American Sign Language Green Books, A Teacher's Resource Text on Grammar and Culture (American Sign Language Series)

This book is designed for a teacher as part of the "Green Books" American Sign Language series; however, it is a very useful guide to ASL Grammar and Culture for anyone studying American Sign Language seriously (I, myself, am not a teacher, but have a copy of the book).


I was introduced to the book when I first began learning sign language, and it was very confusing to me. I would have benefited, at the time, much better from an ASL dictionary or simpler sign book. My recommendation to those of you who have just begun learning (or would like to learn) ASL would be NOT to buy this book just YET! Start with something less daunting and sophisticated (after all, it is designed for those already familiar with ASL and preparing a class curriculum).

What the book will give you is an excellent explanation of the sociolinguistic nature of American Sign Language--something you typically will not receive from a ASL Dictionary. For example: how sentences are structured, topicilization, rhetorical questions, relative clauses, expression of time, pronominalization, subject and object usage, the use of classifiers, locatives ... to name a few.

All in all, this is a terrifically detailed, well researched, informative and valuable book; yet, not for a beginning student.

Language, Culture, and Society: A Book of Readings

Twenty-four articles representing a diversity of interests and approaches have been brought together in this collection intended to define and develop topics of central interest to language, culture, and society. Opening pieces include enduring, classic writings by Boas, Sapir, Whorf, Mead, and others, giving the volume an important historical orientation. These contributions form the groundwork for the wide sampling of more recent and contemporary works that follows. The selections chosen for Language, Culture, and Society, Second Edition, reflect several major themes within the field: language in relation to thought and cognition; language in relation to the cultural partitioning of the environment; language in relation to self-as-social; language in relation to social differentiation; and language in relation to its emergence as a sociocultural phenomenon.

The editor's helpful introductions point out significant ideas and trace the development of the twenty-four contributions that form a diverse, well-balanced, and up-to-date volume.

Race, Language, and Culture

This volume is a collection of the most important essays written by Franz Boas on the science of anthropology.

"Franz Boas is the father of American anthropology and one of the founders of the field of modern anthropology. The book, Race, Language, and Culture, is a collection of some of his most important essays."—David Schneider, University of Chicago

"An exceptional book. Exceptional because it brings into one volume sixty-two papers written by the most influential figure in American anthropology. . . . Exceptional in that it exhibits the wide range of interests and scientific exactness which made it possible for one man to exert such a profound influence on the growing science of anthropology. . . . This is a volume every student of anthropology will wish to possess; it will also have a wide distribution among other students of the social sciences, and all interested in the problems of race."—Fay-Cooper Cole, American Anthropologist

Language and Culture

This is the first book-length treatment in English of the interactions of language and culture. Though focused on North American anthropology and linguistics, all major cross currents in the field from Europe and America are covered, from Boas to structuralism and on through postmodernism. The two key issues are how language might influence culture, and how language structure may be used as a model for nonlanguage-based systems. Like Siamese twins, these two themes of linguistic relativity and semiotics have much in common, and the ideas raised in language and culture studies have relevance to cultural anthropology, sociology, folklore, literary criticism, cognitive science, and linguistics.

This book is unique not only in being the sole organic treatment of this important part of linguistic anthropology, but also in its historiographic organization, which allows the reader to see how the field developed along with major issues. At the same time, the relations to the other areas of linguistic anthropology-- sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, paralinguistics, cognitive anthropology, and literary studies--are clearly shown.

Language and Culture (Oxford Introductions to Language Study

Recent social and political changes have focused attention on the debate about the relationship between language and culture. This book offers an accessible survey of key concepts such as social context and cultural authenticity, using insights from fields which include linguistics, sociology and anthropology.

This intro. to culture is an excellent distillation of language and culture, suited especially for anyone who has read her previous book published by Oxford Univ. Press CONTEXT AND CULTURE. Context and Culture (C&C)has many illuminating examples from literature, speech and and media. Kramsch writes densely--every word counts--and readers will find that there is always something new to learn on every reading. It's no surprise that Widdowson, remarkable for his incredibly tight prose, was her editor. Kramsch is a razor-sharp thinker and an accomplished writer. An intellectual of the best sort.

So, to best appreciate this short intro. to culture, read C&C first.

To the frustrated engineering-student-teacher assistant, irritated that such simple ideas as "culture", "communication" and "understanding" are made less simple by Kramsch: Perhaps these concepts are not so simple after all.