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Introduction to Linguistics? | ||
Tags: Linguistics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4309 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 25 of 32 07 October 2013 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I just found this on the Chomsky website which might be appropriate as an introduction
or perhaps more likely something to read after reading Pinker's book, in order to get a taste of the controversies within in the field which Pinker's book fails to mention: http://norvig.com/chomsky.html It details exactly what the arguments against statistical models are from the innatist view. "people don't decide what the third word of a sentence should be by consulting a probability table keyed on the previous two words, rather they map from an internal form ... into words." Edit:
In that case, what subject matter? Edited by Retinend on 07 October 2013 at 7:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 26 of 32 07 October 2013 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Chomskian linguistics. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 27 of 32 08 October 2013 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Juan - you are right - much of linguistics is tangential to what we do here - although
second language acquisition (SLA) is a field in its own right within the discipline. The linguistics faculty at Sheffield University (of which I have no affiliation) has a good website that provides basic information on the various fields of study in modern linguistics, which some basic introduction to the debates. http://allaboutlinguistics.com/ The most connected area to what we discuss here is (obviously) the language acquisition drop-down menu. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4309 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 28 of 32 08 October 2013 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well... I agree, having read it now, that the Searle article is very good exposition for a general audience, and despite being written in the early 70s (and making some predicitions which didn't transpire) it's still on the mark and informative, especially on the philosophical context of Chomsky's ideas. That said, I don't think that the article is as enjoyable or detailed as Pinker's book as an introduction. If you're wanting to go further, there's an excellent collection of interviews with the man himself called The Science of Language: Interviews with James McGilvray. McGilvray is a philosopher though also very knowledgable about biology. There talks are quite informal but there is a lot of detail there without jargon. There's also a lot of interesting digressions onto political topics, where again the interviewer asks perceptive questions. If you have access to a university library, then see what sort of books authored by Chomsky they have. He has written books (usually published lectures) which discuss linguistics for a general audience, though in these books, such as Reflections on Language and Language and Freedom, I'd very much wonder if anyone could understand them being read out in the real time. Despite their easy-going tone I had to spend a lot of time with certain passages. Regardless, this is probably preferable to the textbooks. That said, if you want textbooks, I didn't get very deep with Syntax, but I can reccommend my first year textbooks. The first I had was Syntax: A Generative Introduction by Andrew Carnie, which explains the language of constituency trees in all flavours, and the other was Core Syntax by David Adger which focuses on the most up to date, Chomsky-approved model, known as the "Minimalist Program" because of its presumption of fewer simples than the previous models. Lastly, I should just say that "Chomskian" anything is just a shorthand, though I'm wary of using it because it immediately conjours to mind such insinuating adjectives as "Freudian" or "Darwinian." The field is more than the one man's making. That said, Chomsky is and has been by far the most vocal proponent of his theories, and he's been consistently a rather fearsome one, so he's naturally looked up to by people who agree with him and is seen as a coercive ringleader by people who disagree. Edited by Retinend on 08 October 2013 at 5:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 29 of 32 08 October 2013 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Those textbooks look very interesting and I'll definitely take a look at them. Thank you for the recommendation. I'll also research Chomsky's own works, though I'll be careful to avoid those which discuss anything other than linguistics as I find his politics thoroughly nauseating.
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| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6041 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 30 of 32 08 October 2013 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics seems to provide a good range of linguistic research. Just finished Indo-European Language and Culture- Benjamin W Fortson IV which was a fascinating read. I've started ML West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth which is very interesting.
Another set of books I like is the Routledge Language Family Series but these are really heavy going with alot of detail and little explanation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6380 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 32 09 October 2013 at 3:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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Let's try and keep politics out of the discussion.
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| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4667 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 32 of 32 17 October 2013 at 4:05am | IP Logged | |||||
I recently read a review of this book by Geoffrey Pullum, who some may know from his grammar of English or from Language Log. It begins as follows: "This isn't a book by Noam Chomsky, it isn't really composed of interviews, and it contains no 'science of language'." And ends: "Presumably the guaranteed sales from having Chomsky's name on the cover are too tempting to resist. Buyers should beware." http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/419565.article 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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