, sexual and other discrimination, official obfuscation and the maintenance of power, and – most pervasive of all – language as the vital agent with which we build our worlds. Explaining language has been Dwight Bolinger’s life work, and as his invigorating new book amply shows he believes that what is true and important can also be made clear and pleasurable

Spis treści

Acknowledgments VI Preface Vil I. Lo the shaman 1 2. The nonverbal womb IO 3. Signs and symbols I7 4. Above the word 25 5. Appointment in Babylon 38 6. Stigma, status, and standard 44 7. We reduced the size because we didn't want to increase the price 58 8. Guns don't kill people, people kill people 68 9. A case in point: sexism 89 IO. Power and deception 105 I I. Another case in point: the jargonauts and the not-so-golden fleece 125 12. Rival metaphors and the confection of reality I38 I3. A last case in point: bluenoses and coffin nails 156 14. School for shamans 166 I 5. An ecology of language I82 Notes to chapters 189 Further reading 202 Index

O autorze

Dwight Bolinger