LibraryThing Author:
Elaine Chaika
Elaine Chaika is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Random books from echaika's library
Ines of My Soul: A Novel (A Novel) by Isabel Allende
Jane Austen (Penguin Lives) by Carol Shields
Language and Culture by David Leedom Shaul
The Soldier Spies: A Men at War Novel (Men at War) by W. E. B. Griffin
The English Verb: Form and Meanings by Martin Joos
Job (The Anchor Bible, Vol. 15) by Marvin H. Pope
The Religion of Jesus the Jew by Geza Vermes
Members with echaika's books
Member connections
Friends: BrahamsNotBombs, PatsyMurray, theoldman
LibraryThing authors: Tatiana de Rosnay (TatianaDerosnay), Dan Chaon (danchaon), Elaine Chaika (echaika), Lilian Nattel (liliannattel), Lisa See (lisasee), Bill Walsh (wfwalsh)
RSS feeds
Recently-added books
echaika's reviews
Reviews of echaika's books, not including echaika's
Member: echaika
CollectionsYour library (1,140)
Reviews196 reviews
Tagsnovel (332), history (70), biography (41), linguistics (35), history of English (31), sociolinguistics (31), action (27), grammar (27), discourse (25), religion (24) — see all tags
Cloudstag cloud, author cloud
GroupsNone
About meI am Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Providence College and am an internationaly known scholar and writer in schizophrenia research, sociology of language, and modern English grammar. Since everything humans do is mediated by language, I am interested in too wide a variety of things to list. Although I am a scholar, I also appreciate --and love-- popular culture. Novels and movies are my favorite pasttimes, along with cooking. And, of course, writing. Now that I'm retired, I can finally write books about the marvels of language and communication so that everyone can find out what we really do when we are just talking. There is nothing "just" about it. We talk in ways dictated by our culture. We talk when our culture says we can and we talk about what our culture says we may. But we also talk to project our personas. We also talk according to our gender. Do you think women talk more than men, for instance, or use fewer taboo words, or talk more properly than men? How do children learn to speak? How and why did language evolve? Why don't all humans speak the same language? Why are there different dialects and accents in English and other languages? I have a lot to write about, and I've also written several books. You don't have to be a scholar to read them, either. I write in a jargon-free narrative style and my book "Language the Social Mirror" now in its 4th edition, has been widely read by ordinary readers. I know because I hear from them. By the way, Amazon has erroneously labeled it as being about teaching methods. It is decidedly NOT about teaching, although much of it would serve as good background for teachers to understand why their students talk as they do.
I belong to goodreads.com and recipezaar.com. I have catalogued over 1300 books on LibraryThing and am still not through. Periodically, I donate cartons of my books to the state prison as the inmates there have nothing to do and many become readers for the first time in their lives. I can't even estimate how many thousands of books I've bought in my life, not to mention taking them out of libraries.
About my libraryIn my library, I have a plethora of novels, a large history collection, especially about the Civil War and World Wars I and II, biographies of Civil War personages and some other people as well. I also have a collection of books on film (which are not yet in librarything), and a very large library of movies on DVD and Bluray. Of course, I have books in linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguiatics, but these. too, are awaiting cataloguing. I love almost every kind of book except science fiction and mysteries, but I do like both those categories in film.
Homepagehttp://www.smarthotoldlady.blogspot.com
Also onFacebook
Membership
LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway
Real nameElaine Chaika
LocationSouthern New England
Favorite authorsNone
Account typepublic, lifetime
Connection NewsConnection News
URLs
http://www.librarything.com/profile/echaika (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/echaika (library)
Common KnowledgeSeries (122), Awards (258), Characters (2029), Places (476)
Member sinceFeb 12, 2009
(
(
Leave a comment
Sign up or sign in to leave a comment.
We men of Earth have here the stuff
Of Paradise - we have enough!
We need no other stones to build
The Temple of the Unfulfilled -
No other ivory for the doors -
No other marble for the floors -
No other cedar for the beam
And dome of man's immortal dream.
Here on the paths of every-day -
Here on the common human way
Is all the stuff the gods would take
To build a Heaven, to mold and make
New Edens. Ours is the stuff sublime
To build Eternity in time!
- Edwin Markham
posted by theoldman at 8:30 am (EST) on Jun 5, 2009
I am just now reading your post on the Kindle. A friend of mine is trekking around the world and she took the Kindle with her in her backpack -- clearly a handy tool in those circumstances!
-- Patsy
posted by PatsyMurray at 6:40 pm (EST) on Apr 5, 2009
-- Patsy
posted by PatsyMurray at 9:33 pm (EST) on Mar 30, 2009
the next few months will be Russian novelists for me.
posted by echaika at 12:06 am (EST) on Mar 24, 2009
posted by PatsyMurray at 9:32 pm (EST) on Mar 22, 2009
posted by PatsyMurray at 5:32 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2009
I look forward to looking at your library in more depth. I am pleased to hear that you give your books to the state prison library. I worked for many years in correctional education and the inmates are eager readers! I have not read any of the books in my librarything library. I use it as a holding place for books I may want to read. I seldom have much time to spend on the site, but would like to spend more time reading and thinking about books. I just finished [Molly Gloss]'s [[Wild Life]]. It is told from the point of view of a woman writer at the turn of the century and touches on many themes: the conflict between working as a writer and motherhood; how to find your place in the world if you refuse to adopt a traditional role; the conflict between development and nature. The narrative includes selections from other writers and from the writings of the main character -- all commenting, of course, on the action. It is part adventure story, part fantasy and I found it compelling. I am just back from the public library where I picked up an armload of fiction meant for pure entertainment -- 2 [Walter Mosley] novels and [Frank Delaney]'s [[Shannon]], among others.
I will check out goodreads. More later, Patsy
posted by PatsyMurray at 5:29 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2009
It occurred to me I should say something about myself! One type of book I enjoy quite a bit are the classic dog books -- Beautiful Joe, the books on collies by Terhune, Shiloh, Thurber. I feel strongly that dogs should be respected as individuals and I think I learned to value them as individuals both by having dogs in my life and by reading these type of books. Good luck with your own dog book!
-- Patsy
posted by PatsyMurray at 9:14 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2009
I see you have added two books that I read last year -- The Dogs of Babel and The Vanishing Act of Esmee Lauder. I can see why, with your interests in language and dogs, you would be interested in The Dogs of Babel. I enjoyed it, but thought perhaps the author had not teased out the full extent of her ideas. Esmee Lauder I thought a stellar novel. Really one of my favorite new reads of the year. I hope you enjoy them.
-- Patsy Murray
posted by PatsyMurray at 9:04 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2009