Language Diversity and Academic Writing encourages students to understand the diversity within their own and others' language and apply that knowledge to their academic writing. Readings by linguists, journalists, novelists, educators, writing researchers, and student writers explore a range of questions about language and writing: How does language reflect and construct our identities and influence how we are perceived by others? How do the features and rules of language and writing change over time and across situations? How do we position ourselves as writers in academic contexts and beyond? Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students, and the website for the Spotlight series (macmillanlearning.com/spotlight) offers comprehensive instructor support with sample syllabi and additional teaching resources. The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting line of single-theme readers, each featuring Bedford's trademark care and quality. An Editorial Board of more than a dozen compositionists at schools focusing on specific themes assists in the development of the series. The readers in the series collect thoughtfully chosen readings sufficient for an entire writing course--about 35 selections--to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students make inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as subcultures,, music, borders, humor, monsters, happiness, money, food, sustainability, and gender to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, each focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic.

Some structural features of languages predict others, some remain unchanged in daughter languages, others have an areal consistency; in establishing typologically, historically and geographically stable features in the worlds languages, examples are included from Kayardild, Djingili, Dyirbal, Mangarayi, Maung, Ngiyambaa.

What are the most widely spoken non-English languages in the USA? How did they reach the USA? Who speaks them, to whom, and for what purposes? What changes do these languages undergo as they come into contact with English? This book investigates the linguistic diversity of the USA by profiling the twelve most commonly used languages other than English. Each chapter paints a portrait of the history, current demographics, community characteristics, economic status, and language maintenance of each language group, and looks ahead to the future of each language. The book challenges myths about the 'official' language of the USA, explores the degree to which today's immigrants are learning English and assimilating into the mainstream, and discusses the relationship between linguistic diversity and national unity. Written in a coherent and structured style, Language Diversity in the USA is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and education.

Unlike other multi-ethnic nations, such as Myanmar and India, where official language policy has sparked bloody clashes, Thailand has maintained relative stability despite its eighty languages. In this study of the relations among politics, geography, and language, William A. Smalley shows how Thailand has maintained national unity through an elaborate social and linguistic hierarchy. Smalley contends that because the people of Thailand perceive their social hierarchy as the normal order, Standard Thai, spoken by members of the higher levels of society, prevails as the uncontested national language. By examining the hierarchy of Thailand's diverse languages and dialects in light of Thai history, education, culture, and religion, Smalley shows how Thailand has been able to keep its many ethnic groups at peace. Linguistic Diversity and National Unity explores the intricate relationship between language and power and the ways in which social and linguistic rank can be used to perpetuate order.

Speaking Culturally examines the changing cultural demographics of the United States from a linguistic perspective. The author highlights the discourses associated with gender and with African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans.

An examination of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the relationship between grammar and thought.

There are some 6,500 different languages in the world, belonging to around 250 distinct families and conforming to numerous grammatical types. This book explains why. Given that the biological mechanisms underlying language are the same in all normal human beings, would we not be a moresuccessful species if we spoke one language? Daniel Nettle considers how this extraordinary and rich diversity arose, how it relates to the nature of language, cognition, and culture, and how it is linked with the main patterns of human geography and history. Human languages and language families are not distributed evenly: there are relatively few in Eurasia compared to the profusion found in Australasia, the Pacific, and the Americas. There is also a marked correlation between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. The author explains the processesby which this distribution evolved and changes still. To do so he returns to the earliest origins of language, reconstructing the processes of linguistic variation and diffusion that occurred when humans first filled the continents and, thousands of years later, turned to agriculture. He ends byexamining the causes of linguistic mortality, and why the number of the world's languages may halve before 2100. Linguistic Diversity draws on work in anthropology, linguistics, geography, archaeology, and evolutionary science to provide a comprehensive account of the patterns of linguistic diversity. It is written in a clear, lively and accessible style, and will appeal broadly across the natural and humansciences, as well as to the informed general reader.

Understanding and addressing linguistic disadvantage must be a central facet of the social justice agenda of our time. This book explores the ways in which linguistic diversity mediates social justice in liberal democracies undergoing rapid change due to high levels of migration and economic globalization. Focusing on the linguistic dimensions of economic inequality, cultural domination and imparity of political participation, Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice employs a case-study approach to real-world instances of linguistic injustice. Linguistic diversity is a universal characteristic of human language but linguistic diversity is rarely neutral; rather it is accompanied by linguistic stratification and linguistic subordination. Domains critical to social justice include employment, education, and community participation. The book offers a detailed examination of the connection between linguistic diversity and inequality in these specific contexts within nation states that are organized as liberal democracies. Inequalities exist not only between individuals and groups within a state but also between states. Therefore, the book also explores the role of linguistic diversity in global injustice with a particular focus on the spread of English as a global language. While much of the analysis in this book focuses on language as a means of exclusion, discrimination and disadvantage, the concluding chapter asks what the content of linguistic justice might be.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of endangered languages with a global coverage. It features such well-known specialists as Michael Krauss, Willem F. H. Adelaar, Denny Moore, Colette Grinevald, Akira Yamamoto, Roger Blench, Bruce Connell, Tapani Salminen, Olga Kazakevich, Aleksandr Kibrik, Jonathan Owens, David Bradley, George van Driem, Nicholas Evans, Stephen A. Wurm, Darrell Tryon and Matthias Brenzinger. The contributions are unique in analysing the present extent and the various kinds of language endangerment by applying shared general indicators for the assessment of language endangerment. Apart from presenting the specific situations of language endangerment at the sub-continental level, the volume discusses major issues that bear universally on language endangerment. The actual study of endangered languages is carefully examined, for example, against the ethics and pragmatics of fieldwork. Practical aspects of community involvement in language documentation are discussed, such as the setting up of local archives and the training of local linguists. Numerous case studies illustrate different language shift environments with specific replacing factors, such as colonial and religious conquests, migrations and governmental language education. The book is of interest to students and scholars of linguistics with particular focus on endangered languages (and their documentation), typology, and sociolinguistics as well as to anthropologists and language activists.