Eighteen American academics and scholars contribute to a collection of essays designed to highlight relations among languages and forms of discourse. Featuring 16 completely new essays, the text provides an overview of the field of linguistics, with special attention to language acquisition and the social life of languages; offers tools for understanding how speakers and writers shape language; and examines scholarship in the distinct but interrelated fields of rhetoric, composition, and poetics. It also includes discussion of textual and historical scholarship; interpretation; comparative, cultural, and translation studies; and the interdisciplinary topics of gender, sexuality, race, and migrations. For academics, and undergraduate and graduate students of modern languages and literatures. Indexed by name and title only; no subject index. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)