Exploring Language, 14th edition
Published by Pearson (July 30, 2014) © 2015
- Gary A. Goshgarian Northeastern University
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This market-leading language reader features thought-provoking readings that explore the various interconnections between language and American society.
For more than 25 years, this engaging reader has challenged students to critically examine how language affects and constructs culture and how culture constructs and affects language. This thirteenth edition maintains the integrity of past editions while reflecting the new and fascinating language issues that exist in today's culture. Provocative selections are organized around nine major topics, and then broken into stimulating sub-themes like the connections between gender and language differences, hate speech, the language of war, and censorship on campus, inviting students to debate current social and cultural issues that are inseparable from language.
The book also continues to explore enduring issues: how men and women still struggle to understand each other; how politicians are blasted for reducing intricate social issues to sound bites; how we still engage in First Amendment debates over freedom of speech.
This revision features a new section, “Language of Change,” containing famous speeches that made historical differences in the world. Other sections have been updated to reflect current events, such as the power of political speech, the influence of technology on the written and spoken word, and language and censorship.
“Exploring the Language of Visuals” sections throughout provide graphics such as photographs, cartoons, posters, print ads, email messages, signs, and a book cover for students to analyze critically and discuss.
A headnote containing useful thematic and biographical information precedes each reading, and analytical questions follow each essay, while “Making Connections” exercises, and library and Internet research questions conclude each chapter.
- A new Chapter 13, “Language of Change,” includes famous speeches that made historical differences in the world. Other sections have been updated to reflect current events, such as the power of political speech, the influence of technology on the written and spoken word, and language and censorship. We also have new views on advertising and how it influences our consumer desires. The book also continues to explore enduring issues: how men and women still struggle to understand each other; how politicians are blasted for reducing intricate social issues to sound bites; how we still engage in First Amendment debates over freedom of speech.
- .New coverage of critical writing guides students through the writing process and serves as a companion to the chapter on critical reading.
- Coverage of research and documentation is now included.
- Expanded discussion of “Exploring the Language of Visuals” with specific advice about advertisements and editorial cartoons along with new and updated visuals in every chapter.
*Chapter 1: Critical Thinking and Reading
What Is Critical Thinking?
Why Read Critically?
How to Read Critically
Logical Fallacies—What They Are and How to Avoid Them
Exploring the Language of Visual Arguments
Analyzing Visual Arguments
*Chapter 2: Critical Writing
Finding Topics to Write About
The General Audience
The Writing Process
Developing Your Ideas
Why Essays Need Supporting Evidence
Forms of Evidence
Some Tips About Supporting Evidence
Structuring Your Essay
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*Chapter 3: Researching Your Papers
Sources of Information
Locating Sources
Evaluating Sources
Drafting Your Paper
Revising and Editing Your Paper
Plagiarism
*Chapter 4 Documentation Guide
Where Does the Documentation Go
Documentation Style
A Brief Guide to MLA and APA Style
Sample Student Research Paper
Chapter 5: The Evolution of Language: Learning to Communicate
From Hand to Mouth, Michael C. Corballis
Language and Thought, Susanne K. Langer
Horton Heared A Who!, Steven Pinker
*Bilingual Mind: Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages, Jeffrey Kluger
*Visual: Four Letter Words
Chunking, Ben Zimmer
Another Language for the Deaf, Margalit Fox
Visual: SignWriting
Chapter 6: Language Awareness: Personal Recollections
Homemade Education, Malcolm X
A Word for Everything, Helen Keller
Visual: American Sign Language Alphaet
*Coming into Language, Jimmy Santiago Baca
* Living with Dyslexia, Gareth Cook
Spanish Lessons, Christine Marín
The Language of Silence, Maxine Hong Kingston
Chapter 7: Language Use: What’s Your Language?
Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language, Mauro E. Mujica
·Visual: Speak American
Do You Speak American? Robert MacNeil
Everyone Has an Accent but Me, John Esling
Good English and Bad, Bill Bryson
Why Good English Is Good For You, John Simon
The Like Virus, David Grambs
Lost in America, Douglas McGray
Chapter 8: Language and Technology: Our Digital Discourse
In the Beginning Was the Word, Christine Rosen
*Much ado about blogging, Scott Rosenberg
Texting, David Crystal
r u online?: The evolving lexicon of wired teens, Kris Axtman
Visual: I Like Your Hoodie . . . (photograph)
I Tweet, Therefore I Am, Peggy Orenstein
*Note to Selfie, John Dickerson,
Chapter 9: Language Dynamics: A Failure to Communicate?
Women Talk Too Much, Janet Holmes
What Language Barrier? Deborah Cameron
Oh, Mom. Oh, Honey, Deborah Tannen
Nonverbal Behavior, Teri Kwal Gamble & Michael W. Gamble
Small-Scale Communication, Jennifer Akin
Some Friends and I Started Talking, Margaret J. Wheatley
Chapter 10: Language Sensitivity: You Can’t Say That
Hate Speech, Robin Tolmach Lakoff
Hate Speech, Robin Tolmach Lakoff
The Word Police, Michiko Kakutani
*Excised by the Language Police, Dianne Ravich
Hate Speech Cannot Be Tolerated, Richard Delgado
Visual: Free Speech Area
Nigger: The Meaning of a Word, Gloria Naylor
*There Is No Such Thing as Free Speech, Stanley Fish
Chapter 11: The Language Advertising: Why We Buy
The Language of Advertising Claims, Jeffrey Schrank
The Language of Advertising, Charles A O’Neill
Be All That You Can Be: The Company Persona and Language Alignment, Frank Lunt
*I Can’t See Clearly Now, Martin Lindstrom
Visual: Current Advertisements
Chapter 12: Language and Government: Political Wordplay
How to Detect Propaganda, Institute for Propaganda Analysis
Doubts About Doublespeak, William Lutz
Politics and the English Language, George Orwell
Fighting Words: The War over Language, Jon Hooten
Do You Speak Presidential?, Anna Marie Trester
*Writing a Great Campaign Speech, James T. Snyder
Freedom of Speech and the Editorial Cartoon, Doug Marlette
Visual: Political Cartoons
Chapter 13: Language of Change: Challenging the Status Quo
Aren’t I a Woman? Sojourner Truth
*Nelson Mandela's Inaugural speech as State President
*Speech at the March on Washington, Josephine Baker
VISUAL: Elizabeth Eckford at Little Rock Central High School
Inaugural Address, John F. Kennedy
*Living the Revolution, Gloria Steinem
Chapter 14: Language and Thought: Shaping the Brain
Does Language Shape How You Think?, Guy Deutscher
Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, Bruno Dubuc
Nothing Is Missing, Tom Munnecke
Visual: Calvin and Hobbs (cartoon)
You Say Up, I Say Yesterday, Joan O’C. Hamilton
Lost in Translation, Lera Boroditsky
*Is the Internet Changing the Way We Think?, John Naughton
Mind over Mass Media, Steven Pinker
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