"Improve your French conversation skills with 'Du tac au tac: Managing Conversations in French!" Each chapter is organized around what you need to know to interact with native speakers: how to initiate, maintain, and close conversations; how to communicate and respond to feelings and emotions; how to express opinions; and how to give and get information. The communicative strategies used in this French text help you reactivate, strengthen, and build on what you already know so that you can improve your French communication skills with ease."--Back cover.

Close readings of ostensibly “blank” works—from unprinted pages to silent music—that point to a new understanding of media. In No Medium, Craig Dworkin looks at works that are blank, erased, clear, or silent, writing critically and substantively about works for which there would seem to be not only nothing to see but nothing to say. Examined closely, these ostensibly contentless works of art, literature, and music point to a new understanding of media and the limits of the artistic object. Dworkin considers works predicated on blank sheets of paper, from a fictional collection of poems in Jean Cocteau's Orphée to the actual publication of a ream of typing paper as a book of poetry; he compares Robert Rauschenberg's Erased De Kooning Drawing to the artist Nick Thurston's erased copy of Maurice Blanchot's The Space of Literature (in which only Thurston's marginalia were visible); and he scrutinizes the sexual politics of photographic representation and the implications of obscured or obliterated subjects of photographs. Reexamining the famous case of John Cage's 4'33”, Dworkin links Cage's composition to Rauschenberg's White Paintings, Ken Friedman's Zen for Record (and Nam June Paik's Zen for Film), and other works, offering also a “guide to further listening” that surveys more than 100 scores and recordings of “silent” music. Dworkin argues that we should understand media not as blank, base things but as social events, and that there is no medium, understood in isolation, but only and always a plurality of media: interpretive activities taking place in socially inscribed space.

Get up and running with French Easy French Step-by-Step proves that a solid grounding in grammar basics is the key to mastering a second language. You are quickly introduced to grammatical rules and concepts inorder of importance, which you can build on as you progress through the book. You will also learn more than 300 verbs, chosen by their frequency of use. Numerous exercises and engagingreadings help you quickly build your speaking and comprehension prowess.

This collection of papers is divided into three parts. After "Introduction" (James F. Lee and Albert Valdman), Part 1, "Theoretical Aspects of Focus on Form," includes "What Form to Focus On? Linguistics, Language Awareness, and the Education of l2 Teachers" (Cristina Sanz); "Five Types of Input and the Various Relationships between Form and Meaning" (James F. Lee); "Processing Instruction as Form-Meaning Connections: Issues in Theory and Research" (Bill VanPatten); and "Attention, Awareness, and Focus on Form Research: a Critical Overview" (Ronald P. Leow). Part 2, "The Teaching Context for Focus on Form," includes "Classroom Talk: Form, Meaning, and Activity Theory" (Celeste Kinginger) and "Meaning and Form in Classroom-Based sla Research: Reflections from a College Foreign Language Perspective" (Heidi Byrnes). Part 3, "Pedagogical Applications," includes "Toward a Pedagogical Discourse of Grammar: Techniques for Teaching Word-Order Constructions" (Carl S. Blyth); "The Effect of Explicit Training on Successful Circumlocution: a Classroom Study" (Mary Ellen Scullen and Sarah Jourdain); "Relationships between the Process of Reading, Word Inferencing, and Incidental Word Acquisition" (Susanne Rott); and "Linking Form and Meaning in Reading: An Example of Action Research" (Catherine C. Fraser). (Papers contain references.) (Sm).

The language of Ancient Egypt has been the object of careful investigation since its decipherment in the nineteenth century, but this is the first accessible account that uses the insight of modern linguistics. Antonio Loprieno discusses the hieroglyphic system and its cursive varieties, and the phonology, morphology and syntax of Ancient Egyptian, as well as looking at its genetic ties with other languages of the Near East. This book will be indispensable for both linguists and Egyptologists.

Berbers, also known as Imazighen, are the ancient inhabitants of North Africa, but rarely have they formed an actual kingdom or separate nation state. Ranging anywhere between 15-50 million, depending on how they are classified, the Berbers have influenced the culture and religion of Roman North Africa and played key roles in the spread of Islam and its culture in North Africa, Spain, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Taken together, these dynamics have over time converted to redefine the field of Berber identity and its socio-political representations and symbols, making it an even more important issue in the 21st century. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Berbers contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, places, events, institutions, and aspects of culture, society, economy, and politics. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Berbers.