Language Myths

Description

A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world’s leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining English; Children Can’t Speak or Write Properly Anymore; America is Ruining the English Language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury andThe Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.A Note on the Contributors

Introduction

Myth 1: The Meanings of Words Should Not be Allowed to Vary or Change: Peter Trudgill
Myth 2: Some Languages Are Just Not Good Enough: Ray Harlow
Myth 3: The Media Are Ruining English: Jean Aitchison
Myth 4: French is a Logical Language: Anthony Lodge
Myth 5: English Spelling is Kattastroffik: Edward Carney
Myth 6: Women Talk Too Much: Janet Holmes
Myth 7: Some Languages Are Harder than Others: Lars-Gunnar Andersson
Myth 8: Children Can’t Speak or Write Properly Any More: James Milroy
Myth 9: In the Appalachians They Speak like Shakespeare: Michael Montgomery
Myth 10: Some Languages Have No Grammar: Winifred Bauer
Myth 11: Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly: Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski
Myth 12: Bad Grammar is Slovenly: Leslie Milroy
Myth 13: Black Children are Verbally Deprived: Walt Wolfram
Myth 14: Double Negatives Are Illogical: Jenny Cheshire
Myth 15: TV Makes People Sound the Same: J. K. Chambers
Myth 16: You Shouldn’t Say “It Is Me” because “Me” is Accusative: Laurie Bauer
Myth 17: They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City: Dennis R. Preston
Myth 18: Some Languages Are Spoken More Quickly than Others: Peter Roach
Myth 19: Aborigines Speak a Primitive Lanugage: Nicholas Evans
Myth 20: Everyone Has an Accent Except Me: John H. Esling
Myth 21: America is Ruining the English Language: John Algeo

Index

Peter Trudgill and Laurie Bauer are both respected linguists. Trudgill has written many books for Penguin (including Sociolinguistics which has sold 130,000 copies since it was first published in 1974). Other contributors include Jean Aitchison (Professor of Language at Oxford), Lars Gunnar-Andersson (co-author of Bad Language with Trudgill) and Janet Holmes (Women, Men and Politeness, 1995, Longman). Peter Trudgill lives in Lausanne (and sometimes Norwich.) Laurie Bauer lives in New Zealand.GB

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