What's Language Got to Do with It?

In the Mideast, words shoot to kill. On the pages of the New Yorker, Romeo IMs Juliet. In India, operators in customer service call centers are required to speak English with an American accent and to be able to make small talk about the Super Bowl. Closer to home, ABC News offers up a linguistic profiling quiz. And George Orwell continues to lament the state of politics and the English language.

This is just some of what you ll find in What s Language Got to Do with It?, a thought-provoking new reader that introduces some of the most important language issues facing us today and prompts students to think hard about their own use of language.