The Linguistics of Lying And Other Essays

Can language hide thoughts? This question was answered by Harald Weinrich in this volume's title essay, first published in 1966 as Linguistik der Luge. Weinrich's essay, now in its sixth printing in Germany, is presented here for the first time in English, with an updated preface by the author. Additional essays selected by him complement "The Linguistics of Lying" in their focus on real and false representations in literature and in life.
Weinrich brings sophisticated thinking about semantics to bear on the question of how, and how much, language corresponds to thought. His survey of the different ways in which language is untrue forges striking links between linguistic and literary categories on the one hand and ethics and even good manners on the other. Now, with a translation that captures the wide appeal of the original texts, Jane and Marshall Brown have opened a path to the broader recognition among English readers that Weinrich's work so richly deserves.

Harald Weinrich has served as chair for European studies at the College de France, chair of Romance philology and literature at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel and at the University of Cologne, and chair of linguistics at Munich and at Bielefeld University, where he also directed the Center for Interdisciplinary Research.