Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading

by Naomi S. Baron

Overview

In Alphabet to Email Naomi Baron takes us on a fascinating and often entertaining journey through the history of the English language, showing how technology - especially email - is gradually stripping language of its formality.
Drawing together strands of thinking about writing, speech, pedagogy, technology, and globalization, Naomi Baron explores the ever-changing relationship between speech and writing and considers the implications of current language trends on the future of written English.
Alphabet to Email will appeal to anyone who is curious about how the English language has changed over the centuries and where it might be going.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134663071
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/01/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Naomi S. Baron is Professor of Linguistics and Chair of the Department of Language and Foreign Studies at American University. She is the author of five previous books about language, including Growing Up With Language: How children learn to talk (Addison-Wesley, 1992).

Table of Contents

Preface 1.Robin Hood's Retort 2.Legitimating Written English 3.Who Writes, Who Reads, and Why 4.Setting Standards 5.The Rise of English Comp 6.Commas and Canaries 7.What Remington Thought 8.Language at a Distance 9.Why the Jury's Still Out on Email 10.Epilogue: Destiny or Choice Notes Bibliography Index

What People are Saying About This

Roger Shuy

Email touches all our lives. Try to name another book with such wide appeal. Alphabet to Email is a delightful and enlightening read.
—(Roger Shuy, Georgetown University)

Editorial Reviews

Alphabet to Email is one of those rare publishing hybrids: scholarly yet accessible, historically full yet currently relevant, theoretically aware yet practically illustrated. It refreshed the parts that other books on the history of writing have not so far been able to reach.

David Crystal

Written in a lively, anecdotal style, it should be useful in undergraduate collections and enjoyed by its intended audience of linguists, teachers of composition and TESOL, computer specialists, and the educated lay person.

Choice

Offers a broad, and broadly informal, overview of the evolution of literacy.

Boston Sunday Globe

'At one level, Alphabet to Email is a fascinating chronological history of written English; at another, it is a carefully argued case for preserving the distinctions between oral and written language.' - Ilana Snyder, Journal of Sociolinguistics

'Thorough, yet not in the least pedantic, Baron's book examines the cultural, political, religious and technological influences on written language as compared with spoken language.' - - Publishers' Weekly

'Naomi Baron as succeeded in writing a fascinating yet erudite, and quite compact, history that draws together threads from a bewildering variety of sources.' - Pam Le Gassick, Society of Indexers

'Naomi Baron has succeeded in writing a fascinating yet erudite, and quite compact, history that draws together threads from a bewildering variety of sources.' - Pam Le Gassick, Society of Indexers

'At one level, Alphabet to Email is a fascinating chronological history of written English; at another, it is a carefully argued case for preserving the distinctions between oral and written language.' - Ilana Snyder, Journal of Sociolinguistics

From the Publisher