2022.06.10 关于语言各方面的好书的黄金时代

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Economist Reads | Language
Our language columnist, Johnson, picks five of his favourite recent reads
This is a golden age for good books about every facet of language
Economist reads on language books
Jun 10th 2022 (Updated Jun 22nd 2022)

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This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit our collection to discover “The Economist reads” guides, guest essays and more seasonal distractions.

For a long time popular books about language were dominated by cranky editors airing pet peeves and wondering where it all went wrong, while academic linguists wrote impenetrable papers and struggled to explain their work to the public. Then, a couple of decades ago, bestselling books like Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” (1994) and John McWhorter’s “The Power of Babel” (2001) convinced more linguists to try their hand at writing for a non-expert audience. This in turn raised the quality of books by non-linguists. The cranks no longer rule, and it is a golden age for good books about every facet of language.


Memory Speaks. By Julie Sedivy. Belknap Press; 368 pages; $29.95 and £23.95

Julie Sedivy moved from Czechoslovakia to Canada as a small child, and hence far from the home of her first language. Her tale of the gradual loss of her Czech, and her adult work to recover it, is not only beautifully told. It is also packed with a tour of the science on bilingualism, in which she is an expert, as well as the controversial topic of how one’s native language influences thought. As if that were not enough for this fascinating book, she embeds herself within the fight to prevent indigenous North American languages from disappearing entirely, and illuminates what is lost when a language dies. As Johnson I assessed the book, and the painful loss of native languages, early in 2022.

You Talkin’ to Me? By E.J. White. Oxford University Press; 216 pages; $19.95 and £14.99

In many countries, people are taught to revere and even strive to emulate the educated speech of their grandest city. Think of Parisian French. Not so the English of New York. On screen, for example, it is reserved for gangsters or wise-cracking sidekicks (why does the parrot in “Aladdin” have a New York accent?), never for heroes (such as Captain America, whose Brooklyn origins are inaudible in his speech in the Marvel films). That was not always so. Both presidents Roosevelt had an upper-class New York accent once considered respectable. Its disappearance is a tale of immigration and the relocation of an imaginary “real America” to the Midwest, rather than its world-bestriding metropolis. Johnson reflected on the book late in 2020.

More Summer reads
• Our Bartleby columnist explains how to avoid the most overused words in business
• What’s at stake in Ukraine is the direction of human history, writes Yuval Noah Harari
• The pandemic has given economists a new lease of life
• Flashman, Victorian England’s foremost rotter, would have made a great journalist
•Six guides to biology as seen at different scales

What the F: What Swearing Reveals about our Language, Our Brains and Ourselves. By Benjamin K. Bergen. Basic Books; 288 pages; $10.99


Your pulse speeds up, and your palms start to sweat ever so slightly, upon hearing a swear word. People can tolerate more pain if allowed to cuss, and many victims of strokes and brain injuries lose all speech but the taboo variety. The words in question may be avoided in polite company, but they make for a fascinating scientific study by Benjamin Bergen, a cognitive scientist. Of the main sources of swear words, some are losing their bite (those concerning religion, for example) while some still hurt (slurs, especially). But Mr Bergen examines the claims of harm from swear words overall (America seems to regulate them more than guns), and dismantles them skilfully. Swearing is a core part of human life. To be used with care, but not to be abjured. Johnson wrote about the book, and weapons of crass construction, a few years ago.

The Prodigal Tongue. By Lynne Murphy. Penguin Books; 368 pages; $17. Oneworld; £16.99

Lynne Murphy is a linguist at the University of Sussex, married to a British husband and raising British children. But she is American, and years of experiencing polite (and sometimes not-so-polite) commentary about her native English in her adopted home prompted her to write this myth-shredding book about the relationship between British and American English. She is not a partisan of either, but in her close examinations of beloved beliefs she finds some that hold (Britons really do say “please” and “sorry” a lot) and many that do not. Time after time, for example, she shows that a perceived “Americanism” deprecated in Britain emerged there. You can listen to our interview with the author (first released late in 2018).

How We Talk. By N.J. Enfield. Basic Books; 272 pages; $30

Interruptions, “uh”, “um” and sentences beginning with “So,” are all considered bad linguistic form. But it seems odd that so many people would display such linguistic ineptitude. As a result, linguists like to investigate what functions and causes these behaviours have. A great introduction to the study is “How We Talk” by N.J. Enfield, who describes what he calls the “conversational machine”. Speakers take turns with only split-second pauses, which requires them to pay careful attention to each other; “um” and “uh” thus play a role in holding the floor. These and other mechanisms fill a surprisingly brisk book about elements of language most people disdain—when they think about them at all. Johnson, er, considered the topic and the book in 2017.■
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Johnson, who speaks nine languages, writes a regular column about language in the weekly edition of The Economist and helps update its official style guide. He is also the author of two books of his own:

You Are What You Speak. By Lane Greene. 336 pages. Delacorte Press; 336 pages; $25

On language and the politics of identity. An analysis of the politics and mythology of language

Talk on the Wild Side. By Lane Greene. PublicAffairs; 240 pages; $26. Profile Books; £14.99

On the untameable but robust nature of language

Do you have your own recommendations? Send them to summer@economist.com with the subject line “Language” and your name, city and country. We will publish a selection of readers’ suggestions.



