It's been another busy spring for my personal life, which means barely any time for my obligations, let alone the blog. I've made some progress on the Jekyll migration, but it won't be ready any time soon. I'll keep you all posted on the status of that.
In the meantime, I want to share a book I recently found out about: English Rock and Pop Performances: A Sociolinguistic Investigation of British and American Language Perceptions and Attitudes, by Lisa Jansen. Those of you who frequent the linguist blogosphere may know her from her blog, Lisa Loves Linguistics, where she writes about the sociolinguistic aspects of song. Her article on Rihanna's use of Jamaican Creole in the song "Work" was one of the inspirations for this blog. The book is about perceptions of British and American English in pop music, which I imagine would be of interest to readers of thiis blog. (I also happen to get a citation in the book! One of my very old articles on what I call 'HAPPY-breaking'. The newer version can be found here. I've seen my blog cited before, but it's very exciting to see 'Ace Linguist' in an actual physical book!)
I also read "The Japanese Language" by Haruhiko Kindaichi. It was originally published in the 50s, so I take the linguistic analyses with a grain of salt. But the interesting aspect of the book is that it was written by a Japanese linguist in Japanese for a Japanese audience. I read the book in translation, of course, but the intended audience is Japanese, not foreign. It is therefore an informative read about how Japanese authors, speech-givers, and everyday people view the Japanese language. One funny example was his comment on Japanese's Subject-Object-Verb form. In very long and complex sentences, such as in the Japanese constitution, someone reading a Japanese sentence must wait until the very end to find out if the verb is affirmative or negative. Most descriptions of Japanese I've read are from people learning it as a second language, so it is interesting to read about native speakers' attitudes towards their own language.
One of my time-consuming obligations will let up soon, and I hope to get back to finishing the migration and writing more articles! Maybe we can have 'Hot Linguistics Summer.' :)
- Karen
