Language Shock: Understanding The Culture Of Conversation

by Michael H. Agar

Book Overview

The key to communication, says linguistic anthropologist Michael Agar, is understanding the context and culture of conversation. In Language Shock, Agar reveals how deeply our language and cultural... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688149499
• Release Date: December 1996
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.7" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Great

Used it for school, lot of good information on this book, knowing about your culture and how important it is to know.

Book

I received this book very quickly. It came in the exact condition as described by the seller.

Language Shock

The price of this book was so much lower than anywhere else and it arrived much more quickly than I expected. The condition was just perfect. I was so pleased.

Fantastic Read!

I highly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in getting a rudimentary introduction to the ways in which language and culture intermesh. I read it as part of a class at the UMD, though I didn't take it with Agar, and it was one of my most favorite parts of the class. I think it deserves credit as a book that's enjoyable, not just educational. There's a very short list of the books I've read for classes that were hard to put down.

Insight into other cultures

"Language Shock" helped me to understand my experience of living in a foreign land -- China, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Agar's inights drawn the fields of anthropology and linguistics gave me a way of processing the "rich points" of those cultures. Since first reading the book a few years ago I have studied linguistics in more depth, and I have to say that Agar's approach to langauge and culture is still one of the best I have encountered. I highly recommend it to anyone living in a foreign country, and anyone with an interest in language and culture.