Tuesday, July 24, 2007

book recommendation

In Chapter 11, the authors of our text introduce the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I took an anthropology course last semester entitled "Language, Culture, and Society," in which I spent a lot of time studying this hypothesis, its criticisms, and its implications for intercultural communication. I'd like to recommend a book that I read for that course: "Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation" by Michael H. Agar. It's an interesting read with lots of entertaining stories and some great contemporary ideas about the importance of language. I also wrote a paper involving the theories proposed in this book - I'd be happy to pass it along if anyone is actually interested.

1 comment:

I-Chant said...

I have that book, too! It's a good read. The Whorfian hypothesis is why I came to graduate school. It has so many interesting implications and testing it is quite a challenge. There are quite a few people here at Stanford who are studying it and we can talk about their research.

Thanks for the recommendation Raven!