Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 4
Language
English
Description
Situations that threaten another's "face" or dignity are particularly complicated. Explore methods for managing this difficult social territory, including guidance on enhancing positive face, respecting personal space, offering a successful apology, and navigating the politics of giving a compliment. Consider how cultural differences of politeness affect expectations in this area.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 5
Language
English
Description
Turn to hierarchical relationships and self-promotion in the workplace with an investigation of the language of sophisticated ingratiation. Get strategies for making presentations feel more like conversations, ensuring listeners are engaged, and interviewing effectively - on both sides of the desk. Then, delve into the dynamics of doctor-patient communication.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 1
Language
English
Description
Discover why the simple act of talking is so important to your success professionally and personally as the professor introduces you to the idea of becoming conversationally aware. Learn and analyze techniques for doing your share of conversational work and consider how gender affects the way we converse.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 2
Language
English
Description
Improve your ability to navigate the conversational floor by exploring turn-taking devices as well as techniques for opening conversations and monitoring or reducing your "talk time." Weigh the pros and cons of using discourse markers and fillers such as "well," "um," and "like," and understand why being an active listener and back-channeling are crucial to being a good conversationalist.
5) How Conversation Works: 6 Lessons for Better Communication: How to Maintain Relationships with Talk
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 6
Language
English
Description
Understand how discourse can simply relay information or build intimacy with a friend or romantic partner. Look at the fascinating research on how cooperative and competitive speaking styles differ, how parents model conversation for children from infancy, how language alignment can predict relationship success, and how electronic communications follow prescribed patterns.
6) How Conversation Works: 6 Lessons for Better Communication: How and When to Be Direct and Indirect
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Interpreting the meaning behind the words that people say is key to making conversations work well. Consider the logic of conversation and understand more consciously the way we use explicit and implicit meanings - direct and indirect speech - to accomplish things through conversation. Also learn ways to redirect conversations that feel inappropriate or questions you find overly personal.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 23
Language
English
Description
These little words don't carry meaning like a noun, but they do help us organize our speech and set conversational expectations. You'll never have another conversation without thinking about the negotiation that happens when speakers use words like "well" and "now," and you'll have a new appreciation for the grammatical utility of "dude" and "like."
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 22
Language
English
Description
Examine the system of regular and irregular verbs and how they move from one category to another - with a little help from the Old English system of weak and strong verbs. Then turn to the world of auxiliary verbs, where "shall" is in decline and "gonna" is on the rise.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 35
Language
English
Description
Have you ever thought, "There should be a word for ____"? This lecture explores some of the gaps in the English lexicon, as well as ways to account for such gaps. You'll be surprised by how limited English can be, and you'll take delight in the playful world of "sniglets" - words made up because they ought to exist.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 1
Language
English
Description
Where do words come from? How do they change over time? What counts as a word, anyway? Language is one of the things that reveal how our minds work, and by exploring the "secret life of words," you'll see the power of words - and what words can tell us about human history, technology, and culture.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Language
English
Description
Linguists have borrowed the language of biology to trace the history of words - ancestors, family trees, variation, and selection. This lecture reflects on the blurry distinction between a dialect and a new language, then shows how systemic sound changes explain the etymological relationship between seemingly different - but related - words such as "hearty" and "cordial."
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 24
Language
English
Description
How is the tone of "bootylicious" different from "incentivize"? Youthful, undignified, playful, and irreverent, slang is hard to define but serves an important purpose in our communications. Unlike jargon, slang is decidedly informal, and it has the power to oppose established authority and establish rapport.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 5
Language
English
Description
Did you know that "girl" used to mean "a child of either sex" or that "nice" used to mean "silly, foolish"? While some words are remarkably stable, many undergo semantic shifts. This lecture surveys the five major categories of semantic change: generalization, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 12
Language
English
Description
English is truly a world language. Your study of borrowed words concludes with an A-to-Z look at world languages and their influence on contemporary English. You'll be delighted to learn the origins of words such as "monkey business," "flamingo," "alligator," and more.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 13
Language
English
Description
No matter what you call it, the sugary carbonated beverage says something about where you live. The same is true for "y'all," "you guys," "yinz," and "yous," as well as for "subs," "grinders," "hoagies," and "po'boys." Explore America's dialect maps and discover the country's many regional varieties of speech, from the Deep South to Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 33
Language
English
Description
In the most decorous of ways, delve into the world of taboo language - the inappropriate lexicon that has the power to make us laugh or blush, to offend or hurt, and to establish solidarity. After learning about the utility and ubiquity of such language, you'll have the opportunity to reflect on the changing standards of What makes a word taboo.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 11
Language
English
Description
Build your vocabulary with this lecture by surveying the influence of Latin on English during the Renaissance. English was gaining stature in part by borrowing specialized Latin words in the realms of science, music, education, and literature, but some purists argued that English didn't need these "ink-horn" words.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 28
Language
English
Description
Dive into the language of sports, which is so enmeshed in our everyday usage that we don't even pay attention to it. Go inside the world of baseball, boxing, football, basketball, tennis, and surfing and see what idioms we've borrowed into our nonathletic speech, from being "saved by the bell" to "throwing a curveball."
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 31
Language
English
Description
Political language matters. The terms you use shape the frame of the debate, which, in turn, can sway voters. Take a glimpse behind the stage of debate and learn about the surprising history of terms such as "right," "left," "liberal," "lobbyist," and more, and see how language brands hot-button issues such as the "death tax."
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 34
Language
English
Description
Which phrase is correct? And does it matter? Idioms often take on meaning beyond the sum of their individual words. Step back from the language we use in everyday speech and discover the origins - and sometimes the false histories - of many of our common idioms. Then consider the importance of "lexical bundles" to language more generally.
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