The Book Is on the Table  (English, Paperback, Jones Elton)

At the end of the noughties I attended a graduation ceremony in theGreat Hall at the University of Leeds. There, I was awarded with aMaster of Arts degree in Linguistics and English Language Teaching.Just ten years before I had only basic skills in English and was stuckworking in a street stall in South America, earning GBP60 per month.This narrative tells about the adventurous journey learning Englishand how English empowered me to escape from a social backgroundof mediocrity. Along this journey I learned about Linguistics,Sociolinguistics, English Learning (as a foreign/ second language),and have discovered some sort of supernatural power that Englishbestowed upon me. I invite the readers to retrace the steps of suchdiscovery and to observe the intrinsic connection between languageand reality. Along the way, the reader will be introduced to a cartradesman from Yorkshire, a promising conservative student, a piousand steadfast mother, a sickening drag queen who impersonatesMadonna, the fierce rioters of Stonewall, an industrious and cunninglinguistics teacher, a devout Christian who believes that aliens controlthis world, and a famous American linguist who changed someprejudicial views on Black English vernacular. The readers should feelfree to learn a few linguistic technical terms, some car trade jargon, abunch of dialectical words, and a mouthful of taboo language. And ifthe reader incidentally learns to conjure some magic spell usingEnglish, as a happy by product, well... good for you.