Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Analyzing meaning: An introduction to semantics and pragmatics
Paul Kroeger · Language Science Press · 2018
This book provides an introduction to the study of meaning in human language, from a linguistic perspective. It covers a fairly broad range of topics, including lexical semantics, compositional semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters are organized into six units: (1) Foundational concepts; (2) Word meanings; (3) Implicature (including indirect speech acts); (4) Compositional semantics; (5) Modals, conditionals, and causation; (6) Tense & aspect.Most of the chapters include exercises which can be used for class discussion and/or homework assignments, and each chapter contains references for additional reading on the topics covered.As the title indicates, this book is truly an INTRODUCTION: it provides a solid foundation which will prepare students to take more advanced and specialized courses in semantics and/or pragmatics. It is also intended as a reference for fieldworkers doing primary research on under-documented languages, to help them write grammatical descriptions that deal carefully and clearly with semantic issues. The approach adopted here is largely descriptive and non-formal (or, in some places, semi-formal), although some basic logical notation is introduced. The book is written at level which should be appropriate for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students. It presupposes some previous coursework in linguistics, but does not presuppose any background in formal logic or set theory.
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Words of Wisdom: Intro to Philosophy
Jody Ondich · Jody Ondich · 2018
Words of Wisdom can come from anyone. In this text we discuss topics ranging from "Are Humans good by nature?" to "Is there a God?" to "Do I have the right to my own opinion?" Philosophy is the study of wisdom, and can emerge in our conversations in social media, in school, around the family dinner table, and even in the car. The text uses materials that are 2,500 years old, and materials that were in the news this year. Wise people come in all shapes and types, and from every culture on earth. We have poetry and folktales, sacred writings and letters. Dialogues and interviews, news columns, Ted Talks, You Tube recordings and even comedy are all a part of the content in this text.You will be most successful reading this on line. The formatting in the downloadable versions is not wonderful. There is work being done by the software, but in the meantime, you will want to use it by clicking here on "read book:".
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Mapping, Society, and Technology
Steven Manson · University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2017
This book is about how to read, use, and create maps. Our exploration of maps will be informed by a contextual understanding of how maps reflect the relationship between society and technology, and how mapping is an essential form of scientific and artistic inquiry. We will also explore how mapping is used to address a variety of societal issues, such as land use planning and political gerrymandering. You will gain insight into the technical underpinnings of mapping as a science approach, complement on-going interest and activities, or provide an applied focus for research or policy.
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BC Reads: Adult Literacy Fundamental English
Shantel Ivits · BCcampus · 2015
This course pack is designed to meet the learning outcomes for Adult Literacy Fundamental English Level 5 (roughly equivalent to grades 6 to 7.5 in the K-12 system). Every chapter includes a level-appropriate, high-interest reading of between 500 and 800 words. The readings are freely available in a separate reader with convenient links to the readings in each chapter of this course pack. Font size and line spacing can be adjusted in the online view, and have been enhanced for the print and PDF versions for easier reading. This course pack has been reviewed by subject experts from colleges and universities.
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BC Reads: Adult Literacy Fundamental English
Shantel Ivits · BCcampus · 2015
This course pack is designed to meet the learning outcomes for Adult Literacy Fundamental English Level 6 (roughly equivalent to grades 7.5 to 9 in the K-12 system). Every chapter includes a level-appropriate, high-interest reading of between 500 and 1,000 words. The readings are freely available in a separate reader with convenient links to the readings in each chapter of this course pack. Font size and line spacing can be adjusted in the online view, and have been enhanced for the print and PDF versions for easier reading. This course pack has been reviewed by subject experts from colleges and universities.
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Transition with Purpose: Pathways from English Language to Academic Study
Michele Miller; Anne Greenhoe · Portland State University Library · 2018
This Open Access Textbook will guide students through their English language to academic degree studies. Part one of this textbook is a guide for moving from ESL study to academic study at Portland State University. It includes the resources students will use to understand policies and processes governing their degree study and their transition to academic coursework. Part two focuses on how academic skills are used across various disciplines and is comprised of activities and assignments designed to practice these skills. Key elements include culture and expectations in an American university, transferring academic skills from ESL to content-specific academic courses, and helpful exercises to be academically successful.
