Amatka

Karin Tidbeck, 2012 [2017]
(August 2017)

Reviewed, after much delay, over at Strange Horizons.

Memoirs of a Polar Bear

Yoko Tawada, 2014 [Susan Bernofsky, 2016]

(January 2017)

  

Reviewed over at Strange Horizons. Interesting in a chilly kind of way.

Babel-17

Samuel R. Delaney, 1967

(February 2017)

Working my way through the canon. Slim book, fat (if not entirely watertight) ideas. Thinking of collating a Linguistics in SF list. There’s this, Embassytown, Snow Crash, and of course 1984. Any other ideas?

Death Sentences

Kawamata Chiaki, 1984 [Thomas Lamarre & Kazuko Y. Behrens, 2012]

(January 2017)

Death Sentences is, at least as far as plot goes, about a poem that causes anyone to read it to die. The blurb suggests that this conceit is shared with The Ring, but for me the obvious comparator is Monty Python:

The Kingdom of Speech

Tom Wolfe, 2016

(September 2016)

  

Not a book so much as (very) long-form journalism, and exemplifying both the strengths and the weaknesses of the genre. I will refer you elsewhere for far more erudite refutations of Wolfe's linguistic scholarship than I could hope to manage. It should, however, be noted early that the concern of this book is only tangentially language; The Kingdom of Speech is really interested in how ideas are born, tested, and accepted or rejected. Almost by accident Wolfe gives us something far more interesting than his fatuously simplistic notions of linguistic evolution. Behold instead the 'Swinging Dick' theory of scientific advancement.

The King's English

Kingsley Amis, 1997

(July 2015)

A style guide, basically. And as with any reasonably well constructed style guide it contain equal parts sage regard for the essential mutability of language and random prescriptivism, particularly on the subject of pronunciation.

Honest Abe

Abe Shinzo gave a speech to congress a couple of days ago, and now I am conflicted.

The Elements of Eloquence

Mark Forsyth, 2013

(February 2015)

  

A pleasingly concise and accessible catalogue of rhetorical figures. While occasionally slightly too pleased with itself in the way that only expensively educated Englishmen of a certain age (and the texts they produce) can be, its underlying message that anyone can be taught to produce a decent turn of phrase is something I can definitely get behind. Would make a nice twofer with You Talkin’ to Me? as a starter set on oratory and persuasion. And that’s all I have to say about that.

On Language

Noam Chomsky, 2007 [1975, 1977]

(August 2014)

Dense.

  

What We See When We Read

Peter Mendelsund, 2014

(August 2014)

A fascinating little book, this. But, perhaps fittingly, one that’s very hard to capture the experience of reading at a remove. Easy to read, hard to say what reading it is like.

English in Japan in the Era of Globalization

Philip Seargeant (ed), 2011

(July 2014)

  

Yep. Interesting, as you’d expect. I’ll get something more scholarly and substantial written up over at the other place eventually (maybe).

  

Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink

The football World Cup is almost upon us. I care less about this as I get older, but it’s still a pleasantly diverting way of killing time over the summer months. I think not living in the UK makes it a bit easier as I don’t have to deal with all the hubristic triumphalism that invariably attends the England team’s entry to the tournament, nor the weak-assed post-imperial wailing and self-abuse which accompanies their inevitable exit on penalties in the second round.

Subtle Hint

About as subtle as Google+ (Available options: 'sign up now', or 'learn more'. Conspicious by its absence: 'do fuck off'), for which apologies, but at least I'm not depriving you of the unmitigated torrent of wisdom and human compassion that is the youtube comments section.

Meanwhile, in my other life as a mild-mannered linguistics student (I wear glasses don't you know. As alter ego disguises go it's utterly foolproof) I've written a couple of longer posts, trying to thrash out some ideas regarding Teacher Talk in the ELT classroom.

This may or (more likely) may not be your thing, but if any of you fancy having a look and offering suggestions or criticism (or even abuse as long as it's funny) I'd be much obliged -

Efficiency and Redundancy in the L2 Classroom

Part One

Part Two

Mythologies

Roland Barthes, 1957 [Annette Lavers, 1972; Siân Reynolds, 2009]

(December 2013)

What with the bear as a mascot and the droll spaghetti, our studio anthropologists will have no trouble in postulating an Orient which is exotic in form, while being in reality profoundly similar to the Occident, at least the Occident of spiritualist thought.

  

Fun with Homophony

Number 1 in a Series of Probably Very Few

Semiotics

Semiotics: A Graphic Guide
Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz, 1997
Semiotics: The Basics
Daniel Chandler, 2007
(November 2013)


Well, this all strikes me as being terribly significant.

Very Short Introductions

Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction

Catherine Belsey, 2002

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction

Christopher Butler, 2002

(November 2013)

Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, oh my!

Verbal Hygiene

Deborah Cameron, 2012 [1995]

(October 2013)

…grammar drills present pupils with an apparently trivial and pointless task which must nevertheless be performed precisely on command. The point is not to teach the task in and for itself, but to teach discipline – obedience and punctiliousness – in all tasks.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

The Art of Rhetoric

Aristotle, c. 320 BC [Hugh Lawson-Tancred,1991]

(October 2013)

The purpose, then, of democracy is freedom, that of oligarchy is wealth, that of aristocracy has to do with education and customs, and that of tyranny is security.

Metaphors We Live By

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, 2003 [1980]

(June 2013)

So this is clearly something I’m kinda into.