Forbidden Words

Author: Keith Allan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139457608
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Many words and expressions are viewed as 'taboo', such as those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people. This 2006 book provides a fascinating insight into taboo language and its role in everyday life. It looks at the ways we use language to be polite or impolite, politically correct or offensive, depending on whether we are 'sweet-talking', 'straight-talking' or being deliberately rude. Using a range of colourful examples, it shows how we use language playfully and figuratively in order to swear, to insult, and also to be politically correct, and what our motivations are for doing so. It goes on to examine the differences between institutionalized censorship and the ways individuals censor their own language. Lively and revealing, Forbidden Words will fascinate anyone who is interested in how and why we use and avoid taboos in daily conversation.

Forbidden Words

Author: Eugénio de Andrade
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811215237
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : pt
Pages : 338

Book Description
Award-winning poetry in a bilingual edition, by Portugal's best-known living poet.

Forbidden Words

Author: Patricia Traxler
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826209351
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 76

Book Description
""It wasn't the words that killed, it""Was the wilderness between the words, ""Like the wilderness of God, ""The catch of breath beyond a prayer, ""The wait, the long way home""From candle's gleam." "From "The Words"" Forbidden Words," Patricia Traxler's third book of poetry, explores the weight of unspoken thoughts and the emotional consequences that they may have. Her poems erupt from the prairies and farms of the Midwest, and in them she seeks refuge from the tumultuous storms of spiritual doubt, love, and loss. In her longer poems, such as "The Wife Talks in Her Sleep" and "The Lunatic's Ball," Traxler examines the relationship of silence to the language of women. Her crisp, shorter poems like "Lullaby" and "How I Got This Way" offer insight into the growth of spirituality and childhood in a Midwestern town. Those fascinated with the power of language and the challenge of faith will find Traxler's poems a captivating read.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)

Author: Sherman Alexie
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0316219304
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller—over one million copies sold! A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.

Converting Words

Author: William F. Hanks
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520944917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 485

Book Description
This pathbreaking synthesis of history, anthropology, and linguistics gives an unprecedented view of the first two hundred years of the Spanish colonization of the Yucatec Maya. Drawing on an extraordinary range and depth of sources, William F. Hanks documents for the first time the crucial role played by language in cultural conquest: how colonial Mayan emerged in the age of the cross, how it was taken up by native writers to become the language of indigenous literature, and how it ultimately became the language of rebellion against the system that produced it. Converting Words includes original analyses of the linguistic practices of both missionaries and Mayas-as found in bilingual dictionaries, grammars, catechisms, land documents, native chronicles, petitions, and the forbidden Maya Books of Chilam Balam. Lucidly written and vividly detailed, this important work presents a new approach to the study of religious and cultural conversion that will illuminate the history of Latin America and beyond, and will be essential reading across disciplinary boundaries.

N

Author: James Henry Harris
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506479170
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
This book is about a Black man's experience of reading Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time while in graduate school. The story captures the author's emotional struggle with Twain's use of the racial epithet more than two hundred times in the text. Author James Henry Harris reports being relieved to come to the end of the semester of "encountering Twain's use of [the forbidden word] every week. . . . I was teetering on the brink of falling apart. . . . For the first time the class seemed to understand my painful struggle, and my plight as a Black man in class was a metaphor, a symbol of the past, present, and postmodern condition of American society." This is a courageous memoir that wrestles with the historic stain of racism and the ongoing impact of racist language in postmodern society. The book is about Harris's flashbacks, conversations, and dilemmas spawned by use of the epithet in a classroom setting where the author was the only Black person. His diary-like reflections reveal his skill as a keen reader of culture and literature. In these pages, Harris challenges his instructor and classmates and inspires readers to redress the long history of American racism and white supremacy bound up with the N-word. He reflects on how current Black artists and others use the word in a different way with the intention of empowering or claiming the term. But Harris is not convinced that even this usage does not further feed the word's racist roots. Healing racial division begins with understanding the deep impact our words can have to tear down or to heal. This book invites the reader into this important conversation.

The Language Police

Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307428850
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
If you’re an actress or a coed just trying to do a man-size job, a yes-man who turns a deaf ear to some sob sister, an heiress aboard her yacht, or a bookworm enjoying a boy’s night out, Diane Ravitch’s internationally acclaimed The Language Police has bad news for you: Erase those words from your vocabulary! Textbook publishers and state education agencies have sought to root out racist, sexist, and elitist language in classroom and library materials. But according to Diane Ravitch, a leading historian of education, what began with the best of intentions has veered toward bizarre extremes. At a time when we celebrate and encourage diversity, young readers are fed bowdlerized texts, devoid of the references that give these works their meaning and vitality. With forceful arguments and sensible solutions for rescuing American education from the pressure groups that have made classrooms bland and uninspiring, The Language Police offers a powerful corrective to a cultural scandal.

Nine Nasty Words

Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593421388
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
The New York Times bestseller now in paperback. One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power--and why we love them so much. Profanity has always been a deliciously vibrant part of our lexicon, an integral part of being human. In fact, our ability to curse comes from a different part of the brain than other parts of speech--the urgency with which we say "f&*k!" is instead related to the instinct that tells us to flee from danger. Language evolves with time, and so does what we consider profane or unspeakable. Nine Nasty Words is a rollicking examination of profanity, explored from every angle: historical, sociological, political, linguistic. In a particularly coarse moment, when the public discourse is shaped in part by once-shocking words, nothing could be timelier.

The Handmaid's Tale

Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 0771008791
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.

Forbidden Words

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Americanisms
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description