Social Linguistics

Lingo spins the listener on a whirlwind tour of 60 European languages and dialects, sharing quirky moments from their histories and exploring their commonalities and differences. Most European languages are descended from a single ancestor, a language not unlike Sanskrit known as Proto-Indo-European (or PIE for short), but the continent's ever-changing borders and cultures have given rise to a linguistic and cultural diversity that is too often forgotten in discussions of Europe as a political entity.

George Horace Lorimer is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post, where he was credited with promoting and discovering authors like Jack London. Lorimer compiled his life advice into the fictional letters from John "Old Gorgon" Graham to his son Pierrepont. John Graham is a Chicago-based pork and finance baron. In the letters Pierrepont receives advice for his different stages of life. Old Gorgon's advice is packed throughout the book, easy to understand, and still rings true today.

Laches, a general in the Athenian army, saw Socrates fight bravely in the battle of Delium. When he and Nicias, another general, are asked to explain the idea of courage, they are at a loss, and words fail them. How does courage differ from thoughtless and reckless audacity? Can a lion be said to be courageous? What about small children who have little idea of the dangers they face? Should we call people courageous who do not know whether their bravery will produce good or bad consequences?

George Gissing’s 1893 gripping novel The Odd Women explores themes like the role of women in society, marriage, morals, and the nascent feminist movement. Set in London, Gissing's women range from the independent free-thinker Rhoda Nunn and the idealistic Mary Barfoot to the Madden sisters who struggle to make a living. The characters make their choices - some traditional and some bravely non-traditional, in two main plot lines. A remarkable late Victorian narrative, The Odd Women chronicles the shifting roles of women in a changing society in a most arresting way.

In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use--and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society.

Swift's allegorical satire about religion and politics follows the lives of three brothers, Martin, Peter, and Jack, each of who represents a faction of the Christian faith - Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and the dissenting faiths, respectively. Each brother inherits a coat (representing religious practice) from their father (God) on the condition that they do not change it. But instead the three quarrelsome youths disobey their father and change their coats beyond recognition.

Thirteen chapters evoke the joy and discovery of reading a menu dotted with the sharp-eyed annotations of a linguist. Jurafsky points out the subtle meanings hidden in filler words like "rich" and "crispy," zeroes in on the metaphors and storytelling tropes we rely on in restaurant reviews, and charts a micro-universe of marketing language on the back of a bag of potato chips.

For anyone communicating with other people, from nice people to complete jerks, neurolinguistic programming (NLP) can be life changing. People use these techniques to be more successful, to teach, to motivate, and to change relationships. In short, NLP has allowed many people to become more successful in everything they do.

Renowned linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick first went to study the tiny jungle village of Gapun in New Guinea over 30 years ago to document how it was that their native language, Tayap, was dying. But you can't study a language without settling in among the people, understanding how they speak every day, and even more, how they live. This book takes us inside the village as Kulick came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of 200 people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

Edgar Rice Burroughs tells us the story of the lost English prince, Richard, whom fate turns into an outlaw preying on the nobility of England. With tons of adventure, cross, and double cross, this tale will keep you engrossed from beginning to end.

Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of 12 loosely connected short stories written by Edgar Rice Burroughs about the title character, Tarzan.

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.

Bad English is sure to enlighten, enrage, and perhaps even inspire. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the audiobook chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases, including decimate, hopefully, enormity, that vs. which, enervate vs. energize, bemuse vs. amuse, literally vs. figuratively, ain't, irregardless, socialist, OMG, and stupider.

We all know the pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune. The Germans named this delight in another's failure schadenfreude (from schaden damage, and freude, joy), and it has perplexed philosophers and psychologists for centuries. Schadenfreude illuminates this hidden emotion, inviting listeners to reflect on its pleasures and how we use other people's miseries to feel better about ourselves. With its exploratory, evocative form, it weaves examples from literature, philosophy, film, and music together with personal observation and historical and cultural analysis.

Do you want to start speed reading people, detecting deceptions, and taking control of your life? If you want to influence people to get what you want, and you’re fascinated about understanding and learning dark psychology and manipulation, then this is the audiobook for you. This audiobook will help you learn about manipulation techniques. It will help you use persuasion tactics and emotional manipulation and mind control to your advantage.

For high-beginner to low-intermediate learners. Master Spanish object pronouns (such as me, te, lo, la, nos, os, etc.) in the next 30 days, with this innovative, story-based immersion method. Just listen to one section per day, complete the exercises and watch as one of the trickiest parts of becoming fluent in Spanish falls into place and improves your speech without a hitch! With 30-Day Mastery: Perfect Object Pronouns you'll learn through example and context, just like native speakers do!

In 1906, without studying navigation, Jack London, his wife Charmian, and a small crew sail to the South Pacific, hoping not to get lost. His adventures and misadventures at sea led him through native uprisings, The Doldrums, and the then unknown sport of surfing. This first person narrative, in its first recording as an audiobook, combines London’s spirit of adventure with his wonderful sense of humor.

The crew of a European ship discovers the utopian island of Bensalem, having gotten lost in the Pacific Ocean somewhere near Peru. The crew spend time learning about the ways of the people of Bensalem, a very chaste group of Christians. The most important part of the island is their university, a state-sponsored scientific institution known as Salomon's House. The narrator is chosen from amongst the crew to get a one-on-one explanation of the way their society works, and he learns about the various buildings and jobs that exist on Bensalem.

Lightfoot the Deer is a story about animals in the Green Forest that are hunted in the fall. The story is mostly about Lightfoot, a male deer hunted by one hunter and describes how he tries to escape being shot. The story tells Lightfoot's encounter with another buck and a battle for territory and the lovely, Miss Daintyfoot. As with most Thornton Burgess books, young listeners learn valuable lessons about nature, wildlife, and positive morals.

Wondering when to expect baby's first word? Want to get your toddler talking? Worried your child is not speaking as clearly as his peers? When it comes to language acquisition, all parents have questions, and Time to Talk has the answers.