Linguaphile
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Linguaphile
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See moreA celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.
A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.
A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.
If there is one feature that defines the human condition, it is language: written, spoken, signed, understood, and misunderstood, in all its infinite glory. In this ingenious, lyrical exploration, Julie Sedivy draws on years of experience in the lab and a lifetime of linguistic love to bring the discoveries of linguistics home, to the place language itself lives: within the yearnings of the human heart and amid the complex social bonds that it makes possible.
Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love follows the path that language takes through a human lifeβfrom an infant's first attempts at sense-making to the vulnerabilities and losses that accompany aging. As Sedivy shows, however, language and life are inextricable, and here she offers them together: a childish misunderstanding of her mother's meaning reveals the difficulty of relating to other minds; frustration with "professional" communication styles exposes the labyrinth of standards that define success; the first signs of hearing loss lead to a meditation on society's discomfort with physical and mental limitations.
Part memoir, part scientific exploration, and part cultural commentary, this book epitomises the thrills of a life steeped in the aesthetic delights of language and the joys of its scientific scrutiny.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780374601836
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 15 October 2024
Country: United States
Imprint: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 27.0mm
Width: 143.0mm
Height: 215.0mm
Weight: 424g
Pages: 336
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About the Author
Julie Sedivy has taught linguistics and psychology at Brown University and the University of Calgary. She is the author of Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self, Language in Mind: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics and coauthor of Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says about You. She lives in Calgary, Canada.
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