Book Description
Written by two of the foremost researchers in the field, the book benefits from their insight into conceptual issues, their understanding of experimentation, and their own pioneering research. ... Read more

Book Description
A compelling look at the quest for the origins of human language from an accomplished linguist

Language is a distinctly human gift. However, because it leaves no permanent trace, its evolution has long been a mystery, and it is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being.

The First Word is the compelling story of the quest for the origins of human language. The book follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how language developed—how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why scientists are at last able to explore the subject. For more than a hundred years, language evolution was considered a scientific taboo. Kenneally focuses on figures like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, along with cognitive scientists, biologists, geneticists, and animal researchers, in order to answer the fundamental question: Is language a uniquely human phenomenon?

The First Word is the first book of its kind written for a general audience. Sure to appeal to fans of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct and Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Kenneally’s book is set to join them as a seminal account of human history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Nontechnical overview emphasizing debates between scientists.
This book is as much about scientific debate as it is about the study of the origins of language. Noam Chomsky is a big player in her story. You learn a lot about how scientists gradually overcame their reluctance to study a topic that had once been deemed to be outside the scope of science. I would have liked to learn a bit more technical detail; in some sections it seemed as if the author thought readers might not want to take the effort to understand difficult concepts.

Some good ideas
This book contains a few good ideas, but spends more time than I want discussing the personalities and politics that have been involved in the field.
It presents some good arguments against the "big bang" theory of the origin of human language (which suggests that one mutation may have created syntactic abilities that don't correspond to anything in other species), mainly by presenting evidence that human language is not a monolithic feature, and that most aspects of it resemble features which can be seen in other species. For example, some of our syntactic ability involves reusing parts of the brain that provide motor control.
I'm uncertain whether the "big bang" theory she argues against is actually believed by any serious scholar, because those who may have advocated it haven't articulated much of a theory (partly because they think there's too little evidence to say much about the origin of language).
The most valuable idea I got from the book was the possibility that the development of human language may have been a byproduct of a sophisticated theory of mind. Other apes seem to get less benefit from communications because with only the limited theory of mind that a typical chimp has, there's little that improved communication by one individual can do to increase cooperation between individuals.

Interesting, but heavy slogging.
"The First Word", Christine Kenneally's "search for the origins of language" comes with its share of celebrity endorsements. The back cover contains laudatory blurbs from both Steven Pinker ("a clear and splendidly written account ...") and author of "The Ghost Map", Steven Johnson, ("a rare and delightful mix..."). Then there is the following gem on the inside jacket cover - "The First Word is not only a compelling historical account of our greatest intellectual faculty but a provocative consideration of what it means, finally, to be human".

Well, it seems hardly fair to hold an author accountable for whatever silliness her publishers might assemble on a book's exterior in the interest of boosting sales. Let's just say that this book is ambitious in its scope and that the author is obviously academically well-qualified. My own formal qualifications in the field of linguistics are non-existent, so this review is from the point of view of a non-specialist with a keen amateur interest in the topic.

An obvious question: `is this a book for the non-specialist?' I think that the publishers would like to market it as such, and that Dr. Kenneally possibly thinks of it that way. But, much as I wanted to like this book, if it is meant to be accessible to the general reader, I think it falls well short of the mark. This is not to say it's not interesting - there are parts which I found fascinating. But it gives the distinct impression that the author did not have a well-defined audience in mind, or - if she meant it to be accessible to the general reader - she has not mastered the ability to write effectively for a non-specialist audience.

