• Strikingly Similar
• Linguistic Fingerprints
• Failure to Communicate
• Irony and Sarcasm
• Changing Minds
• Getting Through
• Becoming Fluent

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To be published by Cambridge University Press in January 2026; available for preorder now

Endorsements

In this book, Kreuz offers a breezy account of actual, suspected, or accidental plagiarism. Featuring examples drawn from literature, music, and politics, Kreuz gives example after example of plagiarism—and some copyright infringements too—by writers who are famous, infamous, or essentially unknown.

​​​—​Dennis Baron
Author of You Can’t Always Say What You Want

​An engaging new perspective on the topic of plagiarism. The book is overflowing with stories of real-world instances of plagiarism in professional contexts from academia, politics, and journalism, to the creative arts. These stories inform an insightful analysis of the causes and consequences of plagiarism.

​​—​Guy J. Curtis
Editor, Academic Integrity in the Social Sciences

​​“Strikingly Similar" is an essential resource for those interested in plagiarism. Kreuz has compiled a comprehensive history of a topic critical to writers and academics. This book provides important lessons and cautionary tales from the history of writing for the age of AI.

​​​​​—David Rettinger
​Editor, Cheating Academic Integrity: Lessons from 30 Years of Research, and President Emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity

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Published by Prometheus in August 2023

​​How much of ourselves do we disclose when we speak or write? A person’s accent may reveal, for example, whether they hail from Australia, or Ireland, or Mississippi. But it’s not just where we were born—we divulge all sorts of information about ourselves and our identity through language. Level of education, gender, age, and even aspects of our personality can all be reliably determined by our vocabulary and grammar. To those who know what to look for, we give ourselves away every time we open our mouths or tap on a keyboard.
But how unique is a person’s linguistic identity? Can language be used to identify a specific person? To identify—or to exonerate—a murder suspect? To determine who authored a particular book? The answer to all these questions is yes. Forensic and computational linguists have developed methods that allow linguistic fingerprinting to be used in law enforcement. Similar techniques are used by literary scholars to identify the authors of anonymous or contested works of literature.

​Many people have heard that linguistic analysis helped to catch the Unabomber, or to unmask an anonymous editorialist—but how is it done? LINGUSISTIC FINGERPRINTS will explain how these methods were developed and how they are used to solve forensic and literary mysteries. But these techniques aren’t perfect, and the book will also include some cautionary tales about mistaken linguistic identity.
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Endorsements
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​A must-read book for all persons having an interest in language or linguistics.

​—​Jacques Savoy, University of Neuchâtel

​Do we leave behind linguistic fingerprints when we communicate? Does how we talk or write reveal who we are? The question has been posed for centuries, from the enigma of Shakespeare to that of Satoshi. Prof. Kreuz leads us on a rich historical journey into present-day methods using corpus analysis and machine learning. “Linguistic Fingerprints” offers captivating vignettes of failures, successes and lingering mysteries of stylometry.

​​​—​Rick Dale, University of California, Los Angeles

​Smartly-written, entertaining and informative, Linguistic Fingerprints is a fascinating exploration of quests—both successful and otherwise—to identify authors by their writing.

​—Ros Barber, Goldsmith’s, University of London

​ A delightfully engaging read! From hand counting to machine learning, Linguistic Fingerprints explores the fascinating world of stylometry with lucidity and insight. Kreuz’s new book is a must-read for anyone interested in what language use unconsciously reveals.

​—Katie Muth, Durham University

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Published by Prometheus in April 2023

​​We are exposed to the dangers of miscommunication early in life. As children, we play the Telephone Game and learn an important lesson about the fragility of long communication chains. And as adults, we are constantly on the lookout for misunderstanding. People interrupt each other, on average, about every ninety seconds in order to check their understanding. Despite such vigilance, however, a great deal of what is said and written is not understood as intended.

Miscommunication has led to military defeats, the loss of spacecraft, and—even more tragically—airplane crashes and other accidents. It plays a role in road rage and social media feuds. It haunts the courtroom, the boardroom, and the singles bar. FAILURE TO COMMUNI­CATE includes dozens of such examples and explains them in light of what researchers have discovered about how communication works--and why it so often fails.

Endorsements

In this engaging and comprehensive new book Professor Kreuz shares the cognitive science of miscommunication and its relevance for our everyday interactions. The result is useful, thought-provoking, and also entertaining. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding why we so often misunderstand.

​—Penny M. Pexman, University of Calgary

With vivid anecdotes and erudite illustrations and through accessible and compelling psychological explanations, Kreuz masterfully demonstrates how human communication can be both robust as well as brittle.

​—Morton Ann Gernsbacher, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The book presents a fascinating parade of examples of miscommunications and their causes. Kreuz is a brilliant storyteller and manages to relate the results of psychological experiments in an engaging and interesting way. Ironically enough, for a book on miscommunication, he is clear and completely understandable all the way.

