Neil Mercer (1)

This is a bit academic for the casual reader, but I found it accessible and interesting as a lay person. It uses actual research examples of language interactions (mostly small conversations) of all types to break down and analyse how people use language to form meaning both shared and constructed. A lot of the points made here I felt were obvious, but only _after_ the point was made- I recognize them but may not have been able to express them before. Vitality important to people of show more authority like teachers, police, politicians, etc, it is also important in our everyday lives. Still, I only read the first half of the book (which was from the public library) show less

A companion to "English: History, Diversity and Change", and like it an introductory text made up of essays by various writers. This one focuses on how English is used in various context -- everyday conversation, the workplace, rhetoric, literature, and so on. I found it mildly interesting, but very repetitive, with a strong tendency to focus on the obvious. Also, it is old enough (1992) so that issues created by the use of English in electronic media are barely touched upon.

Meget spændende bog, der i et socio-kulturelt perspektiv redegør for, hvordan mennesker lærer sammen og af hinanden gennem samtale. Inspiration fra Vygotsky, Bakhtin m. fl.