The Materiality of Language

The Materiality of Language
Author: David Bleich
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0253007739

A critique of male-dominated modes of language use, their roots in higher education, their effects, and their spill over into popular culture. David Bleich sees the human body, its affective life, social life, and political functions as belonging to the study of language. In The Materiality of Language, Bleich addresses the need to end centuries of limiting access to language and its many contexts of use. To recognize language as material and treat it as such, argues Bleich, is to remove restrictions to language access due to historic patterns of academic censorship and unfair gender practices. Language is understood as a key path in the formation of all social and political relations, and becomes available for study by all speakers, who may regulate it, change it, and make it flexible like other material things. “A potentially foundational text in an emergent field [of] language studies, whose work is to break up the monopoly Linguistics and Philosophy have had on the study of language. . . . The insight that the affective operation of language is elided in nearly all approaches to [language] acquisition is brilliant and astounding. . . . The analysis of subject creation as an affective process of recognizing and sharing the same affective state and language as the means for materializing affective states . . . is fascinating and persuasive. . . . One of the book’s distinctive features is the use of gender as a key normative analytical lens throughout. It would be difficult to exaggerate how rare this is among language thinkers, and how productive it is for the arguments here.” —Mary Louise Pratt, New York University “A powerful, first-rate book on a crucial topic. It offers a great interpretation of the sacralization and ascendancy of Latin as a language supporting what Bleich calls ‘an elite group of men.’ . . . This is a brilliant codebook to academic language and its coercions.” —Dale Bauer, University of Illinois“/B>/DESC> literary theory;semiotics;literary criticism;philosophy;language philosophy;philosophy of language;gender studies;social science;language studies;communication studies;language arts;language disciplines;gender;sex;language;rhetoric;academic language;colloquial language;language political aspects;language sex differences;language and gender LIT006000 LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory PHI038000 PHILOSOPHY / Language SOC032000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies LAN004000 LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies 9780253016508 Well-Tempered Woodwinds: Friedrich von Huene and the Making of Early Music in a New World Geoffrey Burgess

Language and Materiality

Language and Materiality
Author: Jillian R. Cavanaugh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1316851850

Aimed at interdisciplinary audiences, and tailored especially to scholars of linguistic and cultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, the book argues for the importance of analyzing language use with an eye toward new materialisms, semiotics, and ideology.

Language and Material Culture

Language and Material Culture
Author: Allison Paige Burkette
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027267944

This innovative and provocative work introduces complexity theory and its application to both the study of language and the study of material culture. The book begins with a wide-ranging theoretical background, covering the areas of dialect geography, the anthropological study of material culture, and a general introduction to the study of complex adaptive systems. Following this general introduction, the principles of complexity theory are demonstrated in data drawn from linguistics and material culture studies. Language and Material Culture further highlights the principles of complexity through a series of case studies, using data from the Linguistic Atlas, colonial American inventories and the Historic American Building Survey. LMC shows that language and material culture are intertwined as they interact within the same cultural complex system. The book is designed for students in courses that focus on language variation, American English and material culture, in addition to general courses on applications of complex systems.

Language, Literacy, and Technology

Language, Literacy, and Technology
Author: Richard Kern
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-05-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1107036488

Language, Literacy, and Technology explores how technology matters to language and the ways we use it.

Interacting with Objects

Interacting with Objects
Author: Maurice Nevile
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2014-09-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9027269831

Objects are essential for how, together, people create and experience social life and relate to the physical environment around them. Interacting with Objects: Language, materiality, and social activity presents studies which use video recordings of real-life settings to explore how objects feature in social interaction and activity. The studies consider many objects (e.g. paper documents, food, a camera, art, furniture, and even the human body), across various situations, such as shopping, visiting the doctor, interviews and meetings, surgery, and instruction in dance, craft, or cooking. Analyses reveal in precise detail how, as people interact, objects are seen, touched and handled, heard, created, transformed, planned, imagined, shared, discussed, or appreciated. With the companion collection Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking, the book advances understanding of the complex organisation and accomplishment of social interaction, especially the significance of embodiment, materiality, participation and temporality. By focussing on objects in and for actual occasions of human action, Interacting with Objects: Language, materiality, and social activity will interest many researchers and practitioners in language and social interaction, communication and discourse, design, and also more widely within anthropology, sociology, psychology, and related disciplines.

