{"id":1447,"date":"2011-04-07T22:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1447"},"modified":"2011-03-30T12:25:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:25:37","slug":"language-the-big-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1447","title":{"rendered":"Language: The big picture"},"content":{"rendered":"
Language: <\/strong>The big picture. By Peter Sharpe<\/strong>. New York: Continuum, 2009. Pp. 254. ISBN 9780826498151<\/a>. $16.95.<\/div>\n

Reveiwed by Omaima Ayoub<\/strong><\/a>, Islamic Foundation School<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Ch. 1, \u2018What are the origins of language?\u2019, explains several theories (e.g. onomatopoeic, interjective, synergistic) of the origin of language. Ch. 2, \u2018Is language exclusive to humans?\u2019, 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, \u2018Why do languages change?\u2019, describes, from a historical linguistics perspective, how language changes with time and the underlying causes behind those changes.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 4, \u2018How does language vary across cultures?\u2019, S examines language from a cultural-anthropological perspective to explain how language variation is caused by cultural differences. Ch. 5, \u2018Where does Noam Chomsky fit into linguistics?\u2019, briefly outlines the pre-Chomskyan era of linguistics and explains how Chomsky\u2019s theory of generative grammar has significantly influenced the direction of linguistics.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 6, \u2018How scientific can linguistic theory be?\u2019, S considers the main features of scientific inquiry, outlines the main tenets of two theories (Chomsky\u2019s generative grammar and Michael Halliday\u2019s systemic grammar), and identifies the scientific criteria that linguistic theories should meet. Ch. 7, \u2018What makes semantics difficult?\u2019, 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. \u2018From whence the power of symbols?\u2019, examines the symbolic nature of language and the role of symbolism in society. Finally, Ch. 9, \u2018How is language represented in the mind?\u2019, probes two cognitive theories of the representation of language in the mind.<\/p>\n

Overall, this book offers an accessible and attractive introduction to linguistics that will prove invaluable for both linguistics students and inquisitive readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Language: The big picture. By Peter Sharpe. New York: Continuum, 2009. Pp. 254. ISBN 9780826498151. $16.95. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}