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Essential books about linguistics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Arthaey Groupie United States arthaey.com Joined 4825 days ago 97 posts - 155 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 23 27 April 2015 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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Is there a good summary somewhere of the various schools of grammar, written for someone who's taken basic intro linguistics courses but not any specific "theory" of grammar? I got a minor in linguistics, but I really don't know what's up with "generative" grammar vs whatever else is out there competing with it.
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| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 4815 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 10 of 23 27 April 2015 at 6:58am | IP Logged |
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I guess I should have been more clear: I'm more interested in linguistics historically. For instance, if you had to lay out the most important works/linguists through out history in a chronological order. Where would one begin? Edited by fortheo on 27 April 2015 at 7:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4087 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 11 of 23 01 May 2015 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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I think we're failing to give what the OP asked for, which was influential works, no
summations of influential works in linguistics textbooks. I am no expert, but I can recommend what I've read and think correct (unfortunately there are far more books I've read in linguistics which should go "into the flames" for their sophistry and illusion): A Course in General Linguistics - Ferdinand de Saussure Though this was originally a set of undergraduate lectures, essentially an old fashioned text book, it has been influential to experts in itself. The examples he uses (from mostly major european languages) lay out the tools of the historical linguist, and how perspectives on language can be subtled altered to see the workings of a sound-meaning system underneath. It reads as something that a scholar and lover of language, a philologist, wrote, rather than an analytic mind like Chomsky turning his eye to the same sorts of questions. Language, Thought and Reality - Benjamin Lee Whorf Whorf's name carries a great deal of slander these days. He is always the straw man set up to smash down in some way or another. But the man was a great old-school, Indiana Jones style linguist: leaving comfortable surroundings to live with alien cultures (alive, with Hopi, and dead, with Nahuatl) and decode their way of seeing things. What today is taken to be his "theory" of language is in truth only the lattice of his consistent wisdom in observing the puzzlingly unlimited potentialities of language and his frustrations with the narrowly Europe-centric, "know it all" academy of grammarians. Syntactic Structures - Noam Chomsky This is a small, but hard-going read. but it's worth it. The knowledge gleamed from ore developed forms of the same approach are still today the best account we have of what language, as a scientific object of inquiry, is. This foundation is a work of heroic clear thinking, and it brought questions to light that had been stepped over for generations. New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind - Chomsky A fairly nontechnical book that outlines how Linguistics can be viewed as a natural domain of rational inquiry, and how a scientific view of it can show up how ignorant we are about our own cognitive capacities. Very rewarding to read. How Children Learn the Meaning of Words - Paul Bloom This is a scholarly but fairly approachable collection of insights into the question of how inferences are made between situations and appropriate language use. It has it's other foot in the science of cognitive development in children, which Bloom is a renowned expert in. Language Truth and Logic - A J Ayer This is a work of philosophy but is of interest to linguists too, since it discusses the legitimate boundaries of what can be called "meaningful" questions, insofar as they interlock with non-mental things-in-themselves. At the end of this book they seem to be much more restricted than we "get by" with everyday, and even more restrictive than most philosophers would have us believe. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4668 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 12 of 23 01 May 2015 at 3:29am | IP Logged |
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If French post-modern philosophy doesn't scare you, then some significant authors to explore include Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. All of them have their own theories on linguistics.
I had to read them all in college. I didn't understand any of them, at all, though I aced the course by throwing around phrases like phenomenology of perception and paradigmatic shifts in consciousness... which makes me suspect that my professors didn't understand the French either. --------------------------------------------- It's not essential, but I really enjoyed John McWhorter's audio book The Story of Human Language (part of the "Great Courses" series). It combines linguistic theory with the history of language, with a major focus on how languages evolve and change over time. Most of the episodes have a nice balance of anecdote and theory, though some of the latter episodes were a bit light on theory. And it's definitely an 'overview' course; someone who's read a lot of the core works might find this course light weight. For myself, I find it much easier to read about Chomsky et al. than to actually read any of them in the original. The lectures are: 1 WhatIs Language? 2 When Language Began 3 How Language Changes—Sound Change 4 How Language Changes—Building New Material 5 How Language Changes—Meaning and Order 6 How Language Changes—Many Directions 7 How Language Changes—Modern English 8 Language Families—Indo-European 9 Language Families—Tracing Indo-European 10 Language Families—Diversity of Structures 11 Language Families—Clues to the Past 12 The Case Against the World’s First Language 13 The Case For the World’s First Language 14 Dialects—Subspecies of Species 15 Dialects—Where Do You Draw the Line? 16 Dialects—Two Tongues in One Mouth 17 Dialects—The Standard as Token of the Past 18 Dialects—Spoken Style, Written Style 19 Dialects—The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar 20 Language Mixture—Words 21 Language Mixture— Grammar 22 Language Mixture—Language Areas 23 Language Develops Beyond the Call of Duty 24 Language Interrupted 25 A New Perspective on the Story of English 26 Does Culture Drive Language Change? 27 Language Starts Over—Pidgins 28 Language Starts Over—Creoles I 29 Language Starts Over—Creoles II 30 Language Starts Over—Signs of the New 31 Language Starts Over—The Creole Continuum 32 What Is Black English? 33 Language Death—The Problem 34 Language Death—Prognosis 35 Artificial Languages 36 Finale—Master Class Edited by kanewai on 01 May 2015 at 3:41am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 4815 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 13 of 23 01 May 2015 at 4:00am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Retinend and Kanewai! those are all along the lines of what I was looking for. I've got a good summer reading list now :)
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| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4087 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 14 of 23 01 May 2015 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
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Sorry Kanewai, but however useful Post-Structuralist "philosophy" may be to literary
critics or feminists, it is emphatically of no use whatsoever to people interested in understanding what language is. It's true that Lacan and Derrida took Saussure as a point of departure, but in ways that de Saussure himself would never have recognized, and which linguists themselves have never revisited. At the very least, one should read "A Course in General Linguistics" before going to any sort of post-structuralist account of it. One will see quickly that the latter is a very strange and preoccupied reading of it. Edited by Retinend on 01 May 2015 at 12:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4032 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 23 09 May 2015 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
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Lyle Campbell - Introduction to Historical Linguistics
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| kensor Newbie United States Joined 4670 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 23 14 May 2015 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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A couple of books before Chomsky are: The Story of Language by Mario Pei (2nd ed. 1965), and A Course in Modern Linguistics by Charles F. Hockett (1958, many printings). These may serve as a couple of black-and-white landscape photographs before the immanent transformation. Edited by kensor on 14 May 2015 at 1:43am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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