From one of America's most beloved and bestselling authors, a wonderfully useful and readable guide to the problems of the English language most commonly encountered by editors and writers.
What is the difference between “immanent” and “imminent”? What is the singular form of graffiti? What is the difference between “acute” and “chronic”? What is the former name of “Moldova”? What is the difference between a cardinal number and an ordinal number? One of the English language's most skilled writers answers these and many other questions and guides us all toward precise, mistake-free usage. Covering spelling, capitalization, plurals, hyphens, abbreviations, and foreign names and phrases, Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors will be an indispensable companion for all who care enough about our language not to maul, misuse, or contort it.
This dictionary is an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. As Bill Bryson notes, it will provide you with “the answers to all those points of written usage that you kind of know or ought to know but can’t quite remember.”
This volume considers fundamental issues in advanced language learning, from the definition of "advancedness," through descriptive and instructional considerations in advanced learning, to the role of assessment. It presents both general insights and also language-specific considerations in classrooms at the college level, spanning a range of languages, from the commonly taught languages of English, French, and German to the less commonly taught Farsi, Korean, Norwegian, and Russian.
Before the exam • Make sure you are familiar with the instructions for the different question types so you can quickly glance at the questions and know what to do. • Think about the type of situations you might come across living or studying in an English speaking country, such as someone asking for directions or talks on topics of general interest. • Listen to as wide a range of material as possible – English language television and radio, listening sites on the Internet and films and music are all great sources.
Semantics (the study of the relation between linguistic and real entities), pragmatics (the study of the purpose and conditions of sentences), and syntax (the study of the properties of verbal signs and their relations) have been a dominant triad in language studies since 1938 when the American philosopher Charles Morris introduced this division, derived from Peirce. It has recently been challenged by Chomsky, who subsumes into syntax the core of his cognitive approach, i.e. the analytical aspects of meaning, leaving all other aspects to pragmatics, dismissed as an irredeemably non-scientific practice. Cognitive semantics has recently brought out the semantic import of grammatical categories and claimed scientific respectability for the study of semantic functions involved in conceptualization. This has made the boundaries between these three traditional areas even more permeable. Finally, the encounter with cognitive science has tempered the anti-psychologist tendency that had long been a distinctive trait of analytic philoso¬phy. It would seem that language needs to be explained more and more in the context of a general theory of the mind, and is less and less a universal pass-partout that will open the doors of every philosophical closet. This change has expanded the epistemic potential of philosophy to an extent it is still difficult to assess. For language theories, too, the `rediscovery of the mind' seems destined to become a new frontier.
Among other issues , this volume includes a bibliography, a list of organizations to contact for further information, and other useful appendixes. The appendix titled “What You Should Know About English Language Learners” offers vital facts about those learning English as a second language and how this issue affects young people. The appendix “What You Should Do About English Language Learners” discusses various solutions to the problems of those learning to speak English. These many useful features make Issues That Concern You: English Language Learners a valuable resource. Given the growing costs of being a society in which multiple languages are spoken, having a greater understanding of this issue is critical.
