Showing titles in Linguistics

Lady Mason's trial for forgery and perjury shocks the neighborhood. A cast of unforgettable characters views her with disdain, compassion, and disbelief. And then there are the love stories....

“So many people have written and claimed that their families were the original of the Forsytes,” wrote Galsworthy, “that one has almost been encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagine species.” It is the Spring of 1920, 34 years on from the beginning of the Saga. “Young Jolyon” is married to Irene after her divorce from Soames, and they now have a son, Jon. Soames has re-married and has a daughter, Fleur. A new generation of Forsytes comes of age and the Saga continues.

China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, left behind in the wake of Western technology. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu shows that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: to make the formidable Chinese language - a 2,200-year-old writing system that was daunting to natives and foreigners alike - accessible to a globalised digital world.

In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century.

Victory is the story of a loner who believes that the best way to avoid life's pain and pitfalls is to distance himself from others. In spite of his misgivings, Axel Heyst agrees to manage a coal company on a remote island. When the company eventually fails, he again turns his back on people and society, more convinced than ever that his original philosophy was right.

There are no direct records of the original Indo-European speech. By comparing the vocabularies of its various descendants, however, it is possible to reconstruct the basic Indo-European roots with considerable confidence. In The Origins of English Words, Shipley catalogues these proposed roots and follows the often devious, always fascinating, process by which some of their offshoots have grown.

Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day offers a lively and entertaining method for adding a more impressive list of words to your everyday speech, and for learning how to use them effortlessly and accurately. Besides giving definitions, this invaluable guide also provides root meanings and elements of words so you can increase your vocabulary base by thousands of exciting new words and use them with aplomb in sentences.

In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.

Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.

In Making Sense, David Crystal confronts the foe of many: grammar. Once taught relentlessly to all students in the English-speaking world, grammar disappeared from most school curricula, so that terms such as preposition and conjunction now often confound children and adults alike.

The Napoleonic Wars are at their height, and upheaval and uncertainty plague British soil. In the midst of it all, the impoverished beauty Anne Garland finds herself at the center of a love quadrangle. She is torn between the persistent and annoying Festus Derryman, her womanizing childhood sweetheart Bob Loveday, and the reliable and thoughtful John Loveday, the eponymous Trumpet-Major. Who will she choose?

Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.

Linguists have been studying Black English as a speech variety for years, arguing to the public that it is different from Standard English, not a degradation of it. Yet false assumptions and controversies still swirl around what it means to speak and sound "Black." In his first book devoted solely to the form, structure, and development of Black English, John McWhorter clearly explains its fundamentals and rich history while carefully examining the cultural, educational, and political issues that have undermined recognition of this transformative, empowering dialect.

Follow the journey of Horace Holly and his ward, Leo Vincey, to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen named Ayesha who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World subgenre, which many later authors emulated.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Have You Eaten Grandma? written and read by Gyles Brandreth. It can be much harder than it seems; commas, colons, semicolons and even apostrophes can drive us all mad at times, but it riles no one more than the longest-serving resident of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, grammar guru Gyles Brandreth. In this brilliantly funny tirade and guide, Gyles anatomises the linguistic horrors of our times, tells us where we've been going wrong (and why) and shows us how, in future, we can get it right every time.

Compiled in Middle Welsh during the 12th and 13th centuries, The Mabinogion is a mesmerizing panorama of fantasy, romance, tragedy and humor. Blending Arthurian romance, Welsh legend and mythology, it tells tales of heroic knights, fair maidens, dramatic battles and magical beasts across 12 fantastical stories.

Some people say 'sconn' while others say 'schown'. He says 'bath' while she says 'bahth'. You say 'potayto'. I say 'potahto'. And - wait a second, no one says 'potahto'. No one's ever said 'potahto'. Have they? From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of received pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father, David, travel the world in search of the stories of spoken English.

In this, the first of the Palliser parliamentary novels, the plight of women in marriage, politics and private life is seen through the eyes of Alice and Kate Vavisor, Lady Glencora and the coquettish Mrs. Greenow.

Like Tom Jones before him, Barry Lyndon is one of the most lively and roguish characters in English literature. He may now be best known through the colorful Stanley Kubrick film released in 1975, but it is Thackeray who, in true 19th-century style, shows him best.

Based on Baron's own empirical research, What's Your Pronoun? chronicles the story of the role pronouns have played-and continue to play-in establishing both our rights and our identities. It is an essential work in understanding how 21st-century culture has evolved.