The Age Factor in Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Look at the Critical Period Hypothesis
Assembles a variety of perspectives on the age factor in second language acquistion through all of which runs the common thread of certain scepticism with regard to absolutist version of the idea that there is a particular maturational stage beyond which language learning is no longer possible.
Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway
In Future Babble, award-winning journalist Dan Gardner presents landmark research debunking the whole expert prediction industry and explores our obsession with the future. In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; it then plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would be the world's fastest-growing economy by 2000; by 2000, the USSR no longer existed. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe - we all know how that turned out.
Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway
In Future Babble, award-winning journalist Dan Gardner presents landmark research debunking the whole expert prediction industry and explores our obsession with the future. In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; it then plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would be the worlds fastest-growing economy by 2000; by 2000, the USSR no longer existed. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe - we all know how that turned out.
In What Bloody Man Is That?, Charles Paris is on his way up again, career-wise. No longer "resting" and no longer just a corpse in a cupboard, he blossoms in the play dreaded by superstitious theatre folk, who will not even speak its name: "the Scottish play"-Macbeth. It's only in the provincial rep, but you have to start (or re-start) somewhere. And his agent has promised that though what's offered is not much of a part, "other good parts are in the offing".
A look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.