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Six Ways of Being Religious
Dale Cannon · Wadsworth Publishing Company · 1996
The book proposes the hypothesis that six generic ways of being religious may be found in any large-scale religious tradition such as Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism: sacred rite, right action, devotion, shamanic mediation, mystical quest, and reasoned inquiry. These are recurrent ways in which, socially and individually, devout members of these traditions take up and appropriate their stories and symbols in order to draw near to, and come into right relationship with, what the traditions attest to be the ultimate reality.
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Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations
Michelle Evory · Open SUNY · 2018
Informed by a writing philosophy that values both spontaneity and discipline, Michelle Bonczek Evory's Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations offers practical advice and strategies for developing a writing process that is centered on play and supported by an understanding of America's rich literary traditions. With consideration to the psychology of invention, Bonczek Evory provides students with exercises aimed to make writing in its early stages a form of play that gives way to more enriching insights through revision, embracing the writing of poetry as both a love of language and a tool that enables us to explore ourselves and better understand the world. The volume includes resources for students seeking to publish and build a writing-centered lifestyle or career. Poets featured range in age, subject, and style, and many are connected to colleges in the State University of New York system. Naming the Unnameable promotes an understanding of poetry as a living art of which students are a part, and provides ways for students to involve themselves in the growing contemporary poetry community that thrives in America today.
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The Simple Math of Writing Well: Writing for the 21st Century
Jennie Harrop · George Fox University Library · 2018
Writing guides abound, but The Simple Math of Writing Well is one of a kind. Readers will find its practical approach affirming, encouraging, and informative, and its focus on the basics of linguistic structure releases 21st-century writers to embrace the variety of mediums that define our internet-connected world. As Harrop reminds us in the opening chapters of her book, we write more today than ever before in history: texts, emails, letters, blogs, reports, social media posts, proposals, etc. The Simple Math of Writing Well is the first guide that directly addresses the importance of writing well in the Google age.
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A Foundation Course in Reading German
Howard Martin; Alan Ng · University of Wisconsin - Madison · 2017
This textbook guides a learner who has no previous German experience to gain the ability to accurately understand formal written German prose, aided only by a comprehensive dictionary.
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In the Community: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook
NorQuest College · 2016
With funding from Alberta Open Educational Resources, Bow Valley College and NorQuest College collaborated to create Open Educational Resources (OER) in the form of e-textbooks for English language learners. NorQuest College created In the Community: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook. The textbook: helps learners notice, learn, and practice English that will be helpful in your community gives learners practice in the four main language skills–listening, speaking, reading, and writing helps learners learn about intercultural skills helps learners develop some important essential skills can be used as an online textbook with interactive activities or downloaded, printed and used as a regular textbook The textbook is aimed at Canadian Language Benchmarks levels 5/6 and has been designed to be facilitated by an instructor.
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Communication Beginnings: An Introductory Listening and Speaking Text for English Language Learners
Della Abrahams · Portland State University Library · 2017
This textbook is designed for beginning-intermediate English language learners. It is composed of 7 chapters, each of which covers specific speaking and listening learning objectives and includes dialogues, interviews, discussions and conversation activities. Each chapter includes listening and speaking components such as dialogues, interviews, discussions and conversation activities. Each chapter also focuses on 10 target words from the New General Service List of English vocabulary. The textbook includes an audio component that consists of recorded conversations of native and non-native English speakers, as well as links to additional listening resources on the web.
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Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 2
Emiko Konomi · Portland State University Library · 2017
This textbook is designed for beginning learners who want to learn basic Japanese for the purpose of living and working in Japan. Unlike textbooks written primarily for students, whose content largely centers on student life, this book focuses more on social and professional life beyond school. As a beginning level textbook, this book includes many elementary grammar patterns (Japanese Language Proficiency Test Levels 5 and 4), but the vocabulary and situations are selected specifically for working adults. Explanations are kept concise so as to only cover key points. The main focus is on oral communication and the accompanying audio is to be used extensively. This textbook can be used for self-study, as part of an online course, or as a traditional college course.
