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Doing Our Own Thing : The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care - Hardcover
Synopsis
Once languages become written, they change. Only in writing does language develop the artfulness and richness that we associate with a Shakespeare, a Proust or a Whitman. Yet over the last forty years, the English-language has effectively gone into reverse - taking our lead from America and the legacy of the 19060s, our culture increasingly privileges the oral over the written, spurning the art of elaborated, 'written'-style language in favour of returning to the state of a spoken culture. Parallel developments have occurred in music. In this controversial and thought-provoking book, Jon McWhorter argues that the 1960's rejection of cultural traits associated with the Establishment, as well as a democratic celebration of what anyone can do over what requires training or talent, has led to our culture being increasingly impoverished, both intellectually and artistically, a culture that hates itself.
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From the Back Cover
"Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable." —The Economist
"Provocative, funny. . . McWhorter suggests that prose ought to be something ‘we decorate out of a basic sense of exuberance of living.’" —Andrea Behr, San Francisco Chronicle
"An entertaining and provocative analysis of the way we use language, while also suggesting that we should love it." —Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News
"McWhorter is a gifted young linguist who seeks to understand the change in our verbal habits rather than just bemoan it, and his analysis is insightful, richly documented and, yes, eloquently written." —Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate and The Language Instinct
About the Author
John McWhorter is Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley. He is the author of The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, as well as a book about black English, The Word on the Street.
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Doing Our Own Thing. The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care
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William Heinemann, London, 2004
ISBN 10: 0434010588
ISBN 13: 9780434010585
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Doing Our Own Thing : The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care
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Hodder & Stoughton, 2004
ISBN 10: 0434010588
ISBN 13: 9780434010585
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