This study asserts that conscious development of new ways of thinking about language had a crucial role in modern history, particularly the discovery of how differences between languages legitimated social inequalities. It claims that savages and ancients were judged alike because they used language similarly, in contrast to modern Europeans who used disciplined language in scientific, philosophical and legal projects.

Language, our primary tool of thought and perception, is at the heart of who we are as individuals. Languages are constantly changing, sometimes into entirely new varieties of speech, leading to subtle differences in how we present ourselves to others. This revealing account brings together eleven leading specialists from the fields of linguistics, anthropology, philosophy and psychology, to explore the fascinating relationship between language, culture, and social interaction. A range of major questions are discussed: How does language influence our perception of the world? How do new...

Jeff Siegel's fascinating book provides a sociolinguistic history of language contact in Fiji where, from the 1860s until 1920, some 90,000 labourers from other Pacific islands and from India worked on the European-owned plantations.

In this book, Elinor Ochs explores the complex interaction of socialisation and language acquisition in children.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the emerging fields of neurolinguistics and linguistic aphasiology. Reflecting the dramatic changes that have taken place in the study of language disorders over the last decade, David Caplan's approach is firmly interdisciplinary. He introduces concepts from the main contributing disciplines - neurology, linguistics, psychology and speech pathology - in such a way that they will be clearly understood by all students, whatever their particular background. The topics covered have been carefully selected to demonstrate how the more...