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Title: Word Play : What Happens When People Talk by Peter Farb ISBN: 0-679-73408-2 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 March, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best introduction to linguistics I have ever read
Comment: I teach English as a Second Language in Taiwan. Unlike most books about linguistics, this book helped me understand "what happens when people talk", and that has made me a more effective teacher. I re-read it several times a year to keep its insights fresh in my mind. Each re-reading reveals new depths of understanding. In spite of being almost 10 years old, I still regard as the best of its kind.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Treasure Trove for Wordsmiths!
Comment: I've been on a kick recently to read all the books I can get my hands on pertaining to language. I found this one in the philosophy/linguistics section of my local bookstore. It subsequently sat in my "to-read" pile (which now numbers around 1,462 books) for a few months. When I finally picked it up I was floored by the amount of fascinating information it contained about English and its similarities to the world's other languages. The rather surprising but clearly correct conclusion of the book is that no matter how weird, foreign, alien, or just bizarre other languages may sound to us, human languages all share the same basic means and mechanics of expression! None are more inherently "difficult" than others, as is borne out by the ease with which infants in every speech community of the world pick up their native language with the same ease and celerity. The author also blows to smithereens the notion that English or any other language is "better" or "more expressive" than any other, and demonstrates that English prevails as the world's preferred language largely as the result of geopolitical factors, rather than its "superiority". In fact, whether a group of people speak English, Ancient Greek, Swahili, Apache, Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, Burmese, Polynesian, French, Latin or Eskimo language , every one of these speech communities possesses a tongue capable of rich expression, poetic nuance, literature, subtlety, and flights of imagination. Where they differ is that each one, is custom-suited to the physical realities and the cultural traditions of the particular place, and represent the best means for the populace there to communicate and transact business. So much for the notion that when European explorers "discovered" indigenous communities in their journeys, that the natives spoke "primitive" tongues! This implication, with the benefit of modern linguistic knowledge and hindsight, was simply racist and chauvinistic. Did I mention that this book is written in a lively and entertaining manner, and is great fun and a very entertaining read? Well it is! I also very much enjoyed the chapters about verbal dueling, meta-language, and attempts to teach language to animals. If you are a word buff, I recommend this book to you wholeheartedly. Enjoy!
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Title: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language by David Crystal ISBN: 0521559677 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 13 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $33.00 |
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Title: Language, the Social Mirror by Elaine Chaika ISBN: 0838447317 Publisher: Heinle Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $47.95 |
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Title: Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (Language in Society, 21) by Ronald Scollon, Suzanne Wong Scollon, Ron Scollon, Peter Trudgill ISBN: 0631224181 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $35.95 |
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Title: Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology by Zdenek Salzmann ISBN: 0813334047 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Suzanne Romaine ISBN: 0198731922 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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