Humanities - Languages
A grammar of Rapa Nui
Paulus Kieviet
This book is a comprehensive description of the grammar of Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island. After an introductory chapter, the grammar deals with phonology, word classes, the noun phrase, possession, the verb phrase, verbal and nonverbal clauses, mood and negation, and clause combinations. The phonology of Rapa Nui reveals certain issues of typological interest, such as the existence of strict conditions on the phonological shape of words, word-final devoicing, and reduplication patterns motivated by metrical constraints. For Polynesian languages, the distinction between nouns and verbs in the lexicon has often been denied; in this grammar it is argued that this distinction is needed for Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui has sometimes been characterised as an ergative language; this grammar shows that it is unambiguously accusative. Subject and object marking depend on an interplay of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. Other distinctive features of the language include the existence of a ‘neutral’ aspect marker, a serial verb construction, the emergence of copula verbs, a possessive-relative construction, and a tendency to maximise the use of the nominal domain. Rapa Nui’s relationship to the other Polynesian languages is a recurring theme in this grammar; the relationship to Tahitian (which has profoundly influenced Rapa Nui) especially deserves attention. The grammar is supplemented with a number of interlinear texts, two maps and a subject index.
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A Foundation Course in Reading German
Howard Martin
Alan Ng, University of Wisconsin, Madison
This textbook guides a learner who has no previous German experience to gain the ability to accurately understand formal written German prose, aided only by a comprehensive dictionary.
(1 review)
A grammar of Mauwake
Liisa Berghäll
This grammar provides a synchronic grammatical description of Mauwake, a Papuan Trans-New Guinea (TNG) language of about 2000 speakers on the north coast of the Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. It is the first book-length treatment of the Mauwake language and the only published grammar of the Kumil subgroup to date. Relying on other existing published and unpublished grammars, the author shows how the language is similar to, or different from, related TNG languages especially in the Madang province. The grammar gives a brief introduction to the Mauwake people, their environment and their culture. Although the book mainly covers morphology and syntax, it also includes ashort treatment of the phonological system and the orthography. The description of the grammatical units proceeds from the words/morphology to the phrases, clauses, sentence types and clause combinations. The chapter on functional domains is the only one where the organization is based on meaning/function rather than structure. The longest chapter in the book is on morphology, with verbs taking the central stage. The final chapter deals with the pragmatic functions theme, topic and focus. 13 texts by native speakers, mostly recorded and transcribed but some originally written, are included in the Appendix with morpheme-by-morpheme glosses and a free translation. The theoretical approach used is that of Basic Linguistic Theory. Language typologists and professional Papuanist linguists are naturally one target audience for the grammar. But also two other possible, and important, audiences influenced especially the style the writing: well educated Mauwake speakers interested in their language, and those other Papua New Guineans who have some basic training in linguistics and are keen to explore their own languages.
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Analyzing meaning: An introduction to semantics and pragmatics
Paul Kroeger, Dallas, Texas
This book provides an introduction to the study of meaning in human language, from a linguistic perspective. It covers a fairly broad range of topics, including lexical semantics, compositional semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters are organized into six units: (1) Foundational concepts; (2) Word meanings; (3) Implicature (including indirect speech acts); (4) Compositional semantics; (5) Modals, conditionals, and causation; (6) Tense & aspect.
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Au Boulot! First-Year French
David Dinneen
Hope Christiansen
Madeleine Kernen
Herve Pensec
Au boulot! is a two-year college French program consisting of: a textbook, workbook and 21 accompanying audio exercises; as well as a reference grammar, to be used the entire two years. We also insist that our students obtain a full-sized dictionary, and we recommend the HARPER-COLLINS-ROBERT bilingual New Standard Edition. (Instructors will note in reviewing the materials that we provide vocabulary lists at the ends of chapters, with translations, but no glossary. We have become convinced after years of experience that glossaries are counter-productive. It is vital that students learn to use dictionaries, and the sooner the better.)
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Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1
Emiko Konomi, Portland State University
This textbook is designed for beginning learners who want to learn basic Japanese for the purpose of living and working in Japan. Unlike textbooks written primarily for students, whose content largely centers on student life, this book focuses more on social and professional life beyond school.
