Linguistics: An Introduction [Paperback]

I own a dozen introductory linguistics textbooks, and this is my least favorite. Physically, the book is short and thick, with narrow margins, which makes it hard to read without breaking the spine. There are few exercises, and almost none include data from languages other than English. The bibliography slightly exceeds four pages. It is the only introductory textbook I have ever seen without a glossary.

The title is misleading. This book is really an introduction to Chomskyan generative grammar, not an introduction to linguistics. Students who read this book will be plunged into the world of empty categories, covert movement, Merge, and the Economy Principle; on the other hand, they will never encounter the terms spectrogram, ergative, pragmatics, or Indo-European. If that sounds like your idea of what an introduction to linguistics should be, then I suppose this is the book for you.

I found this book to be a decent survey of Linguistics. It is written at a higher level, assuming the reader already knows a bit about language, which I appreciated, yet is not so complex you cannot follow it. Obviously a graduate level read. I recommend it for anyone who is brushing up on linguistics and already has a background in it. It is an overview with more depth than typical linguistics books.

The book is a solid-colored introduction to Chomskyan(or Chomskian?)linguistics.Naturally,it excludes all other theories irrelevant to or having little to do with generative study of language:pragmatics,laws of Indo-European,iconicity,metaphor and grammaticalization,the basic concepts by de Saussure,etymology,stylistics,discourse analysis,language and culture,typology,functionalism,among others.

Virtually,the book is an earnest endeavor made to answer the so-called Plato Problem raised by B.Russell:Why do we know so much beyond our experience during this limited life time?The problem is materialized linguistically by Chomsky as follows:1)What is the knowledge of human language?2)How do we acquire this knowledge?and 3),How is this knowledge used? Again,the Chomskyan version of Plato Problem is materialized by the present book via identifying them with the study of linguistics itself,language acquisition, and psycholinguistics.The book centers on the three dimensions and deals with them coherently and consistently,in great depth,and with general satisfaction and success.An intensive study of the book will ground you solidly(which means firmly and exclusively)in Chomskyan linguistics,the mainstream of language study.However,it is somewhat sophisticated and even a little involved.If you are among those starting from or even for ABC,it is NOT the book for you.

In response to Chomsky's ultimate locating linguistics in biology,the book dwells on another dimension not included in Plato Problem but certainly closely related ---neurolinguistics,the study of the relationship between language and brain.The purpose of doing so is obvious and simple:After all the brain is a biological organ which we are searching for the species-specific language faculty that is itself a biological phenomenon evolved either in spandrel style as proposed by Chomsky himself or in an eye-originating manner as claimed by S.Pinker.No matter what position you take,if there IS a language faculty,it is bound to be cerebrally located,somewhere,somehow,somewhat concrete or less concrete.Personally,I am for Chomskyan idea of language evolution.Just look at the species-specific big and large head we have and think about the physiologically unprepared human females suffering difficult labor:no females of other species are faced with such an awkward situation,otherwise they would have died out.However,using this big and large head,we have successfully solved the problem of dystocia---we can deliver the child with Caesarean section,an idea worked out by our this big and large head.Such a big and large head,capable of everything,from exploring Big Bang to researching microphenomena,obviously is not the product of biological design by nature for environmental adaptation.It is of course capable of language.Oh,yes,it is this big and large head that contains many cognitive chunks that include language faculty that,when fed by however poor or even deformed input,gives rise to inner grammar that may be accessed by language comprehension and production that leads to speech that should be done properly with social discourse and environment and that falls under the study of pragmatics.

My complaint about the book is:1)the part by Professor Radford is a little wordy:he seems excessively cautious and always afraid of being not understood properly.As a result,a lot of unnecessary repetitions occur in parentheses interrupting an otherwise smooth and intellectually-delighted reading.2)The section on phonetics has some easily recognizable mistakes regarding IPA chart either out of carelessness or misprinting.And 3),no distinction is made between language faculty and linguistic cognitive system:they are two concepts,but are easily confused and regarded as one and the same by a beginner reader.The latter refers to the inner grammar resulting from the language faculty processing input.