Offering a user-friendly introduction to sociolinguistics, this volume addresses the ways in which language serves the needs of the individual and society.
Once my hair turned white, some strange things began happening to me. Young people, strangers passing me by or standing in line at the Mall, began telling me I was hot or hip, and that I gave them hope. I guess about becoming old. Part of this is because I never stopped wearing high heels, and I exercise to stay agile and erect.
It's a good thing that I do because I've shrunk and, being only 4'10" tall at my peak height, I'm afraid to be measured and find out how much I've shriveled up to. However, my mind hasn't shriveled at all. I don't live in the past. I don't cling to old trends or ideas. I keep up with what's going on the world, and not just current events. I keep up with what people are doing and how they're behaving and what music they like. Friends and acquintances comment often on my open mind and on my constant curiosity. I'm even a geek. I embrace technology.
Well, LANGUAGE THE SOCIAL MIRROR, 4TH ED tells you why my mind is young and I'm not stale. I constantly observe what people are doing and saying. I keep up with the latest research on how people interact with each other. I make sure I know the latest slang, movies, music, TV shows, what young people are and are not doing. When I was teaching, I encouraged my students to do their own research into how their peers spoke and moved, what they talked about and what they did. I never disapproved or spoke of how much smarter or nicer we were in my youth, maybe because I don't disapprove and we may have been smarter about some things, but not what youth today is smart about.
All this shows in my book. Many of the illustrative anecdotes come directly from my students. I explain what's going on today in terms of what positive social outcomes result from changes.
I realize the previous passage may sound smug and conceited. Believe me, I'm neither. My purpose in talking about why I still seem to have ideas and opinions that even young people like to talk about with me is to show that the best recipe for keeping young in spirit --the body goes no matter what -- is to keep your mind learning new things. When you deal with language as I do, the world is your laboratory. If you keep your ears and eyes open, you'll keep learning and, the advantage of age is, you have a rich network of knowledge and observation to tie present knowledge to.
Every single human activity is carried on via language. Every interaction you and everyone has is controlled by social rules for conversation within the culture. Everything we know is known via language. Even if we know by observing, we recall it by the words we used to internalize what we observed.
You can not understand humans without understanding language. You can't understand our society without understanding the sociology of language. You can't understand how people manipulate you and how you manipulate them without understanding social rules for conversation. Finally, you can't understand how power is achieved and won without understanding the sociology of language. LANGUAGE THE SOCIAL MIRROR, 4TH ED will teach you a lot about yourself and your world. It will give you insights into American and other cultures, insights which will lead you to other insights.
My next two books have already been started. One is on dogs, and the other is, guess what? On language. Except this one will deal with topics other than Language the Social Mirror, and will also be written in an even more casual style.
My next book w