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Chapeau! First-Year French
David Dinneen
Madeleine Kernen
Chapeau! is a first-year college text. Although it may appear, at first glance, to move very fast and introduce a large amount of material early, the vocabulary and grammatical structures that we expect students to control actively by the end of the year are limited in accord with our notion of a reasonable application of the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. As a result, while some instructors may be surprised at such things as the absence of the possessive pronoun, no insistence on the use of optional subjunctives, and no active treatment of the relative dont, others may be disturbed by what we still include in a first-year text. What we do expect students to acquire (which is quantitatively less than what we present in the text for them to know about), we believe they will acquire well, providing a sound basis for further study (formal or informal) and permitting us to say to them, both during and at the end of the course, "Chapeau!"
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Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers
Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University
Zhichang Xu, Monash University
The authors of Chinese Rhetoric and Writing offer a response to the argument that Chinese students' academic writing in English is influenced by "culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate." Noting that this argument draws from "an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing," they point out that the rapid growth in the use of English worldwide calls for "a radical reassessment of what English is in today's world." The result is a book that provides teachers of writing, and in particular those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric, a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. Understanding this important rhetorical tradition provides a strong foundation for assessing and responding to the writing of this growing group of students.
(4 reviews)
College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success
Barbara Hall
Elizabeth Wallace
College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success is designed as a comprehensive grammar and writing etext for high intermediate and advanced level non-native speakers of English. We open the text with a discussion on the sentence and then break it down into its elemental components, before reconstructing them into effective sentences with paragraphs and larger academic assignments. Following that, we provide instruction in paragraph and essay writing with several opportunities to both review the fundamentals as well as to demonstrate mastery and move on to more challenging assignments.
(1 review)
Communication Beginnings: An Introductory Listening and Speaking Text for English Language Learners
Della Abrahams, Portland State University
This textbook is designed for beginning-intermediate English language learners. It is composed of 7 chapters, each of which covers specific speaking and listening learning objectives and includes dialogues, interviews, discussions and conversation activities. Each chapter includes listening and speaking components such as dialogues, interviews, discussions and conversation activities. Each chapter also focuses on 10 target words from the New General Service List of English vocabulary. The textbook includes an audio component that consists of recorded conversations of native and non-native English speakers, as well as links to additional listening resources on the web.
(7 reviews)
Conversa Brasileira
Orlando Kelm, University of Texas, Austin
Conversa Brasileira is an online open access site that contains a series of 35 video scenarios in which Brazilians talk about their daily activities, everything from hobbies to shopping, and from traffic jams to soccer games. These materials are designed to help intermediate- and advanced-level learners of Portuguese to analyze the way that Brazilians really talk and improve in their own proficiency and fluency. This textbook provides a hardcopy of all of the online materials, including the dialog transcriptions, English translations, and lesson notes that link to the original website.
(3 reviews)
Deutsch im Blick
Zsuzsanna Abrams, University of Texas, Austin
This textbook is newly revised (Mai 2013) and includes all 10 chapters of Deutsch im Blick. It accompanies http://coerll.utexas.edu/dib/, the web-based first-year German program developed and in use at the University of Texas since 2008, and its companion site, Grimm Grammar http://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/. Deutsch im Blick is an open access site with free and open multimedia resources, which requires neither password nor fees.
(15 reviews)
Essentials of Linguistics
Catherine Anderson
This Open Educational Resource (OER) brings together Open Access content from around the web and enhances it with dynamic video lectures about the core areas of theoretical linguistics (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), supplemented with discussion of psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic findings. Essentials of Linguistics is suitable for any beginning learner of linguistics but is primarily aimed at the Canadian learner, focusing on Canadian English for learning phonetic transcription, and discussing the status of Indigenous languages in Canada. Drawing on best practices for instructional design, Essentials of Linguistics is suitable for blended classes, traditional lecture classes, and for self-directed learning. No prior knowledge of linguistics is required.
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Français interactif
Karen Kelton, University of Texas, Austin
Nancy Guilloteau, University of Texas, Austin
Carl Blyth, University of Texas, Austin
This textbook of classroom activities and homework accompanies Français interactif. Français interactif,the web-based French program developed and in use at the University of Texas since 2004, and its companion site, Tex's French Grammar (2000)are open access sites, free and open multimedia resources, which require neither password nor fees. Français interactif, used increasingly by students, teachers, and institutions throughout the world, includes 320 videos (American students in France, native French interviews, vocabulary and culture presentation videos) recorded vocabulary lists, phonetic lessons, online grammar lessons (600 pages) with self-correcting exercises and audio dialogues, online grammar tools (verb conjugation reference, verb practice), and diagnostic grammar tests.
