John Joseph - Böcker

The intrinsic link between language and politics has long been recognized (for example, Aristotle wrote ‘… that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech’ (Politics, 1, 2)). It remains a broad, flourishing, and highly contested area of academic study. On the one hand, it analyses how politicians use language, applying approaches which range from traditional rhetoric to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). On the other hand, it is also concerned with the political dimension that is arguably inherent in the use of all language.Language and Politics, a new title the Routledge series, Major Themes in English Studies, addresses the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarly literature. Edited by John E. Joseph, a prominent scholar in the field, and author of the subject’s leading textbook, this new Major Work from Routledge brings together in four volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship to provide a synoptic view of many of the key issues and current debates.Volumes I and II collect the best and most influential work on the language of politics. These two volumes include the key work analysing political texts or arguing that political language is inherently propagandistic. Especially in recent years, the fundamentally political nature of language has been reasserted and Volumes III and IV gather the essential scholarship examining how language itself is politically constructed or used.Language and Politics is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) is widely recognized as the founder of twentieth-century language science. In his lifetime he published an important work on Indo-European philology but it was his Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, that paved the way for a genuinely scientific theory of language based on a system of mutually defining entities. In addition to laying the foundations for many of the significant developments in modern linguistics, the implications of Saussure’s work have been far reaching across a broad range of disciplines beyond language studies; indeed, his projected science of signs effected a fundamental reconceptualization of our knowledge about all socially organized meaning systems and it has had a profound impact on, for example, the evolution of modern sociology, anthropology, film studies, and literary theory.As serious work on Saussure’s thinking and influence continues to flourish, this long-awaited new title in Routledge’s Critical Assessments of Leading Linguists series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a vast scholarly literature. Edited by John E. Joseph, author of the first full-length and comprehensive biography of Saussure, this four-volume Major Work brings together the best and most influential English-language Saussurean secondary literature. (It also makes available in translation several key pieces originally published in languages other than English.)The collection includes: work on Saussure’s precursors; comprehensive coverage of his linguistic theory, his key concepts, and their critical reception, especially in Europe and the USA; critiques of Saussure (including reassessments and refinements prompted by the unearthing in 1996 of a manuscript published as his Writings in General Linguistics); full coverage of Saussure’s ‘rediscovery’ in the 1960s and his significance in the rise of structuralism, as well as his influence on the broader poststructuralist approaches to inquiry in the human sciences that followed.Ferdinand de Saussure is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

This study focuses on the Jacobites (Syrian Orthodox Christians), who, like their Aramaean ancestors, established a presence far beyond their ancestral lands. Professor John Joseph has found this historic Christian community to be an admirable case study in inter-communal relations in the Middle East. Of special interest is the discussion of how Western religious rivalries, Catholic and Protestant, have affected the religious tensions in the Middle East. Through Joseph's first-hand acquaintance with the region and mastery of previously unmined sources, he displays an intimate and thorough knowledge of his subject. Written with color, clarity, and extreme care, the book offers an objective recounting of a story that is at times full of passion and violence.