Human Communication across Cultures
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Human Communication Across Cultures is a highly interactive textbook and workbook on how human communication takes place. Unlike other textbooks which focus only on sociolinguistics this book employs both sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Sociolinguistics explores how language is used in social interactions. There are differences in the way we speak due to where we live, gender, age, race/ethnicity, religious background and our social class and level of education. Pragmatics shows how we speak differently and understand one another in each situation we encounter. Each section of the book includes a brief introduction, a discussion of the topic, references for further research and an extensive collection of activities designed for both in-class usage and homework assignments. The book features numerous examples from a variety of current world cultures.
Published: Aug 1, 2016
| Section | Chapter | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| Preliminaries | ||
| Preface for Instructors | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Preface for Students | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Acknowledgements | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Author Biographies | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 1 | ||
| Language, Communication and Culture | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 2 | ||
| The Structural Features of Language | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 3 | ||
| Pragmatics | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 4 | ||
| Speech Acts | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 5 | ||
| Routines | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 6 | ||
| Cooperative Principle and Implicature | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 7 | ||
| Politeness Strategies | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 8 | ||
| Conversational Organization | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 9 | ||
| Social Factors | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 10 | ||
| Dialects | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 11 | ||
| Language and Ethnicity | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 12 | ||
| Gender | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Chapter 13 | ||
| Bilingualism | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| End Matter | ||
| Glossary | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Bibliography | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
| Index | Vincent Remillard, Karen Williams | |
Reviews
As an introductory textbook, the book uses language which is easy to understand for even non-native speakers at different proficiency levels and also those who lack backgrounds in linguistics, pragmatics or sociolinguistics. Though the chapters are strongly linked together and progress from the analysis of what language is to what constitutes communication and finally how communication occurs in different cultures, each chapter can be studied discreetly or with a varying degree of focus since it gives the teacher the flexibility to assign the end-of-chapter exercises and tasks as homework or classwork. The other factor that makes the book outstanding is the very well-structured chapters. Each chapter contains several thought-provoking examples and engaging tasks that can contribute to a more profound understanding of the topic. The bullet point summary at the end of each chapter contributes to the consolidation of the new knowledge and prepares the reader for the move to the next chapter.
Overall, this is a commendable work by Remillard and William. I highly recommend this valuable book as both a textbook and a self-study resource for undergraduate level pragmatics and sociolinguistics courses.
LinguistList
A good choice for a course that would whet the appetite of budding
sociolinguists.
Discourse Studies