Language Play, Language Learning

Front Cover
OUP Oxford, Feb 3, 2000 - Foreign Language Study - 235 pages
This book has two related purposes. The first is to demonstrate the extent and importance of language play in human life; the second is to draw out the implications for applied linguistics and language teaching. Language play should not be thought of as a trivial or peripheral activity, but as central to human thought and culture, to learning, creativity, and intellectual enquiry. It fulfils a major function of language, underpinning the human capacity to adapt: as individuals, as societies, and as a species.
 

Contents

imaginary worlds
35
competition and collaboration
61
evolutionary and cultural perspectives 46
97
randomness and creativity
121
Current orthodoxies in language teaching
149
Future prospects for language teaching
181
Bibliography
207
Index
223
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About the author (2000)

Guy Cook is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading. He has worked as an EFL teacher in Egypt, Italy, the UK, and Russia, as a lecturer at the University of Leeds, and as head of TESOL at the London University Institute of Education. He has been an invited speaker at universities and major conferences in many countries, and has published widely on discourse analysis, the theory and practice of language teaching, literature teaching, translation, and language play.