Humanities & Social Sciences Library

If you are doing a topic on animal communication as part of your linguistics class, you might want to check out the articles below:

Dolphin call tells calf who’s mum
BBC News, 23 July 2008

“Female bottlenose dolphins whistle 10 times more often than usual after giving birth in order to help newborns recognise who is “mum”.” Dolphins have unique signature whistles that can identify who’s who. Whistling is part of a process called imprinting which allows baby to recognize its mum. Hear samples of real dolphin whistles in the above link!

Wild dolphins tail-walk on water
BBC News, 19 Aug 2008

An Aussie wild dolphin gave tail-walk tuition to other other wild cousins in her pod. It seems that Billie — the tail-walking dolphin instructor –had learned this behaviour in a dolphinarium when she was rescued and rehabilitated. She eventually brought the skill back into the wild with her when she was released.

Hence, according to the author, dolphins seem to display human-like cultural behaviour.
“[Cultural behaviour] are things that groups develop and are passed between individuals and that come to define those groups, such as language or dancing; and it would seem that among the Port River dolphins we may have an incipient tail-walking culture.”

Other handy references:

Nature. The dolphin defender [videorecording]
produced and written by Hardy Jones ; a production of Hardy Jones Productions and Thirteen/WNET New York.
Chicago, IL : Questar, c2005.
Call no.: D576364

Animal world’s communication kings
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News
1 May 2007

All images copyright of the BBC.

Mention grammar rules and most people would feel glum and bored. But learning grammar rules is a little less painful when you have gargoyles, trolls, vampires and a rabbit on flying horseback to accompany you on your grammatical odyssey.

Learn all about nouns, subject-verb agreement, clauses, predicates and the like in this amusing little volume. Gothic illustrations and sentences with baby vampires and wolfs as subjects make this book a cut above the rest.

Examples include:

Predicate: The vampire began to powder his nose.
Restrictive clause: The painting that leered was hauled into the judge’s chambers and scolded.
Prepositions: He reached across her to grab the lamb chop asleep in the center of the table.

As Gordan says, “language lives, breathes [and] moves with you — like the beings who inhabit this book.”

Interested? Check it out@your library.

The deluxe transitive vampire : the ultimate handbook of grammar for the innocent, the eager, and the doomed
Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
New York : Pantheon Books, c1993.
Call no.: PE1112.G663


All images copyright of the author & publisher.

Calling all word lovers, you can now access Collins Wordbanks Online from any of the common PCs located in the Library!

Collins Wordbanks Online contains 57 million words of written and spoken English from both American and British sources. Language data is derived from the Bank of English — the Collins corpora of modern written and spoken text.

With Wordbanks, you can:
–view language samples as they are used in real life
–carry out linguistic research for your thesis
–analyze the semantics behind the usage of a particular word

More information can be found on our databases page or on the information page for Collins Wordbanks Online.

Shakespeare country [videorecording]
Kent, UK : Delta Music., 2002.
Call no.: E570470

Charming Stratford upon Avon, with its picturesque black and white Tudor houses, is where Shakespeare had once lived. Tour Shakespeare country for yourself in this 55 minute audiovisual journey, where you can live and breathe Shakespeare just by looking at the thatched cottages in the Warwickshire countryside. A falconry centre with flight displays by resident falcons are also part of the countryside museum experience for Shakespeare pilgrims. In modern times, dramatic twists and turns of his plays are acted out in the Globe Theatre, the architecture of which you can view in this DVD.

Old England [videorecording]
New Wave Pictures Production ; produced by Robin Bextor.
UK: Green umbrella, 2004.
Call no.: K570500

Old Sarum, Stonehenge and the elegant Salisbury Cathedral are the key highlights in this DVD. See re-enactments of battle scenes by men in chain mail shirts, take a glimpse into the lives of royalty and enjoy the many aerial views of Stonehenge, Winchester and Salisbury. This is an excellent introduction to Old England especially for those who have yet to visit the place.