​—Salvatore Attardo, Texas A&M University-Commerce

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Turkish edition

Published February 2024

Korean edition

Published September 2024

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Published by MIT Press in February 2020

Available as an audiobook from Gildan Media

Irony and Sarcasm was released as part of MIT Press' Essential Knowledge Series. The books in the series are "concise, beautifully produced books on topics of current interest."
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​Named as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for Words and Language, 2021
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Reviews

​Kreuz incorporates voices as diverse as Sophocles, Cicero, O. Henry, Henry Watson Fowler, David Foster Wallace, George Carlin, and Alanis Morissette. Kreuz builds out the basics of metaphor and speech act theory with current research on the identification of sarcasm, the sarcastic tone of voice, sentiment analysis, and memes. Kreuz’s engaging style makes the exposition easy to follow despite the slipperiness of the titular concepts, and in the endmatter he includes a useful glossary and suggestions for further reading. Billed as a “biography of two troublesome words,” this is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in language, rhetoric, and cultural studies.

​—E. L. Battistella, Choice Connect
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Roger Kreuz’s pocket-sized introduction, in the excellent MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series, offers clarity, plain-language insights, stylistic grace, and merciful freedom from restrictive method. Describing half a dozen varieties of irony and roving through two millennia of culture-specific and near-miss attempts to define them, Kreuz also engages in due course with sarcasm as an all-invasive subspecies of verbal (and usually oral) irony; and along the way, he visits satire, parody, paradox, and other protean modes of disruption. 

​​​​--​Bruce Michelson, Studies in American Humor
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An enlightening and concise overview of the life and times of irony and sarcasm.

​—​Library Journal Reviews
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Japanese edition

Published April 2021

Spanish edition

Published October 2023

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Published by MIT Press in October 2019

Available as an audiobook from Tantor Audio

​Named as one of Choice's
​Outstanding Academic Titles for 2020
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Endorsements
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"Changing Minds" provides a clear understanding of the connection between aging and language. Most importantly, it provides sets of practices that can help you harness the power of language to live longer and better.

​​​—​Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones
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​Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts have done it again—and made it look easy! Their new book, "Changing Minds," is a superbly written and highly accessible overview of a neglected topic, namely, how aging affects a person's ability to communicate through language. Anyone who is getting older or who interacts with anyone who is getting older—and, of course, this is everyone—should read this fun and informative book.

​​​—​John Kounios, Drexel University
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From the first page, I found myself reading this book with the same care and enthusiasm as I would a novel. It is a well-researched, well-crafted, and utterly fascinating exploration into how we use words and how language becomes us as we age. It goes beyond the structure of language and language acquisition and change and instead gives a rich cultural context necessary to appreciate the complexity of language.

​​​—​Kate de Medeiros, Miami University, Ohio

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Chinese edition

Published December 2021

Korean edition

Published January 2022

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Published by MIT Press in August 2017

Endorsements
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​What a pleasure and surprise to read this wonderfully accessible volume on cross-cultural language use! The fact is that in this increasingly globalized and transnational world, nothing could be more important than knowing―more than what to say and when―what NOT to say and why not. The authors write about timely issues from the perspectives of their own cross-cultural and cross-linguistic lived histories.

​​​—​Diana Boxer, University of Florida
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​Kreuz and Roberts provide a thoughtful and engaging introduction to the challenges of interaction across language barriers, packed with insights that will be valuable to all who find themselves talking at times to people from other linguistic communities.

​​​—​Susan Fussell, Cornell University
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Published by MIT Press in August 2015

Available as an audiobook from Blackstone Audio

Endorsements
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​There are many books about language learning in general, but it's great to finally see this scientifically sound account of second language acquisition. I was constantly nodding my head at things that I know to be true as an experienced language learner and coach to language learners, explained in a no-nonsense way drawing on many valid sources. Recommended for people who want to know the facts about adult foreign language acquisition.

​​​—​Benny Lewis,  author of Fluent in 3 Months​

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​"Becoming Fluent" is written by cognitive psychologists who lucidly demonstrate how adults can successfully learn a foreign language by utilizing strategies based on reliable cognitive science and educational psychology research. The reader will understand how and why he or she can master a new language―an insight unrealized in previous texts.

​​​—​Timothy Jay, author of Why We Curse

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​This is a one-of-a-kind book that will give adult language learners the confidence they need to start or continue studying a foreign language. Engagingly written chapters draw on the authors' personal experiences and findings from cognitive science to illustrate why language learners experience problems and explain what they can do to overcome them.

​​​—​Susan Fussell,  Cornell University

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Korean edition

Russian edition

Turkish edition