Penn State Media Sales / Languages/Linguistics
Illustrates various aspects of children's language learning, including the acquisition of speech and reading skills and the ability to use language in a social setting.
The examination of American dialects by sociolinguist Walt Wolfram leads to a look at conversational style by Georgetown University Professor Deborah Tannen and a debate on the existence and validity of a standard American English. Communities of Speech explores the origins of dialects. (Language, Linguistics)
Twenty million Americans -- or one in every ten -- have some language or hearing impairment. This program details stuttering, one of the most common fluency disorders, by offering definitions of stuttering, identifying its various forms, and differentiating between stuttering and normal disfluencies. Interviews with stutterers, communication disorder experts, and viewer interactive segments help explore the mysteries, medical controversies, and perceptions of this fluency disability. Designed for those studying communication disorders. Produced by the University of Pittsburgh.
Social psychologist Jean Berko Gleason and neurologist Richard Restak comment on the biological or cultural origins of the differences in the ways men and women use language.
This series has a dual purpose: to explore the social, psychological, and political implications of language and to teach the fundamentals of clear, concise writing. In the first program, a debate over whether apes are capable of language includes comments by some of the leading animal language researchers: Herbert Terrace, Roger Fouts, and Duane Rumbaugh. Produced by the International University Consortium.
The sentence is the basic unit of expression in any language. The sentences that we use convey a lot about us to other people. This program will help students to become top-notch communicators. ©1998
These CDs contain conversations, pronunciation models and stories from the book Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language, by Thomas F. Magner. The book was published by the Penn State Press in 1991 with updated versions in 1995 and 1997. Page references on the tapes are valid for all three versions. Set of 6. As the author had anticipated the separation of the Croatian and Serbian into two languages, the book contains specific Croatian lessons juxtaposed to specific Serbian lessons.
A look at the harmful effects of jargon on our daily lives concludes with a prescription for simplifying our own language by Alan Siegel, a professional advocate of "plain English."
This look at efforts to communicate with other beings in our universe leads to the question of what language is, a question answered by author Edwin Newman, anthropologist Sidney Minta, psychologist Nancy Henley, and sociolinguist Walt Wolfram.
Senator S.I. Hayakawa, former Senator Eugene McCarthy, Professor of Political Rhetoric Kathleen Jameson, and political media consultant Tony Schwartz analyze the persuasive powers of political speeches, including those of Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, and comment on the impact of recent social factors such as Vietnam, Watergate, and televised political commercials.
The argument among authorities such as Edwin Newman and linguist Wayne O'Neill over the health of our language leads to an historical appraisal of the English language.
Atlantic essayist Benjamin DeMott, Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti, and Professor of English Richard Mitchell comment on the link between writing and thinking. Author Edwin Newman and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman explain their own process of writing.
C 1977 Richard M. Weist Demonstrates how children process language differently from adults. Explores the influence of semantic information on sentence comprehension. Comprehension processes are revealed by children at various phases of development as they act out the meaning of sentences with toys. Produced by Richard M. Weist.