Linguistics

Penguin Language & Linguistics

by David Crystal

Linguistics (A Pelican Original) (View amazon detail page) B00AMVHCG2

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Science, 20th Century

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

David Crystal works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster. Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1941, he spent his early years in Holyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951, and he received his secondary schooling at St Mary's College. He read English at University College London (1959-62), specialised in English language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk (1962-3), then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading. He published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. These days he divides his time between work on language and work on internet applications.

source: http://www.davidcrystal.com/

Reviews

[Claire Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I am a language nerd! What Prof Crystal doesn't know about Language is not worth knowing. I read this while studying for a degree in Theoretical Linguistics. prof Crystal was one of my lecturers. This is not only a very informative book but David Crystal writes in a humorous and entertaining way.

[Liam Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is less of an introductory textbook and more of a series of fretful numerations of various routes of inquiry, dead and alive, that have occupied the minds of academics. At this stage in his career, Crystal did not have the same touch with the common man that he developed in his truly popular writings.

That said, I am a trained linguist, so to speak, holding as I do a humble bachelors degree in the subject, and for me it was fascinating to consider just how much time has been wasted in pursuit of the "truth" behind language: I myself am an adherent of Chomsky, and he is fairly treated in this book, but I do not miss the charm and truth within any of the currently less fashionable investigations into language. For this reason I appreciated Crystal's sober description of the priorities and - in a manner of speaking - ideologies regarding the proper formalisation of linguistic data into rules.

Crystal is a very dry writer here, yet still he portrays, in his way, a field full of excitement and distain for the past ways of doing things. I do not think he intended this, but second guesses this kind of interpretation within the body of the text just in case. His writing on linguistics most reminds me of Jackendoff: extremely careful to walk the tightrope at every moment between what they really think and what everybody else in the room thinks.

What I least enjoyed was the joyless stew of perceived problems in attaching the concept of "scientific" to "language". The impression I got was that he and other linguists have an inferiority complex. I prefer Chomsky's own style of charging ahead with examples of how linguistics has recapitulated the history of modern science writ large.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty well rounded and well written introduction to linguistics (as it was in the early 1970s). The style of writing is fluid and welcoming, never drowning you in jargon without explaining it and giving examples.

It's a bit fragmented though, concepts pop up and disappear a little bit in different areas, but maybe I was just overwhelmed by everything.

Also, I have no idea how outdated the outlines are now. The book basically goes through from the start of proper linguistic research and analysis at the start of the century and shows what the ideas were, and how they were (mostly) not good enough, and how they've evolved. It's 50 years later now, so who knows how much more they've changed?

[Joshua Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an educational book. I would love to recommend it to my classmates.

[Jasper O. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a scholar of Asian Studies (China, Tibet and Central Asia), with linguistics as a hobby. As such, I thought it would be nice to read a sort of introduction-to-the-field, and this was recommended to me as a classic. While it is, indeed, an introduction to the field, it is obviously outdated and more useful as a starting point for someone wanting to get into the development of modern linguistics before actually studying aspects of linguistics. At times, the language was a bit dry and some pages were just repetition of earlier information from the book. In all, though, I think this is a good introduction to linguistics for people who A) know little to nothing about it, and B) are okay with reading seventies English with a dry academic layer.

[Paulo De · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best introduction to Linguistics I've read. Although it is an old book, the interesting and different about it is the special preoccupation to clarify the philosophical, historical and anthropological views that serve as presupposition of each linguistic models and approaches.

Also, Crystal mentions a bunch of opposite language theories, with a short but enough summary of their principles and prime book references. Many of the linguistic doctrines showed, such as generativism, functionalism and poststructuralism are still alive and productive.

Certainly, Linguistics is a must-read for any student interested in the sciences of language.

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this one's old enough anyway. Meant to represent the Intro course I took at CU. The teacher was a last minute fill-in as I recall. Date is approximate.

[Hanoo Hanoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

soooo confusing, though helpful

[Iván · Rating 4 out of 5]

The version I've read was, in fact, really short. This book has some interesting point of views yes, but I wanted to see more. Nevertheless is a good pocket book. I'd check it again probably.

[Saboor]

nothing

[Arnab Samanta · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a exciting book.