What's Language Got to Do with It?

by Keith Walters, Michal Brody, Shirley Brice Heath (Foreword)

In the Mideast, words shoot to kill. On the pages of the New Yorker , Romeo IMs Juliet. In India, operators in customer service call centers are required to speak English with an American accent and to be able to make small talk about the Super Bowl. Closer to home, ABC News offers up a linguistic profiling quiz. And George Orwell continues to lament the state of politics and the English language. This is just some of what you’ll find in What’s Language Got to Do with It? , a thought-provoking new reader that introduces some of the most important language issues facing us today―and prompts students to think hard about their own use of language.

624 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2005

Reviews

[Stephy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most comprehensive text I have found about the Native speakers and new users of the American English Language, and what part everyone has played in developing it from where it was in 1910 or so to the present. A fabulous work! Buy this book! Read it for pleasure, keep it for reference. Probably intended as a text book, I highly recommend it for fun! It is like a deep well of cool water one dips into again and again.

[Nichole]

I read this originally when I TAed for Poitevin at Millikin. I started revisiting it, thinking I might be able to use some of the articles, but they're just getting much too dated. I need to find something newer. No need to waste my time continuing to re-read this one.