Culture and Language at Crossed Purposes unpacks the interpretive problems of colonial treaty-making and uses them to illuminate canonical works from the period. Classic American literature, Jerome McGann argues, is haunted by the betrayal of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Indian treaties—“a stunned memory preserved in the negative spaces of the treaty records.” A noted scholar of the “textual conditions” of literature, McGann investigates canonical works from the colonial period, including the Arbella sermon and key writings of William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated treaty folios and Autobiography, and Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. These are highly practical, purpose-driven works—the record of Enlightenment dreams put to the severe test of dangerous conditions. McGann suggests that the treaty-makers never doubted the unsettled character of what they were prosecuting, and a similar conflicted ethos pervades these works. Like the treaty records, they deliberately test themselves against stringent measures of truth and accomplishment and show a distinctive consciousness of their limits and failures. McGann’s book is ultimately a reminder of the public importance of truth and memory—the vocational commitments of humanist scholars and educators.

Culture and Language at Crossed Purposes unpacks the interpretive problems of colonial treaty-making and uses them to illuminate canonical works from the period. Classic American literature, Jerome McGann argues, is haunted by the betrayal of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Indian treaties—“a stunned memory preserved in the negative spaces of the treaty records.” A noted scholar of the “textual conditions” of literature, McGann investigates canonical works from the colonial period, including the Arbella sermon and key writings of William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated treaty folios and Autobiography, and Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. These are highly practical, purpose-driven works—the record of Enlightenment dreams put to the severe test of dangerous conditions. McGann suggests that the treaty-makers never doubted the unsettled character of what they were prosecuting, and a similar conflicted ethos pervades these works. Like the treaty records, they deliberately test themselves against stringent measures of truth and accomplishment and show a distinctive consciousness of their limits and failures. McGann’s book is ultimately a reminder of the public importance of truth and memory—the vocational commitments of humanist scholars and educators.

Translated texts are often either uncritically consumed by readers, teacher, and scholars or seen to represent an ineluctable loss, a diminishing of original texts. Translation, however, is a cultural practice, influenced also by social and political imperatives, which can open more doors than it closes. The essays in this book show how the act of translation, when vigilantly and critically attended to, becomes a means for active interrogation.

This book aims to present the results of research in the sphere of business language and culture, as well as the experience of pedagogical staff and practitioners concerned with broadly understood business. The highly complex nature of contemporary business environment, approached from both the theoretical and practical standpoint, does not cease to prove that research into business studies cannot be dissociated from the cultural and linguistic context. The chapters included in this book were contributed by academics and practitioners alike, which offers a balanced approach to the topic and ensures high levels of diversity together with an undeniable homogeneity. They were gathered with a view to show various aspects of business language, perceived both as a medium of communication and as a subject of research and teaching. They are concerned with business culture as well, including business ethics and representations of business in popular culture. Owing to its multidisciplinary approach, the book presents a roadmap towards successful functioning in business settings, highlighting such issues as education for business purposes, the study of language used in business contexts, the aspects of cross-cultural communication, as well as ethical behaviour based upon different values in multicultural business environments. Given its multifarious character, the book surely appeals not only to academics, but also to the interested laymen and students who wish to expand their knowledge of business studies and related phenomena.

A MICHIGAN TEACHER TRAINING title Teachers are often in the forefront of today’s cross-cultural contact, whether in the language classroom or in the K–12 or university/college classroom, but they are not always prepared to handle the various issues that can arise in terms of cross-cultural communication. The intent of this book is to make education in cross-cultural awareness accessible to a broad range of teachers working in a variety of educational settings. Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom attempts to balance theory and practice for pre-service and in-service teachers in general education programs or in ESL/EFL, bilingual, and foreign language teacher training programs, as well as cross-cultural awareness workshops. This book is unique in that it combines theory with a wide range of experiential activities and projects designed to actively engage users in the process of understanding different aspects of cross-cultural awareness. The goals of the book are to help readers: expand cultural awareness of one’s own culture and that of others achieve a deeper understanding of what culture is and the relationship between culture and language acquire the ability to observe behaviors in order to draw conclusions based on observation rather than preconceptions understand and implement observations of cultural similarities and differences develop an attitude of tolerance toward cultural differences and move away from the “single story.” The new edition has been thoroughly updated and includes a Suggested Projects section in each chapter. This section provides opportunities for users of the text to explore in greater depth an area and topic of interest. It also includes even more Critical Incidents--brief descriptions of events that depict some element or elements of cultural differences, miscommunication, or culture clash. Critical Incidents develop users’ ability to analyze and understand how multiple perspectives of the same situation are rooted in differing culturally influenced beliefs, behaviors, norms of interaction, and worldviews.

This work is the definitive international textbook for community interpreting, with a special focus on medical interpreting. Intended for use in universities, colleges and basic training programs, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to the profession. The core audience is interpreters and their trainers and educators. While the emphasis is on medical, educational and social services interpreting, legal and faith-based interpreting are also addressed.

Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom links theory with experiential activities that will be helpful for use in teacher training or certificate programs. The goals of this book for the teacher educator are to expand cultural awareness, to acquire an in-depth understanding of what culture is and its relationship to language, and to comprehend and implement observations of cultural similarities and differences. Topics discussed in the book include: culture shock nonverbal communication societal roles pragmatics. A great in-service workshop text or teacher training programs.