On language : Chomsky’s classic works Language and responsibility and Reflections on language
Noam Chomsky.
New York : New Press, 2007.
P106.C548NA

The Blackwell guide to research methods in bilingualism and multilingualism
Li Wei and Melissa G. Moyer.
Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2008.
P115.B632

Reversing language shift : theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages
Joshua A. Fishman.
Clevedon ; Philadelphia : Multilingual Matters, 1991.
P115.3.F537

Sociolinguistic perspectives on bilingual education
Christina Bratt Paulston.
Clevedon ; Philadelphia : Multilingual Matters, 1992.
LC3719.S678

Linguistic minorities, society, and territory
Colin H. Williams.
Clevedon, Avon, England ; Philadelphia : Multilingual Matters, c1991.
P119.315.L755M

Special language : from humans thinking to thinking machines
Christer Laurén and Marianne Nordman.
Clevedon [England] ; Philadelphia : Multilingual Matters Ltd., c1989.
P120.S9S741 1987

Folk linguistics
Nancy A. Niedzielski, Dennis R. Preston.
Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 2003.
P123.N666

How is “wicked” used in the youth context? Interested in finding out and comparing the meanings and semantics between “true feelings” and “mixed feelings”? Explore collocations, concordances and more with the Library’s newest resource — the British National Corpus!

The British National Corpus (BNC) XML edition contains samples of written and spoken language that is meant to represent a wide cross-section of current British English,both spoken and written. BNC contains 100 million words and contains written and spoken corpora.

For more details, check our databases page.

Vague language explored
edited by Joan Cutting.
Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillian, 2007
P299.A46V126

New perspectives on language and sexual identity
Liz Morrish and Helen Sauntson.
Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
P120.S48M875

Identity trouble : critical discourse and contested identities
edited by Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard, Rick Iedema.
Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
P302.I19

The grammar detective : solving the mysteries of basic grammar
Gillian Mary Hanson.
London : Continuum, 2008
PE1112.M393

English as a lingua franca : a corpus-based analysis
Luke Prodromou.
London ; New York : Continuum, c2008.
PE1073.P964

ICT and language learning : from print to the mobile phone
Marie-Madeleine Kenning.
Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
P53.28.K36A

Linguistic policies and the survival of regional languages in France and Britain
Anne Judge.
Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
P119.32.F7J92

Language interrupted : signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars
John McWhorter.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.
P204.M177

Label France
Call no.: DC1.L116
Location: Lee Wee Nam Library

Label France is published by the French Ministry of Foreign and European affairs and the Library has the English edition of this magazine. This quarterly publication gives readers an insight into French culture including aspects such as tourism, lifestyle, economy, literature and the like.

The latest issue (issue no. 69) featured the french and their love of books as the main story. French public libraries and the current state of the French publishing industry are also highlighted in this issue. Fashionistas can look forward to the story on the haute-couture fashion show by Christian Dior and John Galliano.

LIEN

Lien is a bilingual French and English monthly newsletter published by Alliance Francaise de Singapour that reports on local cultural events sponsored by Alliance Francaise. It also highlights French cinema and other French cultural products. Limited copies of Lien are available in HSS Library, Media Resource Library and Library 2.

Can’t get your print copy? Fret not. There’s always the online version.

The essence of style : how the French invented high fashion, fine food, chic cafés, style, sophistication, and glamour
Joan DeJean.
New York : Free Press, 2005.
Call no.: DC128.D326

“The Essence of Style” is one of my favourite books on France and French culture. Why is Paris the City of Light and what role did the Sun King, Louis XIV, play in redefining France as the land of luxury goods and glamour as well as making Paris the fashion capital of the world? Read this book!

For French Film Fans
Searching for french films in the Library? Type in Subject terms “motion pictures” and “french” in the catalogue and limit by audiovisual type. The Library has a sizable collection of French films to support the University’s teaching needs.

The Science of Sarcasm (Not That You Care)
By DAN HURLEY
June 3, 2008

According to the above NYT news article, individuals who lose the ability to perceive sacarsm and irony are unable to use the part of the brain that decodes visual and social contexts.

Dr. Rankin,a professor at University of California, San Francisco, had conducted experiments where dialogue on paper is compared to dialogue in face-to-face encounters. Apparently, paralinguistic cues play quite an important part in communicating sarcasm. Additionally,those who have lost the use of the right hemisphere will not be able to appreciate humour, puns and jokes.

However, even normal folks with “intact brains” have strengths and weaknesses in the ability to detect social cues. How do we sharpen our cognitive abilities then? Read more books? Talk to people who like to engage in verbal sparring and language puzzles? Let’s leave such research to the brainier folks to figure out.

Merriam-Webster now has a PODCAST for solo words in its Word of the Day feature. I’m floored! After all, online dictionaries are just for you to check the spelling, meanings of words and pronunciation, right? Well, it seems that Merriam-Webster thinks that these are not enough. So get ready for souped-up versions of dictionary entries with a jazzy twist!

The only thing not quite right about the site is that it doesn’t provide the “proper”phonetic transcription. The above is your Friday Word of the Day . TGIF!