Reveiwed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School
In this book, Peter Sharpe provides an overall picture of language and its mechanisms. By posing a number of key questions, S examines several interesting lines of linguistic inquiry, including the origins of language, whether language is exclusive to humans, why languages change, the variation of language across cultures, Noam Chomsky’s impact on linguistics, how language is used in society, how language produces meaning, how language is represented in the mind, and whether there is a correct way to use language. Each chapter provides examples mostly drawn from Japanese and concludes with a summary, research and discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading.
Ch. 1, ‘What are the origins of language?’, explains several theories (e.g. onomatopoeic, interjective, synergistic) of the origin of language. Ch. 2, ‘Is language exclusive to humans?’, examines the connection between language and consciousness and argues that language is indeed unique to humans, especially when we use it for reasoning. Ch. 3, ‘Why do languages change?’, describes, from a historical linguistics perspective, how language changes with time and the underlying causes behind those changes.
In Ch. 4, ‘How does language vary across cultures?’, S examines language from a cultural-anthropological perspective to explain how language variation is caused by cultural differences. Ch. 5, ‘Where does Noam Chomsky fit into linguistics?’, briefly outlines the pre-Chomskyan era of linguistics and explains how Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar has significantly influenced the direction of linguistics.
In Ch. 6, ‘How scientific can linguistic theory be?’, S considers the main features of scientific inquiry, outlines the main tenets of two theories (Chomsky’s generative grammar and Michael Halliday’s systemic grammar), and identifies the scientific criteria that linguistic theories should meet. Ch. 7, ‘What makes semantics difficult?’, discusses the reasons why semantics has become a complicated subject and examines four approaches to the study of semantics (i.e. reference, sense, context, concept). Ch. 8. ‘From whence the power of symbols?’, examines the symbolic nature of language and the role of symbolism in society. Finally, Ch. 9, ‘How is language represented in the mind?’, probes two cognitive theories of the representation of language in the mind.
Overall, this book offers an accessible and attractive introduction to linguistics that will prove invaluable for both linguistics students and inquisitive readers.