{"product_id":"the-state-of-the-language-9780520415300","title":"The State of the Language","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\"Sprawling, uncoordinated, uneven, noisy, and appealing,\" wrote one reviewer of the first edition of this book, published on 1 January 1980. \"The language is in rude health,\" wrote another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Exactly a decade later, here is the book anew, with the same editors but with fifty fresh contributors writing essays and poems that engage our language today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Imaginative attention is bestowed on the changes of recent years, changes not only in the language but in how language is understood. In the forefront are the relations between British English, American English, and those other Englishes with which they compete or cooperate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The nervous negotiations of gender and feminism. The darkness of AIDS. The bright flicker of the computer. The old smolderings of \"standard English\" and correctness. The \"bad language\" that has lately done so well in our society. How all this has been politicized—or is it rather that its inevitably political nature has only now been recognized?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here these and many other facets of the language catch the various light. What has changed is understood in relation to what has not changed, and what has been gained in relation to what has been lost. There is sweep as well as detail, telescope as well as microscope, in this contemplation of the world of our language as it enters the world of the 1990s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe State of the Language\u003c\/i\u003e has been prepared in cooperation with the English-Speaking Union of San Francisco.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSome titles of essays in the book:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhose English?\u003c\/i\u003e by Sidney Greenbaum\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLook, Ma, I'm Talking\u003c\/i\u003e by Sandra Gilbert\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFighting Talk\u003c\/i\u003e by Marina Warner\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNo Opera Please—We're British\u003c\/i\u003e by Michael Bawtree\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChanging What We Sing\u003c\/i\u003e by Margaret Doody\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOn Not Being Milton: Nigger Talk in England Today\u003c\/i\u003e by David Dabydeen\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTalking Black\u003c\/i\u003e by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSubway Graffiti\u003c\/i\u003e by Walter J. Ong\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDoublespeak\u003c\/i\u003e by William Lutz\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIt's a Myth, Innit? Politeness and the English Tag Question\u003c\/i\u003e by John Algeo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Christopher Ricks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48275253461243,"sku":"9780520415300","price":95.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/CoreSourceHub_137d0e4f-f17d-42e5-aba8-43bbffdf98d1.jpg?v=1771243320","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/the-state-of-the-language-9780520415300","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}