The problems manifest themselves in two main areas. First, the question of scope and organization. There is a definite sense that the author wants this to be a totally comprehensive account of the current state of knowledge. This is fine, but ultimately greatly increases the indigestibility of the book. The book's structure is unwieldy to the point where one wonders whether Viking actually had an editor read it. A "prelude", followed by an "introduction", leading in to a "prologue"? What were they thinking??? The sixteen chapters of the book follow an equally awkward organizational structure. Four are devoted to specific linguists (Chomsky, Pinker & Bloom...). Seven discuss specific features of human language, such as words and syntax, but are clumsily titled. For example, grouped under the blanket heading "If you have human language..." are the "chapters"
* You have something to talk about
* You have words
* You have gestures
* You have a human brain
The next three chapters are grouped under the heading "What evolves?", and are titled
* Species evolve
* Culture evolves
* Why things evolve
That the author finds it necessary to remind us that a human brain is a prerequisite for human language, or does not appear to recognize that "why things evolve" does not answer the question "what evolves?" are, of course, minor details. Nonetheless, these potentially distracting irritants could have been avoided, given a little more aggressive intervention by a professional editor.

The second major problem area - and it's a serious one - is in the author's style. It would be wrong of me to slam it completely here, there are paragraphs which I found delightful:

"Even though humans are more closely related to vervets than vervets are to chickens, it appears that vervets and chickens have converged upon a common tactic for survival. The forces that led them both to this strategy are powerful, but alarm calls were probably not bequeathed to them from a common ancestor. In fact, the most important thing that they share with all the other alarm-call-making animals is that they are small and delicious. Fitch explained: `The things that have alarm calls are little tiny guys who get eaten by lots of things, and the common ancestor of chimps and humans wasn't in that category. Humans don't have alarm calls, and apes don't have alarm calls. It's not that they don't have threats, but they don't have all these different threats where it pays to be able to refer very rapidly to aerial threat versus ground threat. Whether you're the Snickers bar of the Sahara or the Snickers bar of South Dakota, you're going to evolve alarm calls'".

Similarly, the opening `Prelude' to the book is a fluid, evocative tribute to the power, mystery, and magic of human language. Unfortunately, for every paragraph that soars, there are three that amount to nothing more than plodding, indescribably dry accounts of X's 2006 findings about gesturing in bonobos being a partial refutation of Y's 2004 study in vervets. We get it, Dr Kenneally, you know your stuff. What you haven't figured out how to do is to winnow through the assembled evidence and shape it into a reasonable narrative. Laying everything out there for the reader to sift through to find meaning is certainly one strategy for writing a book, but this is not the approach that makes the writing of your colleague Steven Pinker both edifying and fun to read. To reach a broader audience, an author needs to do better than this:

"The entropy level indicates the complexity of a signal, or how much information it might hold, such as the frequency of elements within the signal and the ability to make a prediction about what will come next in the signal, based on what has come before. Human languages are approximately ninth-order entropy, which means that if you had a nine-word (or shorter) sequence from, say, English, you would have a chance of guessing what might come next. If the sequence is ten words or more, you'll have no chance of guessing the next word correctly."

There are several problems with this paragraph. The second sentence is so vague as to be effectively meaningless ("a chance of guessing what might come next" - given even a random guess has some finite chance of being right, how big a chance are we talking about?). There's the unilluminating, apparently unnecessary insertion of `say, English'. But the real problem is that the combination of the second and third sentences don't really make any obvious sense. They certainly don't explain the concept of ninth-order entropy in an intelligible manner.

Another example. Early in Chapter 9, there is this sentence:

"Until very recently it was believed only we could understand or deploy any of the structural devices found in human syntax, but Kanzi showed that this is not entirely the case."

Sounds like Kanzi is an investigator in the field, and one proceeds, expecting to hear about the details of Kanzi's study. Well, no, it turns out that Kanzi is a bonobo we learned about in Chapter 2, with an amazing capacity for language. Clearly, Dr. Kenneally expects us to have remembered this. The problem is that the book is full of test animals across the spectrum, from bonobos to dolphins to crows to parrots, many of whom are introduced by name. The reader can be forgiven for not remembering that Betty is the tool-fashioning crow, not to be confused with Alex, the garrulous parrot (or his buddies Griffin and Arthur) or Elodie, the flirtatious elephant. Again, this may seem like a minor quibble, but it is indicative of the repeated failure of Dr Kenneally to be able to put herself in the place of a reader unfamiliar with the material being explained.

