{"id":897,"date":"2010-09-30T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=897"},"modified":"2010-07-21T10:16:17","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T08:16:17","slug":"the-linguistics-student%e2%80%99s-handbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"The linguistics student\u2019s handbook"},"content":{"rendered":"
The linguistics student\u2019s handbook.<\/strong> <\/em>By Laurie Bauer<\/strong>. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. Pp. 387. ISBN 9780748627585<\/a>. $90 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Ashley Lober<\/strong><\/a>, The University of Texas at Arlington<\/em><\/p>\n

Laurie Bauer has produced an easily accessible resource for students of linguistics that introduces the basics of the field. This volume contains six thematically arranged parts. Part 1, \u2018Some fundamentals of linguistics\u2019 (1\u201392), contains fifteen chapters that provide explanations of basic concepts such as \u2018Language\u2019, \u2018Accent, dialect, variety\u2019, \u2018Linguistics\u2019, \u2018Grammar\u2019, \u2018Parts of speech\u2019, \u2018Rules\u2019, \u2018The Saussurean dichotomies\u2019, \u2018Chomsky\u2019s influence\u2019, \u2018Form and function\u2019, \u2018Contrast and substitution\u2019, \u2018Binarity\u2019, \u2018Trees\u2019, \u2018State versus process\u2019, \u2018Native speaker\u2019, and \u2018The data of linguistics\u2019. Each chapter concludes with a list of references.<\/p>\n

Part 2, \u2018Notation and terminology\u2019 (95\u2013123), contains four chapters. Ch. 16, \u2018Notational conventions\u2019, and Ch. 17, \u2018Frequent abbreviations and initialisms\u2019, provide an introduction to the most frequent symbols and abbreviations that students are likely to encounter. Ch. 18, \u2018Terminology: Ambiguity\u2019, and Ch. 19, \u2018Terminology: Synonymy\u2019, discuss terminology that may be ambiguous (i.e. technical terms with different meanings in different subdisciplines of linguistics) and terms that may be synonymous (e.g. coinage<\/em> and neologism<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Part 3, \u2018Reading linguistics\u2019 (127\u201373), contains nine chapters. Ch. 20, \u2018The International Phonetic Association\u2019 (IPA), and Ch. 21, \u2018Reading phonetics and phonology\u2019, provide background on IPA and non-IPA phonetic systems. Ch. 22, \u2018Foreign expressions\u2019, and Ch. 23, \u2018Letters, accents and diacritics\u2019, include definitions and examples of linguistic terms (e.g. ceteris paribus<\/em>) and symbols (e.g. tilda<\/em>). Ch. 24, \u2018Journals\u2019, Ch. 25, \u2018Linguists\u2019 names\u2019, and Ch. 26, \u2018Laws and principles\u2019, will be useful references for beginning linguists. Ch. 27, \u2018Statistics\u2019, overviews statistical methods that linguists use for data analysis. This part ends with Ch. 28, \u2018Some on-line resources for linguists\u2019.<\/p>\n

Parts 4 and 5 focus on writing in the field of linguistics. Part 4, \u2018Writing and presenting linguistics\u2019, (178\u201396) contains five chapters. Ch. 29, \u2018Essay writing\u2019, focuses on the writing process, while Ch. 30, \u2018Glosses\u2019, explores the technical aspects of glossing. Ch. 31, \u2018Use versus mention\u2019, and Ch. 32, \u2018Reification\u2019, reinforce the importance of clarity in writing. Ch. 33, \u2018Spelling\u2019, provides a short list of fundamental terms (e.g. auxiliary<\/em>) with spelling hints (e.g. \u2018one l<\/em>\u2019). Part 5, \u2018Bibliographies\u2019 (199\u2013218), contains two chapters about referencing and documenting sources: Ch. 34, \u2018Citation etiquette\u2019, and Ch. 35, \u2018Reference lists\u2019.<\/p>\n

Part 6, \u2018Language file\u2019 (221\u2013381), the largest section of the book, explains the methods used to collect data from 280 languages and presents a table that contains structural information (e.g. word order) and socio-linguistic information (e.g. number of speakers) for each of the languages.<\/p>\n

One challenge for constructing a handbook like this is deciding how much (or how little) information to include for each subject; this text provides an excellent introduction to each topic. However, due to its brevity, this handbook is best viewed as a supplement to other texts. With its concise chapters enhanced with tables and examples, this handbook is recommended for students who desire clarification of the basic concepts and the professional requirements of the field of linguistics.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The linguistics student\u2019s handbook. By Laurie Bauer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. Pp. 387. ISBN 9780748627585. $90 (Hb). Reviewed by Ashley Lober, The University of Texas at Arlington Laurie Bauer has produced an easily accessible resource for students of linguistics that introduces the basics of the field. This volume contains six thematically arranged parts. Part […]<\/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\/897"}],"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=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}