Language Awareness : Readings for College Writers

by Eschholz, Paul; Rosa, Alfred; Clark, Virginia

• ISBN13: 9780312463168
• ISBN10: 0312463162
• Edition: 10th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-02
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

An immediately and universally relevant subject, language is the ideal theme to explore in a composition course.Language Awarenesscollects contemporary and classic readings about language that not only make students more aware of its uses and more capable of analyzing its effects, but also help them to deploy language more effectively in their own writing.

Author Biography

ALFRED ROSA and PAUL ESCHHOLZ are Professor Emeriti of English at the University of Vermont. They have collaborated on a number of best-selling texts for Bedford/St. Martin's, including Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition, Ninth Edition (2007), Subject/Strategies, Eleventh Edition (2008), and Language: Introductory Readings, Seventh Edition (2008).

VIRGINIA CLARK was a professor of English at the University of Vermont and served as chair of the English department. With Paul Eschholz and Alfred Rosa, she is also the author of Language: Introductory Readings, Seventh Edition (2008).

Table of Contents

Reading Critically

Writing in College and Beyond

 

1. Coming to an Awareness of Language

Discovering Language

Malcolm X, Coming to an Awareness of Language

Helen Keller, The Day Language Came into My Life

David Raymond, On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read

+ Henry Louis Gates Jr., What’s in a Name?

+ Tom Rosenberg, Changing My Name after Sixty Years

Language Matters

Robert MacNeil, English Belongs to Everybody

** Stephen Pinker, Words Don’t Mean What They Mean

Susanne K. Langer, Language and Thought

Paul Roberts, A Brief History of English

 

2. Writers on Writing

Writing in College and Beyond

Maxine Hairston, What Happens When People Write?

Linda Flower, Writing for an Audience

Anne Lamott, Shitty First Drafts

Donald M. Murray, The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts

** Gerald Graff, How to Write an Argument

Editing: Getting It Right

William Zinsser, Simplicity

** Gregory Pence, Let’s Think Outside the Box of Bad Clichés

+** Charles R. Lawson, It’s Academic, or Is It?

+** Patricia T. O’Connor, Like I Said, Don’t Worry

 

3. Politics, Propaganda, and Doublespeak

Language that Manipulates

Donna Woolfolk Cross, Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

William Lutz, The World of Doublespeak

** Sissela Bok, The Burden of Deceit in Public Life

Making a Difference: Using Language Responsibly

Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream

Sojourner Truth, And Ain’t I a Woman

** Al Gore, Time to Make Peace with the Planet: 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace Lecture

** Toni Morrison, When Language Dies: 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture

+** Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal

+** Stephen Colbert, Higher Education

 

4. Prejudice, Discrimination, and Stereotypes

Where Does Prejudice Come From?

** Andrew Sullivan, What’s So Bad about Hate?

Gordon Allport, The Language of Prejudice

** Bob Herbert, Signs of Infection

**Alleen Pace Nilsen, Sexism and Language (Updated for this book)

Prejudice, Stereotypes and the Minority Experience

+ Gloria Naylor, The Meanings of a Word

+** Andi Zeisler, The B-Word? You Betcha

**Gloria Steinem, In Defense of the "Chick Flick"

** Grace Hsiang, "FOBs" vs. "Twinkies": The New Discrimination is Interracial

Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Places

Audre Lorde, The Fourth of July (From "Cultural Diversity," 9/e)

 

5. Everyday Conversations

Exploring Our Speech Communities

** Paul Roberts, Speech Communities

** Jeffrey Collins and Kristen Wyatt, Whither the Southern Accent?

** Chang-Rae Lee, Mute in an English-Only World

** Daniel Seidel, The Lost Art of the Rant

+** Jennifer Lee, I Think, Therefore IM

+** Charles McGrath, The Pleasures of the Text

Gender and the Words We Use

**Deborah Tannen, You’re Wearing That? Exploring the Delicate and Explosive Mother-Daughter Relationship

Clive Thompson, He and She: What’s the Real Difference?

Martha Irvine, "Queer" Evolution: Word Goes Mainstream

+** John McWhorter, Missing the Nose on Our Face

+** Audrey Bilger, You Guys

 

6. Media and Advertising

Fake News . . . Real News [OR SOME TITLE LIKE THIS]

**Greg Beato, Amusing Ourselves to Depth

Newman P. Birk and Genevieve B. Birk, Selection, Slanting, and Charged Language

Neil Postman and Steve Powers, Television News: The Language of Pictures

+**Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur

+**Annalee Newitz, What Happens When Blogs Go Mainstream?

Advertising and the Art of Persuasion

Bill Bryson, The Hard Sell: Advertising in America

William Lutz, Weasel Words: The Art of Saying Nothing at All

+**James Twitchell, Lead Us into Temptation

+** Jean Kilbourne, Jesus Is a Brand of Jeans

** Naomi Klein, Barricading the Branded Village

 

7. Language Debate: Should Learning Be Censored?

** Roger Rosenblatt, We Are Free to Be You, Me, Stupid, and Dead

** Irving Kristol, The Case for Censorship

** Stanley Fish, The Free-Speech Follies

** Stuart Taylor Jr., How Campus Censors Squelch Freedom of Speech

Diane Ravitch, The Language Police

** Anna Quindlen, With a No. 2 Pencil, Delete: The Destruction of Literature in the Name of

Children

 

8. Language Debate: "Should English Be the Law?"

Robert D. King, Should English Be the Law?

**Charles Krauthammer, In Plain English: Let’s Make It Official

Myriam Marquez, Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public

**Leticia Salais, Saying "Adios" to Spanglish

Barbara Mellix, From Outside In

** Caroline Hwang, The Good Daughter

 

9. Language Debate: What’s All the Fuss about Natural, Organic, Local Foods?

**Michael Pollan, Putting It Back Together Again: Processed Foods

**Barbara Kingsolver, Called Home

Sarah Federman, What’s Natural about Our Natural Products?

Bonnie Leibman, Claims Crazy: Which Can You Believe?

**Field Maloney, Is Whole Foods Wholesome?

**Mark Winne, The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get Local and Organic

 

** new to this edition

+ paired essays