The Linguistics Wars

The Linguistics Wars PDF Author: Randy Allen Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839069
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades. Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out. In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties. The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself. The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.

The Linguistics Wars

The Linguistics Wars PDF Author: Randy Allen Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839069
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Get Book Here

Book Description
When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades. Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out. In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties. The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself. The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.

Because Internet

Because Internet PDF Author: Gretchen McCulloch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735210942
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.

Linguistic Theory

Linguistic Theory PDF Author: Robert De Beaugrande
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317900642
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
In Linguistic Theory, Robert de Beaugrande analyses linguistic theories not as abstract ideas or theses, but as the process and product of theoretical discourse. He argues that the best documentation of this discourse can be found in the 'fundamental' works of major linguists from Ferdinand de Saussure to Teun van Dijk and Walter Kintsch. He therefore employs the highly unusual strategy of a close reading of these works as discourse performances and strives to uncover their main points and characteristic moves in the linguist's own words. Through this approach, the reader is able to appreciate and understand the variety and controversy among linguistic theories as they have emerged and developed in interaction with each other. Special scrutiny is allocated to the issue of how far the active practice of the linguists followed their own theories and proposals, and why. The author concludes by assessing the prospects for linguistics to be drawn from the retrospect in the previous chapters.

Employing Linguistics

Employing Linguistics PDF Author: Anna Marie Trester
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350137979
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Using insights drawn from the experiences of professional linguists working in a range of domains, this book is an essential resource to help you recognize the value and relevance of your skills and training as a linguist in the job market. No matter where you are in your career – just starting a first job or reflecting back on 30 years – this book provides an interpretive frame for catalyzing momentum around what comes next. Encouraging you to approach your career with agency and curiosity, Anna Marie Trester details the myriad ways that linguists can contribute meaningfully to the world of work. Exploring the connections between linguistics as a field of study and a way of thinking, she details the ways in which the powerful observational and analytical skills and abilities cultivated by a background in linguistics can be employed in a diverse range of professional workspaces. With activities, exercises, and a review of career literature, Employing Linguistics helps you seek and create opportunities as you choose what challenges to focus on next.

Linguistic Variation in Research Articles

Linguistic Variation in Research Articles PDF Author: Bethany Gray
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268045
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Linguistic Variation in Research Articles investigates the linguistic characteristics of academic research articles, going beyond a traditional analysis of the generically-defined research article to take into account varied realizations of research articles within and across disciplines. It combines corpus-based analyses of 70+ linguistic features with analyses of the situational, or non-linguistic, characteristics of the Academic Journal Registers Corpus: 270 research articles from 6 diverse disciplines (philosophy, history, political science, applied linguistics, biology, physics) and representing three sub-registers (theoretical, quantitative, and qualitative research). Comprehensive analyses include a lexical/grammatical survey, an exploration of structural complexity, and a Multi-Dimensional analysis, all interpreted relative to the situational analysis of the corpus. The finding that linguistic variation in research articles does not occur along a single parameter like discipline is discussed relative to our understanding of disciplinary practices, the multidimensional nature of variation in research articles, and resulting methodological considerations for corpus studies of disciplinary writing.

Darwinism and the Linguistic Image

Darwinism and the Linguistic Image PDF Author: Stephen G. Alter
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801872440
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In the nineteenth century, philology—especially comparative philology—made impressive gains as a discipline, thus laying the foundation for the modern field of linguistics. In Darwinism and the Linguistic Image, Stephen G. Alter examines how comparative philology provided a genealogical model of language that Darwin, as well as other scientists and language scholars, used to construct rhetorical parallels with the common-descent theory of evolution.

The Linguistics of Temperature

The Linguistics of Temperature PDF Author: Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269173
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 948

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Book Description
The volume is the first comprehensive typological study of the conceptualisation of temperature in languages as reflected in their systems of central temperature terms (hot, cold, to freeze, etc.). The key issues addressed here include questions such as how languages categorize the temperature domain and what other uses the temperature expressions may have, e.g., when metaphorically referring to emotions (‘warm words’). The volume contains studies of more than 50 genetically, areally and typologically diverse languages and is unique in considering cross-linguistic patterns defined both by lexical and grammatical information. The detailed descriptions of the linguistic and extra-linguistic facts will serve as an important step in teasing apart the role of the different factors in how we speak about temperature – neurophysiology, cognition, environment, social-cultural practices, genetic relations among languages, and linguistic contact. The book is a significant contribution to semantic typology, and will be of interest for linguists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers.

Revitalizing Endangered Languages

Revitalizing Endangered Languages PDF Author: Justyna Olko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110862443X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Of the approximately 7,000 languages in the world, at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of the twenty-first century. Languages are endangered by a number of factors, including globalization, education policies, and the political, economic and cultural marginalization of minority groups. This guidebook provides ideas and strategies, as well as some background, to help with the effective revitalization of endangered languages. It covers a broad scope of themes including effective planning, benefits, wellbeing, economic aspects, attitudes and ideologies. The chapter authors have hands-on experience of language revitalization in many countries around the world, and each chapter includes a wealth of examples, such as case studies from specific languages and language areas. Clearly and accessibly written, it is suitable for non-specialists as well as academic researchers and students interested in language revitalization. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Last Speakers

The Last Speakers PDF Author: K. David Harrison
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426206682
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Part travelogue and part scientist's notebook, The Last Speakers is the poignant chronicle of author K. David Harrison's expeditions around the world to meet with last speakers of vanishing languages. The speakers' eloquent reflections and candid photographs reveal little-known lifeways as well as revitalization efforts to teach disappearing languages to younger generations. Thought-provoking and engaging, this unique book illuminates the global language-extinction crisis through photos, graphics, interviews, traditional wisdom never before translated into English, and first-person essays that thrillingly convey the adventure of science and exploration.

Becoming and Being an Applied Linguist

Becoming and Being an Applied Linguist PDF Author: Rod Ellis
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266786
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Becoming and Being an Applied Linguist contains narrative accounts of the lives of thirteen well-established applied linguists. Their professional autobiographies document the development of some of the key areas of applied linguistics – second, language acquisition, motivation, grammar, vocabulary, testing, second language writing, second language classroom research, practitioner research, English as a lingua franca, teacher cognition, and computer-assisted language learning. The book tells how these applied linguists grew into their areas of specialization. It will be of interest to any would-be applied linguist. The book also provides a readable overview of the whole field that will be of value to students of applied linguistics.