What is disappointing about these examples, and ultimately about the work as a whole, is the sense that, with stricter editing, this could have been a really fascinating book. As it is, it is an interesting book, but one which is very uneven, requiring the reader to slog through some fairly tedious, unilluminating material to find the good bits, written for the most part in a style which makes little concession to the non-expert.

Despite these reservations, I enjoyed the book. I think it doubtful that it will reach as wide an audience as does, for example, the work of Steven Pinker.

Highly Recommended

The First Word is a very well written (as one would expect from a PhD in linguistics from the University of Cambridge), yet conversational review of the search for evidence of the evolution of human language. The author makes it clear that she is an evolutionist, but also makes it clear that researchers have taken two steps forward in understanding how language has evolved but, at the same time, research has moved us three steps backward. For example, some evidence has turned up of rudimentary structural abilities in animals but, at the same, evidence has also been gathering that animals are unable to use other fundamental grammar rules essential to human language (page 164). As the excellent review in the January 2008 American Scientist concluded, the past two decades have seen a deluge of books and conferences on the evolution of language, and this book does an admirable job of summarizing this research. The conclusions of this research, as Kenneally documents, is the current reality is the field of the evolution of language is in a state of chaos. It is almost universality agreed that language (but not communicating) is a uniquely human ability and, I would add from reading this a few other books on this topic, that the enormous gap between human language and the communication systems used by animals has grown larger as a result of this deluge of research. I agree with MIT professor Noam Chomsky that no evidence exists for language evolution and, furthermore, the problem is so difficult that one cannot know how language evolved. Kenneally did not use these words, but that is the guarded conclusion of her book. And my conclusion is the deluge of research has shown that human language did not, and could not, have evolved. Nonetheless the research will continue, and I encourage it to continue because we are learning much about biology and language from it. Kenneally divided up her book into specific topics, such as she has one chapter (9) on syntax (word order) and uses an excellent but simple example to explain its importance on page 155. Even though clearly an evolutionist, this book is a gold mine for Intelligent Design advocates and one area they need to explore related to their theory.

Comprehensive view of how language may havedeveloped
Kenneally suggests answers questions we didn't even know to pose: why do we speak? Why don't other animals? What do we convey? Are we hard-wired for speech, or did speech happen by mistake? The author has extensive -- very extensive -- knowledge of the history of linguistic research, the Chomsky wars, biological/evolutionary research and development, neurology and neurobiology and neuropsychology, philosophy, and history -- but she wears her learning lightly, creating a highly readable book whose complexity you hardly notice until you've finished. A thoroughly enjoyable and instructive read. ... Read more

Book Description
For the past 20 years, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has attracted the worldwide attention of researchers, curriculum developers, teacher trainers and language teachers. However, much of the available literature and research has been from a psycholinguistic perspective, driven by the desire to understand how people acquire a second language. Far less research has been carried out as to whether TBLT works for real teachers and real learners in a classroom environment. This book aims to offer a unique contribution by uniting a discussion of task-based pedagogical principles with descriptions of their application to real life language education problems. It provides an account of the many challenges and obstacles that the implementation of task-based language education raises and discusses the different options for overcoming them. The book contains a substantial body of new research from Flanders, where the implementation of TBLT has been a nationwide project for the past fifteen years in primary, secondary and adult education. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

At last!
As with all methodologies, Task-Based Language Teaching has been promoted by some and criticised by others. In addition, the definitions of 'task' abound, allowing everyone to call themselves proponents of TBLT.

TBLT is, however an approach, rather than a methodology, and this book does well to set the parameters from the beginning. It is also an important book, in that it documents a large TBLT programme (1200 students) that took place over 10 years, and was successful. At last, we have details of TBLT working as it was designed to work, providing meaningul, authentic language learning, with quantifiable results.

... Read more

Book Description
Routledge Applied Linguistics is a series of comprehensive resource books, providing students and researchers with the support they need for advanced study in the core areas of English language and Applied Linguistics.
Each book in the series guides readers through three main sections, enabling them to explore and develop major themes within the discipline. Section A, Introduction, establishes the key terms and concepts and extends readers' techniques of analysis through practical application. Section B, Extension, brings together influential articles, sets them in context, and discusses their contribution to the field. Section C, Exploration, builds on knowledge gained in the first two sections, setting thoughtful tasks around further illustrative material. This enables readers to engage more actively with the subject matter and encourages them to develop their own research responses. Throughout the book, topics are revisited, extended, interwoven and deconstructed, with the reader's understanding strengthened by tasks and follow-up questions.
Language and Gender:
Presents an up to date introduction to language and gender study
Includes diverse work and readings from a range of cultural contexts
Represents various methodological approaches to help students with their own exploration
Written by experienced teachers and researchers in the field, Corpus Based language Studies is an essential resource for students and researchers of Applied Linguistics. ... Read more

Book Description
This is an attempt to redraw the boundaries of foreign language study. It focuses attention not just on cultural knowledge as a necessary aspect of communicative competence, but as an educational objective in its own right, as an end as well as a means of language learning.Winner MLA Kenneth W Mildenberger Prize ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

ground-breaking synthesis
This superb book, much cited in recent articles and studies, popularized the notion that culture is not something "out there", as conceived and taught in many language classrooms, but something created in interaction between people separated culturally, historically and socially. As Brian Street remarked about 6 years ago, "culture is a verb". This book has been instrumental in changing notions of what culture is and how it can be explored in all its rich manifestations--whether in the classroom or out.

The depth and sophistication of the book, far from being inhibitory, invites constant re-readings and new insights: 6 years of reading and re-reading has not exhausted the possibilities. Kramsch's remarkable blend of incisive yet delicately nuanced phrasing, yields a startling clarity of thought and style rare in academic discourse these days. The temptation to plagiarize is hard to resist. It is a pleasure to read this book, and if the term "food for thought" were ever well applied, it would be to this book.

Because of its inter-disciplinary approach and ground-breaking nature, this book should be read by anyone in fields remotely connected to language and culture--not just teachers mainly concerned with applying insights to the classroom. Language teaching is often dumbed-down and reduced to a matter of simply applying the currently-accepted methodology; Kramsch has revealed that language teaching can be (and should be) an intellectual endeavour. She has done nothing less than to revolutionize the nature of the field. We have everything to thank her for it. ... Read more

Book Description
Rod Ellis provides readers with a comprehensive review of this important area of applied linguistics. He does not take up a particular stance, but examines different theories of second language acquisition and the critical reactions to them.Winner BAAL Book Prize ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

comprehensive and clear
"Understanding Second Language Acquisition" is an ideal companion for students taking an initial course in applied linguistics, or for teachers who want to improve their understanding of how learners learn a second language. This book seeks to help teachers make their theory of language learning explicit by examining language-learner language and the processes that produce it. Despite being written as long ago as the mid-eighties, it is still reasonably up-to-date. It covers all the major areas of SLA that one would expect; the role of the first language, variability in interlanguage, individual differences, input, interaction, learner strategies, the Universal Hypothesis, and the role of formal instruction. I enjoyed this book partly because it was written simply, descriptively and scientifically, and partly because the author was my professor when I was a grad student. That will be of no consequence to you, of course, but his thoroughness and clear style is something that I believe all of us can benefit from.

Bad, bad choice!!
I'm a third-year graduate student, and this book was just too difficult to read.It assumes a massive amount of prior knowledge of SLA.The theories and concepts are hard to grasp, and it includes so many summaries of previous studies that you've forgotten the point before you finish.Not to mention that no clear views are stated.Every section of theory, and this book is VERY theoretically oriented, concludes with the statement that there are no clear answers and that the debate continues.Most likely, you already know everything the author is willing to take a firm stand on: Positive attitudes and motivation are conducive to learning a second language; different learning strategies work for different people; and second language learning should start at an early age.Save your time and money, and choose another book, if at all possible.

An excellent"reference" book
Although the book contains a lot of valuable data for trainee teachers, the author's opinions are not stated. ... Read more

Book Description
The issue of syntactic development is one of the most central to both linguistics and applied linguistics. Assuming no detailed background knowledge of linguistics, this book is an introduction to the acquisition of syntax in a second language. The text builds a coherent picture of second language grammatical development by showing the interactions between the syntactic, processing, and functional/discourse approaches, and looks at how and why these different approaches give different results. ... Read more

Book Description
Taking a sociocultural and educational approach, Language and Linguistics in Context: Readings and Applications for Teachers:
*introduces basic linguistic concepts and current perspectives on language acquisition;
*considers the role of linguistic change (especially in English) in the politics of language;
*acknowledges the role of linguists in current policies involving language;
*offers insights into the relationship between the structure of language systems and first- and second-language acquisition; the study of language across culture, class, race, gender, and ethnicity; and between language study and literacy and education; and
*provides readers with a basis for understanding current educational debates about bilingual education, non-standard dialects, English only movements, literacy methodologies, and generally the importance to teaching of the study of language.

The text is organized into three thematic units – "What is Language and How is It Acquired?"; "How Does Language Change?";and "What is Literacy?". To achieve both breadth and depth – that is, to provide a “big picture” view of basic linguistics and at the same time make it specific enough for the beginner – a selection of readings, including personal language narratives, is provided to both introduce and clarify linguistic concepts. The readings, by well-known theoretical and applied linguists and researchers from various disciplines, are diverse in level and range of topics and vary in level of linguistic formalism.

Pedagogical features: This text is designed for a range of courses in English and language arts, bilingualism, applied linguistics, and ESL courses in teacher education programs. Each unit contains a substantive introduction to the topic, followed by the readings. Each reading concludes with Questions to Think About including one Extending Your Understanding question, and a short list of Terms to Define. Each unit ends with additional Extending Your Understanding and Making Connections activities that engage readers in applying what they have read to teaching and suggested projects and a bibliography of Print and Web Resources. The readings and apparatus are arranged so that the material can be modified to fit many course plans and schemes of presentation. To help individual instructors make the most effective use of the text in specific classes, a set of matrixes is provided suggesting configurations of readings for different types of linguistics and education classes.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Good Reference!
This book gave excellent explanations for learning linguistics.I enjoyed reading this book and working on the helpful exercises at the end of each section.I ended up learning about linguistics without an instructor as a result of this smartly designed textbook.

Every edition is worse than the last
This ninth edition of Language Files is a mess.The biggest blunder in this edition is a switch in transcription systems to something the authors think of as IPA.I have nothing against IPA and prefer to use it myself in class, but use of IPA should be accurate and consistent.The switch to this pseudo-IPA is awful and wildly inconsistent.Many of the changes seem to have been made by a bad use of a word processor's search-and-replace function. Others seem to be deliberate and in error.I've been using LF since the first edition.Every edition corrects a few mistakes and adds a few others. So many mistakes have been addedin this edition (though there were plenty in the 8th edition, too) the book has become less than useless.If OSU wants to retain its credibility, it should stop production of this edition, recall it, and seriously pay attention to its errors.There should be a few linguists at OSU that can figure out how to improve it.I will not be using it again.Explaining and apologizing for its errors has taken too much of my class time. ... Read more

Book Description
Thirty-eight chapters, comissioned from experts all over the world, describe major concepts, methods, and applications in computational linguistics. Part I, Linguistic Fundamentals, provides an overview of the field suitable for senior undergraduates and non-specialists from other fields of linguistics and related disciplines. Part II describes current tasks, techniques, and tools in Natural Language Processing and aims to meet the needs of post-doctoral workers and others embarking on computational language research. Part III surveys current applications.This book is a state-of-the-art reference to one of the most active and productive fields in linguistics. It will be of interest and practical use to a wide range of linguists, as well as to researchers in such fields as informatics, artificial intelligence, language engineering, and cognitive science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive overview of the field
This `handbook' needs both hands to lift it! At 700+ pages and 38 chapters, detailed chapter-by-chapter review is impossible. Let me start with the top-level structure, which divides the book into three parts: Fundamentals; Processes, Methods and Resources; and Applications.

Part one, `Fundamentals', walks through the standard sub-disciplines of computational linguistics with chapter headings: phonology, morphology, lexicography, syntax, semantics, discourse, pragmatics and dialogue, formal grammars and languages, complexity theory. Each chapter is a short introduction and overview to the topic, aimed at the informed newcomer (i.e. it helps if you have a computer science/maths background and know about predicate logic and state machines).

Part two, `Processes, etc', covers a number of problem areas and techniques: text-segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, parsing, word-sense disambiguation, anaphora resolution, natural language generation and so on. There is little commonality between the chapters, but they are all informative.

The final part, `Applications' covers areas such as machine translation, information retrieval, text summarisation, second-language computer-assisted learning systems and spoken dialogue systems.

As a comprehensive, and relatively recent review of the whole field the book is excellent.Some points which caught my interest.

1. Speech and written language are hugely different, due to noise, self-repair, speech acts and discourse functions, accents and the strange `grammaticality' of utterances (p. 521).

2. The distinction between simpler finite-state dialogue models (machine-centric) vs. more dynamic planning-based dialogue managers (which can deal with mixed-initiative dialogue) - chapter 7.

3. The controversial role of real-world knowledge. This is different from semantics, which is more about representational and inferential adequacy. Chapter 25 on Ontologies surprising states "it is not clear to what extent NLP technology, in its current form, needs such ontologies and their complex knowledge representation systems". Apparently "large scale vocabularies with very limited reasoning are preferred". Interesting.

Human-to-human conversation seems, in performance, to be a unitary phenomenon. For scientific purposes, however, it has to be analysed into sub-fields, as in the chapter headings of part one. However, there is then both the problem of tunnel vision, and of scope creep: we see, for example, syntactic approaches expanding into the spaces of semantics and pragmatics in, to my mind, an unbalanced way.

I was most interested in Spoken Dialogue Systems, as these attempt to combine the state of the art in the separate disciplines into a unified architecture and implementation to address the original problem: a powerful constraint on one-sided development. The solution architectures seem to show that modular works, with bottom-up statistical techniques performing well at the speech-recognition level, and symbolic processing techniques such as automatic planning to achieve agent goals working at the dialogue level. The latter seems to be the least developed, however, as linguistics merges into a more general social agent theory.
... Read more

Book Description
First Language Acquisition: The Essential Readings is a collection of pioneering classics that provide a framework for understanding current work in each of the basic areas of language acquisition: morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

• Collects classic works that provide the foundation for current research in the field of first language acquisition.
  
• Includes selections from Noam Chomsky, Jean Piaget, Eric Lenneberg and Roman Jakobson, as well as others who contributed groundbreaking discoveries, insights, concepts, and methods.
  
• Presents framework for understanding current work in each of the basic areas of language acquisition: morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
  
• Provides valuable resource for students and scholars of language acquisition, cognitive development, and cognitive science.

Product Description
Using the Web as Corpus is one of the recent challenges for corpus linguistics. This volume presents a current state-of-the-arts discussion of the topic. The articles address practical problems such as suitable linguistic search tools for accessing the www, the question of register variation, or they probe into methods for culling data from the web. The book also offers a wide range of case studies, covering morphology, syntax, lexis, as well as synchronic and diachronic variation in English. These case studies make use of the two approaches to the www in corpus linguistics - web-as-corpus and web-for-corpus-building. The case studies demonstrate that web data can provide useful additional evidence for a broad range of research questions.Contents:Marianne HUNDT, Nadja NESSELHAUF and Carolin BIEWER: Corpus linguistics and the webAccessing the web as corpus:Anke LUEDELING, Stefan EVERT and Marco BARONI: Using web data for linguistic purposesWilliam H. FLETCHER: Concordancing the web: promise and problems, tools and techniquesAntoinette RENOUF, Andrew KEHOE and Jayeeta BANERJEE: WebCorp: an integrated system for web text searchCompiling corpora from the internet:Sebastian HOFFMANN: From webpage to mega-corpus: the CNN transcriptsClaudia CLARIDGE: Constructing a corpus from the web: message boardsDouglas BIBER and Jerry KURJIAN: Towards a taxonomy of web registers and text types: a multidimensional analysisCritical voices: Geoffrey LEECH: New resources, or just better old ones? The Holy Grail of representativenessGraeme KENNEDY: An under-exploited resource: using the BNC for exploring the nature of language learningLanguage variation and change: Anette ROSENBACH: Exploring constructions on the web: a case studyGünter ROHDENBURG: Determinants of grammatical variation in English and the formation / confirmation of linguistic hypotheses by means of internet dataBritta MONDORF: Recalcitrant problems of comparative alternation and new insi ... Read more

Book Description
Forensic Linguistics is an introduction to the fascinating interface between language and the law.

• Provides an integrated and fully theorized understanding of language and law issues.
  
• Contains many helpful examples from genuine legal contexts and texts.
  
• Discusses linguistic sources of disadvantage before the law, particularly for ethnic minorities, children and abused women.

Book Description
Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages?

Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language?

The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both, familiar and more exotic languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

prior experience a must
1st of all, historical/comparative linguistics is not something for beginners. historical linguistics in itself doesn't start in college until the 300 level; that means you probablly should have 3 or 4 linguistics classes under your belt already.

2nd historical linguistics is a mountain to climb as it is. without a teacher i don't think anyone could obtain a thorough understanding.

3rd i personally met brian joseph and that guy knows his stuff.

I'm not getting down on the other comment but you gotta crawl before you walk and this is no beginner's book.

Starts off at a simple level, but too abruptly increases in its demands
LANGUAGE HISTORY, LANGUAGE CHANGE, AND LANGUAGE RELATIONSHIP is an introductory textbook to historical/comparative linguistics by Hans Heinrich Hock and Brian D. Joseph. It began as a simplification of Hock's widely respected handbook Principles of Historical Linguistics (De Gruyter, 2nd ed. 1991). Around 85% percent of the content is Hock's distillation of previously written material, while the remaining 15% was contributed by Josephs to, in the publisher's words, "give a fully American perspective". Joseph's contributions are most readily visible in the treatment of the Balkan Sprachbund, one of his research interests.

For about the first 130 pages, this textbook is a fairly admirable introduction to historical linguistics for neophytes, containing remarks on the general phenomenon of language change (i.e. the difference between the Lord's Prayer in Old English and in Modern English), a basic introduction to phonetics and phonology, and an explanation of the divergence of the Indo-European languages. There's even a chapter on writing systems here, which the other introductory textbooks I'm familiar with tend to overlook. Hock's examples are generally drawn from the Indo-European languages, and he seems to assume that the reader will be focusing on this language family. The book may now seem a little dated in its treatment of the glottalic hypothesis as a raging controversy, as that seems to have died down, but the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European generally follows contemporary mainstream lines.

However, the textbook then makes a great jump in what it expects from the reader, going from an appropriately simple tone to one very little different from PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS. Mouton de Gruyter's typesetting doesn't help, as it follows a style appropriate for a handbook but rather intimidating for a textbook. For those looking to read up on basic historical linguistics, I'd much rather recommend Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics, 2nd Edition: An Introduction (MIT Press, 2nd ed. 2004), which is written at a very genial tone throughout. And after that, one should be well-equipped to go straight on to PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, skipping this odd mishmash. ... Read more

Book Description
AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE is ideal for use at all levels and in many different areas of instruction including education, languages, psychology, anthropology, teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), and linguistics. All chapters in this best-seller have been substantially revised to reflect recent discoveries and new understanding of linguistics and languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Thanks!
The book came very quickly.The book's condition was very good.I really appreciate it.

: )
I had to buy this book for school, but I actually enjoyed it.I don't usually read text books, but this was one worth reading.Very interesting facts, and really helps to spark interest about language.

IT IS A GOOD BOOK
I LIKE THE BOOK BECAUSE IT HELPED ME A LOT IN MY CLASS... IT HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION THAT IS VERY USEFUL...

The best basic level introduction, but overpriced
This is, hands down, the best book to take a rank beginner and introduce him or her to the science of linguistics.The price, however, has placed it out of reach of my introductory courses in linguistics.It's sad that such an important volume has become unavailable as a text in many courses.

Continuing Education
For those of us wishing to continue learning, this is a very educational book.It is written so that you can consume small chunks, digest them, and come back for more. ... Read more

Book Description
The Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition unifies the various theoretical and empirical strands within the burgeoning research field of cognitive linguistics. Additionally, it introduces and applies these basic concepts to the field of second language acquisition. ... Read more

Book Description
With the permission of a North Carolina court, more than 150 hours of courtroom speech were recorded for this study. These tapes provided a rich archive for a variety of different types of inquiry, including the ethnography of courtroom speech and social psychological experiments focused on effects of different modes of presenting information in courts of law. Four sets of linguistic variables and related experimental studies have constituted a major portion of the research: (1) "powerful" versus "powerless" speech; (2) hypercorrect versus formal speech; (3) narrative versus fragmented testimony, and (4) simultaneous speech by witnesses and lawyers. All four sets of studies focus on the central question of importance of form over content of testimony. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

What lawyers say isn't always what they communicate
This book presents an excellent sociolinguistic analysis of courtroom speech, and shows how the speech of attorneys and witnesses can communicate much more than the words themselves reveal.One illuminating study looked at "narrative" (longer, story-telling answers) and "fragmented" (short, directly responsive answers) styles of witness testimony and laypeople's reactions to that testimony.When the witness gave longer answers, laypeople perceived that the lawyer had greater trust in that witness. Interestingly, this effect was much stronger for a male witness than for a female witness; O'Barr suggests that the disparity may be due to gender-role stereotypes that expect a male to be more assertive.This is only one example, but the book is full of thought-provoking studies on courtroom language.The book offers especially good insight in analyzing how certain speech habits can demonstrate sincerity, knowledge, power, and trustworthiness.

How courtroom cases may be lost without regard to merit

This is, by any standards, an astonishing little book. It should be required reading for every lawyer and for every person who is concerned to see *justice* done in the courtroom.

Mack O'Barr is an anthropologist. His unusual perspective on the behavior of lawyers and the perceived credibility of witnesses offers startling insight into jury decision making. His book is both fascinating and deeply depressing by turns. His empirical studies show that those citizens most in need of legal redress come to the courtroom two strikes down. His account offers a frightening new dimension to Marc Galanter's "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead" and emphasises the obstacles faced by ther disadvantaged when they seek to invoke the law in their aid.

The book explains why many of the forensic techniques discovered empirically and regularly deployed by lawyers work. I wish I had known of this book when I was a criminal advocate - it would have allowed me to cross-examine witnesses more effectively.

Although the book is a straight forward account of a piece of academic research, it is readable and engaging. The only negative comment I would make is that there is little discussion of the implications of the research findings - perhaps that might be better left to John Conley who has subsequently collaborated closely with O'Barr.

This book deserves to be much better known than it is. ... Read more