Exploring Language, 12th Edition

Exploring Langauge features thought-provoking readings that explore the various interconnections between language and American society. The text challenges the reader to critically examine how language affects and constructs culture and how culture constructs and affects language.  Key topics include Gender and Language; Hate Speech; Language of War; Censorship.

Introduction

Critical Thinking

1. Breaking Silences    

Beginnings: Evolution of Language

Visual: Tower of Babel

From Hand to Mouth (Michael C. Corballis)

Language and Thought (Susanne K. Langer)

Horton Heared a Who! (Steven Pinker)

Another Language for the Deaf (Margalit Fox)

Visual: SignWriting

Speaking in Tongues (James Geary)

How Do You Learn a Dead Language? (Cynthia Cyr)

Personal Recollections: Coming into Language                

Homemade Education (Malcolm X)     

A Word for Everything (Helen Keller)  

Visual: American Sign Language           

My Yiddish (Leonard Michaels)           

Spanish Lessons (Christine Marin)       

Language of Silence (Maxine Hong Kingston)  

Visual: A Child’s First Story

2. Writers on Writing

The Writing Process

Writing for an Audience (Linda Flower)

Getting Started (Anne Lamott)

Computers Invite a Tangled Web of Complications (P.J. O’Rourke)

Writing to Change the World (Mary Piper)

Visual: The Secret Lives of Fonts         

On Good Writing (John Leo)

Finding the Right Words                 

The Case for Short Words (Richard Lederer)

Saying is Believing (Patricia T. O’Connor)

Cliché’s Anyone (James Isaacs)

Selection, Slanting and Charged Language (Newman P. Birk & Genevieve B. Birk)

3. A World of Language

What Is “American” English?

Do You Speak American (Robert MacNeil)

Everyone Has an Accent but Me (John Esling)

Good English and Bad (Bill Bryson)

Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language (Mauro E. Mujica)

And May He Be Bilingual (Julia Ortiz Cofer)

English as a Global Language

Why a Global Language? (David Crystal)

What Global Language? (Barbara Walraff)

Not the Queen’s English (Carla Power)

Lost in America (Douglas McGray)

4. Technology and Language

Making Connections in a Modern World

Is PowerPoint the Devil? (Julia Keller)

Visual: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint, (Peter Norvig)

The Making of the Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation (Peter Norvig)

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissim (Christine Rosen)

Virtually Trustworthy (Judith Donath)

Virtually Speaking

Texting (David Crystal)

r u online? (Kris Axtman)

Thx for the IView! I Wud ♥ 2 Work 4 U!! ;) (Sarah E. Needleman)

The Other Side of E-Mail (Robert Kuttner)

Blogging in the Global Lunchroom (Geoffrey Nunberg)

5. The Communication Gap: How We Speak to Each Other

He Says/She Says
Women Talk Too Much (Janet Holmes)

No Detail is Too Small (Tony Korheiser)

Sex Differences (Ronald Maculay)

Right-Through Stare (Aletheia Plankiw)

“I’ll Explain it To You” Lecturing and Listening  (Deborah Tannen)

Visual: Men Are from Belgium, Women Are from New Brunswick

What We Say and How We Say It

Nonverbal Behavior: Culture, Gender, and the Media (Kwal Gamble and Gamble)

Small-Scale Communication (Jennifer Akin)

The Like Virus (David Grambs)

Some Friends and I Started Talking (Margaret J.Wheatley)

Speaking Personally (John Guinan)

6. The Language of Humor: What Makes Us Laugh

What’s Funny?

Outsiders/Insiders (Joseph Boskin)

Laughter's New Profile (Lorraine Ali)

Why Black Humor is So Black (Wil Haygood)

What’s So Funny? (Regina Barreca)

Funny Box: Editorial Cartoons
What Is a Cartoon?  (Mort Goldberg)

Visuals: Sample Cartoons

Freedom of Speech and the Editorial Cartoon? (Doug Marlette)

Defiantly Incorrect: Humor of John Callahan (Timothy Egan)

Visual: Callahan Cartoon “Wheelchair Posse”

7. Language and the Media

The Language of Advertising

With These Words I Can Sell You Anything (William Lutz)

The Language of Advertising (Charles A O'Neill)

Language Abuse (Herschell Gordon Lewis)

How Tobacco Company "Anti-Smoking" Ads Appeal to Teens (Carrie McLaren)

Visual: Current Advertisements

In Your Living Room: Language in Popular Media

TV News: All the World in Pictures (Neil Postman and Steve Powers)

Are We Losing Da Youth? (Danny Schechter)

Letting Words Fly (John T. McWhorter)

Is Bad Language Unacceptable on TV? (BBC Online)

Taking TV’s 'War of Words' Too Literally (Deborah Tannen)

8. Censorship and Free Speech

Biased Language and Hate Speech

Hate Speech (Robin Tomach Lakoff)

Bias-Free Language: Some Guidelines (Rosalie Maggio)

The Word Police (Michiko Kakutani)

Visual: Depictions of the Cleveland Indians’ mascot Chief Wahoo

“Nigger” The Meaning of a Word (Gloria Naylor)

A Note on “Ho” (Michael Geis)

Censorship and Free Speech

The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses (Alan C Kors)

Regulating Racist Speech on Campus (Charles Lawrence III)

There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, Too (Stanley Fish)

Hate Cannot Be Tolerated (Richard Delgado)

Visual: Free Speech Zone (Zachary Parker)

9. Political Wordplay

Politically Speaking

How to Detect Propaganda (Institute for Propaganda Analysis)

Doubts about Doublespeak (William Lutz)

Visual: 24/7 Cartoon

Thirty Second Democracy: Campaign Advertising and American Elections (Paul Freedman)

Visual: Presidential Television Ads

Fighting Words (Jon Hooten)   

Semantics of Murder (Amir Taheri)

Speaking Out: Language that Inspired Change                 

Letter from Birmingham Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr)    

Aren’t I a Woman? (Sojourner Truth)

Struggle for Human Rights (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Visual: Margaret Sanger Silenced

Nobel Lecture on Global Warming

Credits

Index of Authors and Titles