(16 reviews)
FROM MSA to CA: A Beginner's Guide to Transitioning to Colloquial Arabic
Lina Gomaa, Portland State University
This book is for students who have studied Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for one year or more and would like to learn colloquial Arabic basics using their knowledge of MSA. It aims at transitioning learners from Novice Mid level to Intermediate Low through presenting situations useful for living in an Arab country. The book has several features including hyperlinks, practice dialogues with open answers, cultural tips, and more. To access the audio files to accompany this book, please visithttp://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pdxopen/8/
(2 reviews)
Greek and Latin Roots: Part I - Latin
Peter Smith, University of Victoria
Greek and Latin Roots: Part I - Latin is part one of a two part series. This series examines the systematic principles by which a large portion of English vocabulary has evolved from Latin and (to a lesser degree) from Greek. This book focuses on Latin roots. A link to the second part focusing on the Greek roots can be found below. Part I will try to impart some skill in the recognition and proper use of words derived from Latin. There is a stress on principles: although students will be continually looking at interesting individual words, their constant aim will be to discover predictable general patterns of historical development, so that they may be able to cope with new and unfamiliar words of any type that they have studied. They will be shown how to approach the problem by a procedure known as “word analysis,” which is roughly comparable to the dissection of an interesting specimen in the biology laboratory. The text assumes no previous knowledge of Latin, and does not involve the grammatical study of this language—except for a few basic features of noun and verb formation that will help students to understand the Latin legacy in English. Although there will be some attention paid to the historical interaction of Latin with English, this text is definitely not a systematic history of the English language. It focuses on only those elements within English that have been directly or indirectly affected by this classical language. In order to provide the broadest possible service to students, the text emphasizes standard English vocabulary in current use. The more exotic technical vocabulary of science and medicine can be extremely interesting, but is explored in only summary fashion. Nevertheless, this text should be of considerable value, say, to a would-be botanist or medical doctor, if only by providing the foundation for further specialized enquiry.
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Greek and Latin Roots: Part II - Greek
Peter Smith, University of Victoria
Greek and Latin Roots: Part II - Greek is part two of a two part series. This series examines the systematic principles by which a large portion of English vocabulary has evolved from Latin and (to a lesser degree) from Greek. This book focuses on Greek roots. A link to the first part focusing on the Latin roots can be found below. Part II will try to impart some skill in the recognition and proper use of words derived from Greek. There is a stress on principles: although students will be continually looking at interesting individual words, their constant aim will be to discover predictable general patterns of historical development, so that they may be able to cope with new and unfamiliar words of any type that they have studied. They will be shown how to approach the problem by a procedure known as “word analysis,” which is roughly comparable to the dissection of an interesting specimen in the biology laboratory. The text assumes no previous knowledge of Greek, and does not involve the grammatical study of this language—except for a few basic features of noun and verb formation that will help students to understand the Greek legacy in English. All students will be asked to learn the Greek alphabet. This skill is not absolutely essential for a general knowledge of Greek roots in English. However, it will help students understand a number of otherwise puzzling features of spelling and usage. Although there will be some attention paid to the historical interaction of Greek with English, this text is definitely not a systematic history of the English language. It focuses on only those elements within English that have been directly or indirectly affected by this classical language. In order to provide the broadest possible service to students, the text emphasizes standard English vocabulary in current use. The more exotic technical vocabulary of science and medicine can be extremely interesting, but is explored in only summary fashion. Nevertheless, this text should be of considerable value, say, to a would-be botanist or medical doctor, if only by providing the foundation for further specialized enquiry.
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(0 reviews)
In the Community: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook
With funding from Alberta Open Educational Resources, Bow Valley College and NorQuest College collaborated to create Open Educational Resources (OER) in the form of e-textbooks for English language learners.
