The Language Blog by K International. A hodge-podge of news and information, this blog is a scrumptious feast for us language geeks. Interested in a special whistled language from Turkey? Want to read about a garbage collector born and raised in New York who speaks fluent Gaelic? Ever wonder why irregular verbs even exist? Read about these and scores of other language-related topics at The Language Blog.
Talking Power: The Politics of Language by Robin Lakoff. Take note: the subtitle of this book is not the language of politics but the politics of language. Talking Power is about how alllanguage—even dinner-time chitchat, high-school text messages, casual greetings, and pillow talk—are laced with information about status, identity, authority, and control. Lakoff covers language in the courtroom, the classroom, and the therapist’s office; language across cultures and across genders. Her last chapter, “Language Bosses,” unabashedly confronts people who insist their way of speaking is better than other people’s. It’s required reading in my Language as Power class and, frankly, should be for anyone who writes. Or talks.
The Skin that We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom edited by Lisa Delpit. If you’re interested in language and ethnicity—especially their role in education—you’ll find this collection of essays entertaining and enlightening. A Caribbean girl is caught between her mother’s insistence on so-called “proper” English and her friends’ creole dialect. An African American man finds his identity in Black English. Minority students refuse to speak in front of a group, ashamed of their own speech. The Skin that We Speak offers insights into how language prejudices can seriously disadvantage minority children—and challenges the reader to think about language in new ways.
You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and Talking Nine-to-Five: Women and Men at Work by Deborah Tannen. Tannen is an expert on language and gender in contemporary life and she has written prolifically about it. These two books are her best known and, in my opinion, most thorough. Tannen makes no judgments about the way either men or women speak—this isn’t about who’s right, just about how we differ. Her work has helped many a woman and man understand the confusion, irritation, and miscues that are so common in conversation between the sexes.