Divided By A Common Language

Author : Christopher Davies
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2007-09-26
Category : Reference
ISBN : 0547350287

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Divided by a Common Language by Christopher Davies Pdf

This guide to the language differences between the United States and United Kingdom is “a fascinating collection full of all kinds of surprises” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). Taxi rank . . . toad in the hole . . . dustman . . . fancy dress . . . American visitors to London (or viewers of British TV shows) might be confused by these terms. But most Britons would be equally puzzled by words like caboose, bleachers, and busboy. In Divided by a Common Language, Christopher Davies explains these expressions and discusses the many differences in pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary between British and American English. He compares the customs, manners, and practical details of daily life in the United Kingdom and the United States, and American readers will enjoy his account of American culture as seen through an Englishman’s eyes. Davies tops it off with an amusing list of expressions that sound innocent enough in one country but make quite the opposite impression in the other. Two large glossaries help travelers translate from one variety of English to the other, and additional lists explain the distinctive words of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. This delightful book is the ideal companion for travelers—or anyone who enjoys the many nuances of language.

Author : Ari Daniel Levine
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2008-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824832667

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Divided by a Common Language by Ari Daniel Levine Pdf

Between 1044 and 1104, ideological disputes divided China’s sociopolitical elite, who organized into factions battling for control of the imperial government. Advocates and adversaries of state reform forged bureaucratic coalitions to implement their policy agendas and to promote like-minded colleagues. During this period, three emperors and two regents in turn patronized a new bureaucratic coalition that overturned the preceding ministerial regime and its policies. This ideological and political conflict escalated with every monarchical transition in a widening circle of retribution that began with limited purges and ended with extensive blacklists of the opposition. Divided by a Common Language is the first English-language study to approach the political history of the late Northern Song in its entirety and the first to engage the issue of factionalism in Song political culture. Ari Daniel Levine explores the complex intersection of Chinese political, cultural, and intellectual history by examining the language that ministers and monarchs used to articulate conceptions of political authority. Despite their rancorous disputes over state policy, factionalists shared a common repertoire of political discourses and practices, which they used to promote their comrades and purge their adversaries. Conceiving of factions in similar ways, ministers sought monarchical approval of their schemes, employing rhetoric that imagined the imperial court as the ultimate source of ethical and political authority. Factionalists used the same polarizing rhetoric to vilify their opponents—who rejected their exclusive claims to authority as well as their ideological program—as treacherous and disloyal. They pressured emperors and regents to identify the malign factions that were spreading at court and expel them from the metropolitan bureaucracy before they undermined the dynastic polity. By analyzing theoretical essays, court memorials, and political debates from the period, Levine interrogates the intellectual assumptions and linguistic limitations that prevented Northern Song politicians from defending or even acknowledging the existence of factions. From the Northern Song to the Ming and Qing dynasties, this dominant discourse of authority continued to restrain members of China’s sociopolitical elite from articulating interests that acted independently from, or in opposition to, the dynastic polity. Deeply grounded in both primary and secondary sources, Levine’s study is important for the clarity and fluidity with which it presents a critical period in the development of Chinese imperial history and government.

Author : Paul Baker
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2017-09-28
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781107088863

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American and British English by Paul Baker Pdf

Is British English becoming more like American English? Paul Baker tracks the changes, trends and distinctions of both languages to answer this question.

Author : Colin Hay
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03-14
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781350318007

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Political Analysis by Colin Hay Pdf

Political Analysis provides an accessible and engaging yet original introduction and distinctive contribution, to the analysis of political structures, institutions, ideas and behaviours, and above all, to the political processes through which they are constantly made and remade. Following an innovative introduction to the main approaches and concepts in political analysis, the text focuses thematically on the key issues which currently concern and divide political analysts, including the boundaries of the political; the question of structure, agency and power; the dynamics of political change; the relative significance of ideas and material factors; and the challenge posed by postmodernism which the author argues the discipline can strengthen itself by addressing without allowing it to become a recipe for paralysis.

Author : S. W. Well
Publisher : Suntific, Books by the Intellectual Engagé for Intellectuals
Page : 537 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2013-01-31
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9780988870888

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Divided by A Common Language by S. W. Well Pdf

Never before was a book about the Chinese language written in such great details and covering all aspects of the language in one fascinating story. This is an elaborately illustrated book about the Chinese language covering Mandarin pronunciations, the etymology of the fascinating Chinese characters, the characteristics of the Chinese language, the glory, chagrin, dismemberment, and reduction of the Chinese characters that left us the two versions of Chinese language today, the Standard and the Simplified, and the outcry of the Chinese people to return to using the Standard. This is the book for everyone who maintains a fundamental interest in the Chinese language and culture, a book for the novice and experienced as well as foreigners and natives of the Chinese language.