(2 reviews)
Intermediate Biblical Greek Reader: Galatians and Related Texts
Nijay Gupta, Portland Seminary
Jonah Sandford
After completing basic biblical Greek, students are often eager to continue to learn and strengthen their skills of translation and interpretation. This intermediate graded reader is designed to meet those needs. The reader is “intermediate” in the sense that it presumes the user will have already learned the basics of Greek grammar and syntax and has memorized Greek vocabulary words that appear frequently in the New Testament. The reader is “graded” in the sense that it moves from simpler translation work (Galatians) towards more advanced readings from the book of James, the Septuagint, and from one of the Church Fathers. In each reading lesson, the Greek text is given, followed by supplemental notes that offer help with vocabulary, challenging word forms, and syntax. Discussion questions are also included to foster group conversation and engagement. There are many good Greek readers in existence, but this reader differs from most others in a few important ways. Most readers offer text selections from different parts of the Bible, but in this reader the user works through one entire book (Galatians). All subsequent lessons, then, build off of this interaction with Galatians through short readings that are in some way related to Galatians. The Septuagint passages in the reader offer some broader context for texts that Paul quotes explicitly from the Septuagint. The Patristic reading from John Chrysystom comes from one of his homilies on Galatians. This approach to a Greek reader allows for both variety and coherence in the learning process.
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Korean Through Folktales
KyungAh Yoon, Portland State University
Korean Through Folktalesconsists of four chapters and each centers on a famous Korean folktale. The lessons and values that famous folktales teach are embedded and permeated in various aspects of the Koran culture. Using folktales in the curriculum will provide an engaging way to expose students to a slice of the target culture that native Koreans are naturally exposed to at an early age. Through the selected folktales and various activities offered in the book, students can gain cultural knowledge and insights into traditional and cultural values while they are given linguistic lessons to reinforce their acquired skills and to apply the learned materials in an integrated approach.
(1 review)
Le Littéraire dans le quotidien
Joanna Luks, Cornell University
Le Littéraire dans le quotidien is an open textbook for use in French courses. The Literary in the Everyday represents a new pedagogical approach to reading and writing at the lower levels and is applicable to all languages. Teachers of foreign languages besides French can read about the approach in the Teacher's Guide. Go to Google Drive for individual chapters. Additionally, the Foreign Languages & The Literary in the Everyday (FLLITE) Project, a joint initiative of COERLL and CERCLL, two national foreign language resource centers, offers open resources for professional development in the publication of CC licensed FLLITE lessons in any language. Go to the FLLITE website for the lesson archive.
(5 reviews)
Liberté
Gretchen Angelo, California State University
This French book is aimed at a first-year college student. Its features include:
(6 reviews)
Português para principiantes
Severino Albuquerque, University of Wisconsin
Português para principiantes is a time-tested text which can be used in conjunction with a variety of approaches to the teaching of beginning Portuguese. This media-rich text is designed to provide learners with a solid grammatical basis for using Brazilian Portuguese as well as regular opportunities to practice and improve their ability to read, speak, and understand the Portuguese language as it is used in contemporary Brazil.
(3 reviews)
Preadvanced Japanese
Emiko Konomi, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Preadvanced Japanese is designed for students who have intermediate competency in Japanese, roughly at Level 2 on the ILR (The Interagency Language Roundtable) proficiency scale, and are working on reaching Level 3.
(1 review)
Sons & Lettres: A pronunciation method for intermediate-level French
Stephen Walton
Sons et lettres provides a set of classroom materials to train students to hear and produce the sounds of French and to recognize the regular spellings used to represent those sounds in print. The materials are inspired by a desire to help students feel more confident about their French pronunciation and more at home saying the many French words, familiar and unfamiliar, which they encounter in their studies, in French media and in their travels. In our experience, students are not given sufficient preparation to successfully decipher and pronounce French words. These materials are intended to fill that gap and to clear away the confusion that English speakers often feel when they see French words with seemingly mysterious combinations of letters.
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Tajik Persian: Readings in History, Culture and Society
Razi Ahmad, University of Kansas
Tajik Persian: Readings in History, Culture and Society seeks to help students develop reading proficiency in Tajik at advanced level through authentic texts written for native speakers and provides them glimpses into the history, culture and society of Tajikistan without losing its focus on cultural aspects of the country—an aspect that constitutes a core component in the second language acquisition. The book can be adopted by instructors as a supplementary or the main textbook for advanced-level courses.
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Yorùbá Yé Mi
Fehintola Mosadomi, University of Texas, Austin
The Yorùbá Yé Mi textbook, combined with an open access, multi-media website at http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/yemi, is an interactive, communicative, introductory Yorùbá program. It provides college/university students with basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills of language learning in Yorùbá. It exposes the learner not only to Yorùbá language in meaningful situations but also to the culture of the Yorùbá-speaking people of South-western Nigeria. It contains effective techniques for teaching and learning Yorùbá including tones, and is userfriendly in its approach.
(1 review)