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Greek and Latin Roots: Part II - Greek
Peter Smith · BCcampus · 2016
Greek and Latin Roots: Part II - Greek is part two of a two part series. This series examines the systematic principles by which a large portion of English vocabulary has evolved from Latin and (to a lesser degree) from Greek. This book focuses on Greek roots. A link to the first part focusing on the Latin roots can be found below. Part II will try to impart some skill in the recognition and proper use of words derived from Greek. There is a stress on principles: although students will be continually looking at interesting individual words, their constant aim will be to discover predictable general patterns of historical development, so that they may be able to cope with new and unfamiliar words of any type that they have studied. They will be shown how to approach the problem by a procedure known as “word analysis,” which is roughly comparable to the dissection of an interesting specimen in the biology laboratory. The text assumes no previous knowledge of Greek, and does not involve the grammatical study of this language—except for a few basic features of noun and verb formation that will help students to understand the Greek legacy in English. All students will be asked to learn the Greek alphabet. This skill is not absolutely essential for a general knowledge of Greek roots in English. However, it will help students understand a number of otherwise puzzling features of spelling and usage. Although there will be some attention paid to the historical interaction of Greek with English, this text is definitely not a systematic history of the English language. It focuses on only those elements within English that have been directly or indirectly affected by this classical language. In order to provide the broadest possible service to students, the text emphasizes standard English vocabulary in current use. The more exotic technical vocabulary of science and medicine can be extremely interesting, but is explored in only summary fashion. Nevertheless, this text should b
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Fundamental Methods of Logic
Matthew Knachel · A.T. Still University · 2017
Fundamental Methods of Logic is suitable for a one-semester introduction to logic/critical reasoning course. It covers a variety of topics at an introductory level. Chapter One introduces basic notions, such as arguments and explanations, validity and soundness, deductive and inductive reasoning; it also covers basic analytical techniques, such as distinguishing premises from conclusions and diagramming arguments. Chapter Two discusses informal logical fallacies. Chapters Three and Four concern deductive logic, introducing the basics of Aristotelian and Sentential Logic, respectively. Chapter Five deals with analogical and causal reasoning, including a discussion of Mill's Methods. Chapter Six covers basic probability calculations, Bayesian inference, fundamental statistical concepts and techniques, and common statistical fallacies.
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Cicero, Against Verres, 2.1.53-86. Latin Text with Introduction, Study Questions, Commentary and English Translation
Ingo Gildenhard · Open Book Publishers · 2011
Looting, despoiling temples, attempted rape and judicial murder: these are just some of the themes of this classic piece of writing by one of the world's greatest orators. This particular passage is from the second book of Cicero's Speeches against Verres, who was a former Roman magistrate on trial for serious misconduct. Cicero presents the lurid details of Verres' alleged crimes in exquisite and sophisticated prose. This volume provides a portion of the original text of Cicero's speech in Latin, a detailed commentary, study aids, and a translation. As a literary artefact, the speech gives us insight into how the supreme master of Latin eloquence developed what we would now call rhetorical "spin". As an historical document, it provides a window into the dark underbelly of Rome's imperial expansion and exploitation of the Near East. Ingo Gildenhard's illuminating commentary on this A-Level set text will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both high school and undergraduate level. It will also be a valuable resource to Latin teachers and to anyone interested in Cicero, language and rhetoric, and the legal culture of Ancient Rome.
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Virgil, Aeneid, 4.1-299. Latin Text, Study Questions, Commentary and Interpretative Essays
Ingo Gildenhard · Open Book Publishers · 2012
Love and tragedy dominate book four of Virgil's most powerful work, building on the violent emotions invoked by the storms, battles, warring gods, and monster-plagued wanderings of the epic's opening. Destined to be the founder of Roman culture, Aeneas, nudged by the gods, decides to leave his beloved Dido, causing her suicide in pursuit of his historical destiny. A dark plot, in which erotic passion culminates in sex, and sex leads to tragedy and death in the human realm, unfolds within the larger horizon of a supernatural sphere, dominated by power-conscious divinities. Dido is Aeneas' most significant other, and in their encounter Virgil explores timeless themes of love and loyalty, fate and fortune, the justice of the gods, imperial ambition and its victims, and ethnic differences. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study questions, a commentary, and interpretative essays. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Ingo Gildenhard's incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis to encourage critical engagement with Virgil's poetry and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.