Materiality

Materiality
Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2005-07-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822386712

Throughout history and across social and cultural contexts, most systems of belief—whether religious or secular—have ascribed wisdom to those who see reality as that which transcends the merely material. Yet, as the studies collected here show, the immaterial is not easily separated from the material. Humans are defined, to an extraordinary degree, by their expressions of immaterial ideals through material forms. The essays in Materiality explore varied manifestations of materiality from ancient times to the present. In assessing the fundamental role of materiality in shaping humanity, they signal the need to decenter the social within social anthropology in order to make room for the material. Considering topics as diverse as theology, technology, finance, and art, the contributors—most of whom are anthropologists—examine the many different ways in which materiality has been understood and the consequences of these differences. Their case studies show that the latest forms of financial trading instruments can be compared with the oldest ideals of ancient Egypt, that the promise of software can be compared with an age-old desire for an unmediated relationship to divinity. Whether focusing on the theology of Islamic banking, Australian Aboriginal art, derivatives trading in Japan, or textiles that respond directly to their environment, each essay adds depth and nuance to the project that Materiality advances: a profound acknowledgment and rethinking of one of the basic properties of being human. Contributors. Matthew Engelke, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Bill Maurer, Lynn Meskell, Daniel Miller, Hirokazu Miyazaki, Fred Myers, Christopher Pinney, Michael Rowlands, Nigel Thrift

Bess of Hardwick’s Letters

Bess of Hardwick’s Letters
Author: Alison Wiggins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317175115

Bess of Hardwick's Letters is the first book-length study of the c. 250 letters to and from the remarkable Elizabethan dynast, matriarch and builder of houses Bess of Hardwick (c. 1527–1608). By surveying the complete correspondence, author Alison Wiggins uncovers the wide range of uses to which Bess put letters: they were vital to her engagement in the overlapping realms of politics, patronage, business, legal negotiation, news-gathering and domestic life. Much more than a case study of Bess's letters, the discussions of language, handwriting and materiality found here have fundamental implications for the way we approach and read Renaissance letters. Wiggins offers readings which show how Renaissance letters communicated meaning through the interweaving linguistic, palaeographic and material forms, according to socio-historical context and function. The study goes beyond the letters themselves and incorporates a range of historical sources to situate circumstances of production and reception, which include Account Books, inventories, needlework and textile art and architecture. The study is therefore essential reading for scholars in historical linguistics, historical pragmatics, palaeography and manuscript studies, material culture, English literature and social history.

Language and Media

Language and Media
Author: Rodney H. Jones
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2020-10-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000171078

Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries, and key readings—all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible 'two-dimensional' structure is built around four sections—introduction, development, exploration, and extension— which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can also be read across these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained. This revised second edition of Language and Media: Provides an accessible introduction and comprehensive overview of the major approaches and methodological tools used in the study of language and media. Focuses on a broad range of media and media content from more traditional print and broadcast media formats to more recent digital media formats. Incorporates practical examples using real data, including newspaper articles, press releases, television shows, advertisements (print, broadcast, and digital), blogs, social media content, internet memes, culture jamming, and protest signs. Includes key readings from leading scholars in the field, such as Jan Blommaert, Sonia Livingstone, David Machin, Martin Montgomery, Ruth Page, Ron Scollon, and Theo van Leeuwen. Offers a wide range of activities, questions, and points for further discussion. The book emphasises the increasingly creative ways ordinary people are engaging in media production. It also addresses a number of urgent current concerns around media and media production/reception, including fake news, clickbait, virality, and surveillance. Features of the new edition include: Special attention on ‘new media’ forms such as websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, social media sites, and mobile apps such as Snapchat and Instagram; Additional material on: mobility and materiality in media, memes and virality, discourse processes in media production, collaborative production and user created content, reality TV, fake news, the role of algorithms and bots in media production and circulation, and media and resistance; Discussion of media surveillance, privacy boundaries, and the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ related to Internet archiving; Brand new readings from key scholars in the field including Piia Varis, Jan Blommaert, Monika Bednarek and Martin Montgomery; Updated examples and references throughout, to reflect more contemporary issues. Written by three experienced teachers and authors, this accessible textbook is an essential resource for all students of English language and linguistics.