经济学家阅读｜语言
我们的语言专栏作家约翰逊挑选了五本他最喜欢的近期读物
这是一个关于语言各方面的好书的黄金时代
经济学人》读后感之语言类书籍
2022年6月10日 (2022年6月22日更新)



这篇文章是我们夏季读物系列的一部分。请访问我们的收藏，以发现 "经济学人读物 "指南、特邀文章和更多的季节性分心。

在很长一段时间里，关于语言的流行书籍都是由脾气暴躁的编辑们主导的，他们谈论着自己的小毛病，想知道哪里出了问题，而学术语言学家则写着难以理解的论文，努力向公众解释他们的工作。然后，几十年前，像史蒂芬-平克的《语言本能》（1994年）和约翰-麦克沃特的《巴别尔的力量》（2001年）这样的畅销书说服了更多的语言学家尝试为非专业读者写作。这反过来又提高了非语言学家著作的质量。疯子不再是统治者，现在是一个关于语言各个方面的好书的黄金时代。


记忆之声》。作者：朱莉-塞迪维。Belknap出版社；368页；29.95美元和23.95英镑

朱莉-塞迪维（Julie Sedivy）从小就从捷克斯洛伐克搬到了加拿大，因此远离了她的第一语言的故乡。她讲述了她逐渐失去捷克语的故事，以及她成年后为恢复捷克语所做的工作，不仅讲得很好。书中还包含了她作为专家的双语科学之旅，以及一个人的母语如何影响思想这一有争议的话题。如果这对这本迷人的书来说还不够的话，她还将自己嵌入到防止北美本土语言完全消失的斗争中，并阐明了当一种语言消亡时将会失去什么。作为约翰逊，我在2022年年初评估了这本书，以及本土语言的痛苦损失。

你在跟我说话吗？作者：E.J. White。牛津大学出版社；216页；19.95美元和14.99英镑

在许多国家，人们被教导要崇尚甚至努力模仿他们最伟大城市的有教养的语言。想想巴黎的法语。纽约的英语却不是这样。例如，在银幕上，它被保留给黑帮分子或聪明的跟班（为什么《阿拉丁》中的鹦鹉有纽约口音？），而不是英雄（如美国队长，在漫威电影中他的布鲁克林出身听不到他的讲话）。这并不总是如此。两位总统罗斯福都有上层社会的纽约口音，曾经被认为是值得尊敬的。它的消失是一个关于移民和将想象中的 "真正的美国 "迁往中西部，而不是它的世界大都市的故事。约翰逊在2020年末对这本书进行了反思。

更多夏季读物
- 我们的巴特比专栏作家解释了如何避免商业中最常用的词汇
- 尤瓦尔-诺亚-哈拉里写道：乌克兰的危机是人类历史的方向
- 大流行病给经济学家带来了新的生机
- 维多利亚时代英国最重要的无赖Flashman将成为一名伟大的记者
-六种不同尺度下的生物学指南

What the F: What swearing Reveals about our Language, Our Brains and Ourselves. 作者：Benjamin K. Bergen。Basic Books；288页；10.99美元


听到一个脏话，你的脉搏会加快，你的手掌会开始微微出汗。如果允许骂人，人们可以忍受更多的痛苦，许多中风和脑部受伤的受害者失去了所有的语言，除了禁忌的种类。这些词在礼貌的公司里可能会被避免，但它们使认知科学家本杰明-伯根的一项迷人的科学研究。在脏话的主要来源中，有些正在失去它们的咬合力（例如那些关于宗教的），而有些仍然很伤人（尤其是污蔑）。但伯根先生研究了关于脏话危害的总体说法（美国对脏话的管制似乎比枪支更多），并巧妙地拆解了它们。脏话是人类生活的一个核心部分。要谨慎使用，但不能放弃。约翰逊几年前曾写过这本书，以及粗鲁的建筑武器。

浪子的舌头》（The Prodigal Tongue）。林恩-墨菲著。企鹅出版社；368页；17美元。 寰宇公司；16.99英镑

林恩-墨菲是苏塞克斯大学的一名语言学家，嫁给了一位英国丈夫，养育着英国孩子。但她是美国人，多年来在她的家乡经历了对她的母语英语的礼貌（有时是不太礼貌）的评论，促使她写了这本关于英美英语之间关系的破译书。她不是任何一方的支持者，但在她对心目中的信念的仔细研究中，她发现有些信念是成立的（英国人确实经常说 "请 "和 "对不起"），而许多信念则不是。例如，她一次又一次地表明，在英国被贬低的 "美国主义 "在那里出现了。你可以听听我们对作者的采访（首次在2018年底发布）。

我们如何交谈。作者：N.J. Enfield。Basic Books; 272页; 30美元

中断、"呃"、"嗯 "和以 "那么 "开头的句子，都被认为是不好的语言形式。但是，这么多人表现出这种语言上的无能，似乎很奇怪。因此，语言学家喜欢研究这些行为有什么功能和原因。N.J.Enfield的《我们如何交谈》是这项研究的一个很好的介绍，他描述了他所谓的 "对话机器"。发言者轮流发言，只有瞬间的停顿，这就要求他们仔细注意对方；因此，"嗯 "和 "呃 "在保持发言权方面发挥了作用。这些和其他机制填补了这本关于大多数人不屑一顾的语言元素的令人惊讶的快书--当他们想到它们的时候。约翰逊，呃，在2017年考虑了这个话题和这本书。
_______________

约翰逊会说九种语言，他在《经济学人》周刊上定期撰写关于语言的专栏，并帮助更新其官方风格指南。他也是自己的两本书的作者。

You Are What You Speak. 作者：莱恩-格林。336页。Delacorte出版社；336页；25美元

关于语言和身份的政治。对语言的政治和神话的分析。

在狂野的一面说话。作者：Lane Greene。PublicAffairs；240页；26美元。 Profile Books；14.99英镑

关于语言的不可驯服而又强大的性质

你有自己的建议吗？请将它们发送至 summer@economist.com，标题为 "语言 "并注明您的姓名、城市和国家。我们将出版读者建议的精选。