Author : Lynne Murphy
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2018-04-10
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781524704889

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The Prodigal Tongue by Lynne Murphy Pdf

CHOSEN BY THE ECONOMIST AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An American linguist teaching in England explores the sibling rivalry between British and American English “English accents are the sexiest.” “Americans have ruined the English language.” Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language. With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?

Author : Jon Sopel
Publisher : Random House
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2017-09-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781473530751

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If Only They Didn't Speak English by Jon Sopel Pdf

'You see, if only they didn’t speak English in America, then we’d treat it as a foreign country – and probably understand it a lot better’ ‘the sanest man in America’ – Bill Bryson ‘Jon Sopel nails it’ – Emily Maitlis **With a brand new chapter, charting Trump's first year in power** As the BBC’s North America Editor, Jon Sopel has had a pretty busy time of it lately. In the time it’s taken for a reality star to go from laughing stock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of: he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as ‘a beauty’ by none other than Donald Trump. Through music, film, literature, TV and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear we all have a highly developed sense of what America is and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship. But America today feels about as alien a country as you could imagine. It is fearful, angry and impatient for change. In this fascinating, insightful portrait of American life and politics, Jon Sopel sets out to answer our questions about a country that once stood for the grandest of dreams, but which is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division and increasingly perverse beliefs.

Author : Mike Powell
Publisher : Infinity Ventures Incorporated
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2015-07-09
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 1631927205

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Amglish by Mike Powell Pdf

Among English-speaking nations, the United States of America is as insular and unique as the Earth is compared to Mars. Within its borders it has a unique fusion of cultures; it has its own complex legal system; a sometimes frustrating political system based on constitutional checks and balances; its own traditions; its own food and ... its own variation of the English language. Which brings us to the purpose of this book: To show (hopefully in an accessible way) how the English language and culture of America diverged from the English language and culture of the English. And how, no matter how hard any country tries to resist, Planet Earth will eventually end up with one world language - a form of English uniquely fashioned by its most active guardians and developers: the Americans. Welcome to Amglish: Two nations divided by a common language (but united in their ability to tease each other about their respective versions of it)! This is the ultimate cultural and linguistic survival guide for tourists and business travelers alike; the essential reference book to avoid making simple but shocking mistakes on either side of the Atlantic; the place where you can learn why Americans play a game called soccer, while most of the rest of the world plays a game called football (but not the American variety); the place where we reveal how the influence for the American national anthem was a mixture of bombs bursting in air and bawdy beer-soaked ale-houses. And we also examine the contradiction whereby many Americans revere God's work with oceans and sunsets, but think he did a lousy job on various human body parts. The book also contains a comprehensive reference section that includes: The differences in pronunciation between American-English and British-English; Words that sound the same but are spelled differently; Words that look and sound the same, but which have different meanings from one side of the Atlantic to the other; and the biggest section of all, the "Amglish to Britglish" translator.

Author : Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 575 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2019-09-02
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110613285

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Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship by Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph Pdf

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on the regularity of sound change and its importance for general historical-comparative linguistics. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated. The content is engaging, focusing on topics and issues that spark student interest. Its goals are broadly pedagogical and the level and presentation are appropriate for interested beginners with little or no background in linguistics. The language coverage for examples goes well beyond what is usual for books of this kind, with a considerable amount of data from various languages of India.

Author : Adrienne Rich
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 96 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2013-04-01
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780393348071

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The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977 by Adrienne Rich Pdf

“Certain lines had become like incantations to me, words I’d chanted to myself through sorrow and confusion” —Cheryl Strayed, Wild “The Dream of a Common Language explores the contours of a woman’s heart and mind in language for everybody—language whose plainness, laughter, questions and nobility everyone can respond to. . . . No one is writing better or more needed verse than this.”—Boston Evening Globe

Author : Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 607 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2009-08-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110214307

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Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship by Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph Pdf

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on language and race and on Indian writing systems. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated. The content is engaging, focusing on topics and issues that spark student interest. Its goals are broadly pedagogical and the level and presentation are appropriate for interested beginners with little or no background in linguistics. The language coverage for examples goes well beyond what is usual for books of this kind, with a considerable amount of data from various languages of India.

Author : Edward Sapir
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2014-03-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108063784

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Language by Edward Sapir Pdf

A seminal 1921 work by the linguist Edward Sapir, outlining his influential ideas and hypotheses on language and its speakers.

Author : Colin Hay
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:606488068

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Divided by a Common Language by Colin Hay Pdf

Author : Dr Meenakshi Mukherjee
Publisher : OUP India
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2003-03-27
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0195662709

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The Perishable Empire by Dr Meenakshi Mukherjee Pdf

This book provides a new perspective on Indian writing in English by researching into its nineteenth century origins and seeing its subsequent development in relation to other Indian language literatures.

Author : David Crystal
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2012-03-29
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781107611801

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English as a Global Language by David Crystal Pdf

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.