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Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary
Mathew Owen; Ingo Gildenhard · Open Book Publishers · 2013
The emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome's most infamous villains, and Tacitus' Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical understanding of this flamboyant autocrat. This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero's reign, chronicling the emperor's fledgling stage career including his plans for a grand tour of Greece; his participation in a city-wide orgy climaxing in his publicly consummated ‘marriage' to his toy boy Pythagoras; the great fire of AD 64, during which large parts of central Rome went up in flames; and the rising of Nero's ‘grotesque' new palace, the so-called ‘Golden House', from the ashes of the city. This building project stoked the rumours that the emperor himself was behind the conflagration, and Tacitus goes on to present us with Nero's gruesome efforts to quell these mutterings by scapegoating and executing members of an unpopular new cult then starting to spread through the Roman empire: Christianity. All this contrasts starkly with four chapters focusing on one of Nero's most principled opponents, the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, an audacious figure of moral fibre, who courageously refuses to bend to the forces of imperial corruption and hypocrisy. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Owen's and Gildenhard's incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Tacitus' prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.
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Cicero, On Pompey’s Command (De Imperio), 27-49. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, Commentary, and Translation
Ingo Gildenhard; Louise Hodgson · Open Book Publishers · 2014
In republican times, one of Rome's deadliest enemies was King Mithridates of Pontus. In 66 BCE, after decades of inconclusive struggle, the tribune Manilius proposed a bill that would give supreme command in the war against Mithridates to Pompey the Great, who had just swept the Mediterranean clean of another menace: the pirates. While powerful aristocrats objected to the proposal, which would endow Pompey with unprecedented powers, the bill proved hugely popular among the people, and one of the praetors, Marcus Tullius Cicero, also hastened to lend it his support. In his first ever political speech, variously entitled pro lege Manilia or de imperio Gnaei Pompei, Cicero argues that the war against Mithridates requires the appointment of a perfect general and that the only man to live up to such lofty standards is Pompey. In the section under consideration here, Cicero defines the most important hallmarks of the ideal military commander and tries to demonstrate that Pompey is his living embodiment. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, the incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both AS and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Cicero's prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.
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Cornelius Nepos, 'Life of Hannibal': Latin Text, Notes, Maps, Illustrations and Vocabulary
Bret Mulligan · Open Book Publishers · 2015
Trebia. Trasimene. Cannae. With three stunning victories, Hannibal humbled Rome and nearly shattered its empire. Even today Hannibal's brilliant, if ultimately unsuccessful, campaign against Rome during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) make him one of history's most celebrated military leaders. This biography by Cornelius Nepos (c. 100-27 BC) sketches Hannibal's life from the time he began traveling with his father's army as a young boy, through his sixteen-year invasion of Italy and his tumultuous political career in Carthage, to his perilous exile and eventual suicide in the East.As Rome completed its bloody transition from dysfunctional republic to stable monarchy, Nepos labored to complete an innovative and influential collection of concise biographies. Putting aside the detailed, chronological accounts of military campaigns and political machinations that characterized most writing about history, Nepos surveyed Roman and Greek history for distinguished men who excelled in a range of prestigious occupations. In the exploits and achievements of these illustrious men, Nepos hoped that his readers would find models for the honorable conduct of their own lives. Although most of Nepos' works have been lost, we are fortunate to have his biography of Hannibal. Nepos offers a surprisingly balanced portrayal of a man that most Roman authors vilified as the most monstrous foe that Rome had ever faced.Nepos' straightforward style and his preference for common vocabulary make Life of Hannibal accessible for those who are just beginning to read continuous Latin prose, while the historical interest of the subject make it compelling for readers of every ability. This book contains embedded audio files of the original text read aloud by Christopher Francese.