Signs of Literature; Language, Ideology, and the Literary Text

Vancouver: Talonbooks [0-88922-236-3] 1987, 2nd printing. (Trade paperback) 229pp. Very good plus. Diagrams, charts, works cited. "This language primer begins with a suitably esoteric-looking chapter called 'The Language of Time.' It isn't until the second paragraph that the unsuspecting reader realizes Hughes is talking about the language of Time magazine, which he analyzes as a piece of fiction.... Hughes' careful analysis of the techniques of the English language, from Anglo-Saxon verse to the latest of post-modern texts, constantly reminds us that language is always a made thing, and that the empirical objects captured by language are never immediate, but always mediated by the perception and the craft of the speaker or the author". (Ideas, English Literature, Ideas, Language, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory).