Conference thebay::joyoflex

    I won't speak as a linguist (nor will I speak like a linguist ;-}),
    but I can recommend a book which I found fascinating.  The book is:
    
    David Crystal, _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_.  Cambridge,
    Cambridge University Press, 1987.
    
    I found it at Barnes and Noble (now under water at 5th Ave and 18th
    Street in NYC).  The New York City Public library also lists it in
    the branch and central catalogues.

    Just when all of my text books are at home....
    
    A couple that I find very useful during my work here are:
    
    "Pragmatics" - Stephen C. Levinson, 1983, CUP
    "Semantics: a Coursebook" - J. Hurford & B. Heasley, 1983, CUP
    "Semantic Theory" - Ruth M. Kempson, CUP
    "Discourse Analysis" - G. Brown, and G.Yule, CUP
    
    I am by training and inclination a Systemic Linguist, and so many of
    the other texts that I would recommend are by M.A.K.Halliday and
    J.R.Firth, but since Systemic Linguistics is hardly recognised in the
    States (or so it seems), I will refrain from listing them unless
    prompted.
    
    Cheers,
    
    R|tch^d
                                                    
    

    Mine are all at home too. The two most interesting and most accessible
    I can remember off the top of my head are by someone called Fowler
    (`An Introduction to Transformational-Generative Grammar' was - I think
    - the title, and it's not as dry as the title sounds) and one on a
    remotely related topic which is maybe outside the bailiwick of this
    note: Ladefoged - `Elements of Articulatory Phonetics'.
    
    There is (or was - it may be out of print by now) another book by David
    Crystal (the author mentioned in .1) called simply `Linguistics' - but
    I don't recommend it; in fact it almost decided me against studying
    linguistics at all.
    
    Two other very literate and accessible books (not general introductions
    to the subject, but probably providing stimulating breakfast-time
    reading) were published by OUP in my time; I hope they're still in
    print:
    
    	Geoffrey [sp?] Samson: Liberty and Language (1978/9)
    	Geoffrey [sp?] Samson: Making Sense (1979/80)
    
    b

    There's a big book by Quirk, Svartvik Greenbaum and Leech(sp?) called
    'A COntemporary Grammar of English' or something. A sort of Definitive
    reference Book for those who insist there are no definitive answers...
    
    Richard.

    RE:.3
    
    The author you mean is, I believe, G. Sampson, with a 'p' no less.
    Professor of Linguistics at Leeds University. Another of his books may
    be worth a scan, if you can get through the rather pompous writing style:
    
    	"Schools of Linguistics" - G. Sampson, OUP
    
    This gives a brief(ish) history of modern linguistics and describes
    some of the most influential "schools" of linguistics such as:
    
    	o Descriptivist Linguistics
    	o Transformational Grammar
    	o The "London School" - ie. systemic linguistics
    
    & lots more. 
    
    Cheers,
    
    R|tch^d

    RE:.3 again....
    
    Add my vote against David Crystal's "Linguistics" which is most
    definitely still in print. I think it is available as a Pelican
    paperback (?).
    
    Others to avoid in the same series are:
    	
    	?. Matthews, "Morphology"
    	F. Palmer, "Grammar"
    
    Both books are out of date, too cursory to be of much use, and they
    present the information in (to me) a very boring and dull manner.
    
    Cheers,
    
    R|tch^d

	Assuming that noters are interested in basic stuff or stuff
	applicable to the "decline of English," I would shy away from
	the stuff mentioned in the other notes.  Here are my recom-
	mendations:

	o  Good basic intro -- An Introduction to Language; Fromkin
	   and Rodman; Holt, Rinehart, Winston

	o  Linguistic-y approach to "style" -- Style; Joseph Williams;
	   Scott, Foresman and Co. ... Style: An Anti-Textbook, Richard
	   Lanham, Yale

	o  Linguistic-y approach to tech writing -- Technical Writing
	   and Professional Communication, Huckin and Olsen, McGraw-
	   Hill

	o  Linguistic-y approach to the "decline of English" -- "The
	   Decline of Grammar," Geoffry Nunberg, Atlantic Monthly,
	   Dec. 83

	I'll also see if I have anything interesting at home.  Good
	reading,

		-- Cliff

    
>	o  Good basic intro -- An Introduction to Language; Fromkin
>	   and Rodman; Holt, Rinehart, Winston
    
    I second this one -- an excellent introductory text.
    
    re: .2
    
    I'm glad to see that somebody else uses those CUP books.  I really had a
    tough fight with the "Pragmatics" volume; fortunately, I think we only
    used it for the chapter on deixis (sp?).  Last semester we sometimes
    spent whole class periods (2.5 hours) debating the "correct" answer to
    a single exercise in the "Transformational Grammar" volume.
    
    - snopes
    

    A more popular (and thus better-suited to breakfast reading)
    set of books is written by Mario Pei.  There's not a whole
    lot of academic rigor, but lots of examples of things.
    
    I read these books in the late 60's and was inspired by them
    and other books in that area of the library (the 400's?) to
    get a Linguistics degree.
    
    				-John Bishop

    I'm a general semanticist, myself -- which means I'm out of date,
    too, according to my instructors in grad school, who were all into
    transformational grammars, etc.  General semantics is more about
    the philosophy and symbolism of the language than about the
    mechanics of how it works and evolves.  It's also sometimes called
    things like "non-Aristotelean philosophy."
    
    Korzybski's _General_Semantics_ [1948?] is the original and still
    definitive work in the field, but it's not very accessible.  S.I.
    Hayakawa is probably the most famous proponent of GS theories, and
    he's very readable.  I have some other texts and interesting
    reading at home; I'll dig it out tonight if it's not stacked at
    the back of the closet.
    
    [An aside here:  Somewhere in one of these strings -- not, I
    think, the most recent argument -- somebody said my views of
    language made me one of those people who favors permissiveness in
    society, tearing down institutions, and doing away with standards. 
    Dr. Hayakawa, who shares many of my views, has not often been
    accused of overly liberal views.]
    
    --bonnie

    The details in .3 were almost all wrong:
    
    Roger Fowler: Introduction to Transformational Syntax
    (what I liked about this on when I first read it was that it was short)
    
    Ladefoged: Elements of _Acoustic_ Phonetics
    (which I mentioned not because it was particularly apposite to the
    question What Is Linguistics About?, but because (besides being short
    too - even shorter)
    
    		o	it gives a firm basis in the relevant physics, in
    			terms that someone who's studied the Humanities can
    			understand (without talking down to scientists)
    
    		o	conversely it gives people with a predominantly
    			scientific background an idea of what happens to
    			the sounds that speech makes between a mouth and
    			a pair of ears, what's interesting about them, and
    			why
    
    b
    
    ps
    
    some other reply has already mentioned the `p' in Sampson. No wonder
    I wasn't his favourite editor.

	There's always Saussure's "Elements de linguistique g�n�rale",
	an old classic. 

	Then I recommend "L'homme de paroles - contribution linguistique
	aux sciences humaines" by Claude Hag�ge (PUF). 
	This recent book has an interesting chapter that shows how some 
	19th century classification of languages based on unfounded concepts 
	like language "complexity/simplicity" or "degree of evolution", were 
	a complete waste of time.

	roger

	Ps  I know some of you don't read French. See what you're missing ! :)

    The Sussure has been available in English for some time now --
    re-issued in the 70's when it got severely re-read by Derrida and
    the deconstructionist cohorts.
    
    Richard.

    Sorry, the '' chrctre on my keybord doesn't seem too good. For
    'Sussure' in the last reply, read 'Sussure'.
    
    Richrd.

    So they've trnslted it.
    
    I wonder what they did with `langue' and `parole'.
    
    b

	For those of you who are interested in the "big figures," I
	can highly recommend the following:

	o  Ferdinand de Saussure, Jonathan Culler, Penguin.  Saussure
	   is widely recognized as the father of modern linguistics.  He
	   was really brilliant, and people are still trying to figure 
	   out everything he said.  Culler's book does that miracle of 
	   miracles -- make Saussure approachable.  Saussure's basic
	   approach was the relativity of language.  He's also very
	   important to other 20th Century movements such as semiotics
	   and structuralism.

	o  Noam Chomsky, John Lyons, Penguin.  Chomsky is responsible
	   for transformational-generative theory, I guess the first
	   theory that really explained how language works overall.  Most
	   contemporary linguistics has taken place within the parameters 
	   Chomsky set.  The book also covers Chomsky's recent work,
	   which pretty much abandoned linguistics for radical politics.

	Both of these books are part of the Modern Masters series.  This
	is a great series, and features short, incredibly readable bios 
	of genuinely important figures (Marcuse, Wittgenstein, Levi-
	Strauss).  Highly recommended!  Unfortunately, however, also out
	of print.  Good used books stores, though, often have them.

		-- Cliff

	For those of you who are interested in the linguistic side
	of the Great English-is-dying debate (see note 757), check
	out Chapter 6, "Linguistic Prejudice," in R.A. Hudson's
	Sociolinguistics, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978.

		-- Cliff

    > For those of you who are interested in the linguistic sde of the
    > Great English-is-dying debate (see note 757)...
    
    The debate in 757 was not about the demise of English, but about the
    decline of competence in English.  My claim was not that English is
    dying, but that, in recent times, an ever increasing number of speakers
    are inept; that they fail to communicate even some of their most basic
    thoughts due to poor education and ignorance, and the incompetence that
    results therefrom.  To conclude from that that one is prophesying the
    death of English, is unwarranted.
    
    Bernie

.17> For those of you who are interested in the linguistic sde of the
.17> Great English-is-dying debate (see note 757)...
.17>
.18>    The debate in 757 was not about the demise of English, but about the
.18>    decline of competence in English.  My claim was not that English is
.18>    dying ...


Lighten up, Bernie!  .17 didn't even mention you.  With 79 replies to the
topic (so far), many of them rather long-winded, I think that it'd be hard
to specify precisely what 757.* was "about".

Until the moderator stepped in, I was starting to think that 757.* might
end up being about the alleged sexual habits of those who had entered earlier
replies.  :-)


-- Eric (no relation) Goldstein

    I am keeping it light, Eric.  I mean only to correct an error.  I could
    find no one on the "non-linguistic" side of the debate who either
    decried or predicted the death of the language.  I was the main
    opponent of the linguists in that discussion, so it seemed appropriate
    for me to set the record straight.
    
    Bernie