Linguistics Today

Septiyani Wafda                              109014000077                                                  VB

Book Response Form

Book title                    : Linguistics Today

Publisher                     : Basic Books, Inc.

Date Published            : 1969                                                  Number of pages         : 294

Genre                          : Anthology

CHAPTERS

The nature and history of linguistics

            This chapter mostly told about the nature and history of linguistics. The writer put some definition about linguistics and about the branches of linguistics. Besides, the writer also gives some opinion about linguistics today. The writer said, first we find that the diachronic and synchronic traditions have been united in the works of such scholars as the Russian-American Roman Jakobson and the Fanchman Andre Martinet. Second, there has been renewed interest in the building of comprehensive linguistic theories

Phonology: phonemics and acoustics phonetics

            The chapter told about the phonology, that are phonemics and acoustics phonetics. The chapter gives us some information about when phonemics has been the characteristically American way of dealing with pronunciation and this chapter also give some information about the phonology that actually there was no general theory of phonology. About acoustic phonetics, the writer put two statements. First, phonemics has always been based upon the best phonetic evidence available at the time. Second, we find that what the spectrograms confirm consists mostly of what was added to Bloomfield’s phonemics by later workers.

Morphology and syntax

            The chapter discuss about the definition about morphology and syntax. Morphology is the description of the meaningful forms and syntax is the ordering of the sentence elements. This chapter also told about the variety of morpheme and syntax. In discussing morphology and syntax, the writer has been discussing primarily how one goes about analyzing a language. By making substitutions on both levels, we can insolate morphs, group them into morphemes, and determine which morphemes are alike, either in form or in distribution.

Lexicology and semantics

            This chapter told about the area of linguistic structure which is studied under the headings of lexicology and semantics. This chapter also put some investigation from the writer about semantic structure. And the result from the investigation is that the writer describes several areas which may be identified within the lexicological and semantic structure of a language. These areas, in order from the top down-ward, are concerned with sememic syntax, which includes taxonomic hierarchies, sememic components, idioms, and lexemic components.

The origin of language

            The chapter discuss about the origin of language. The evidence of language appears only after the invention of writing, only in written records inscribed on stone, clay, or some other durable material. The chapter also told about the problem of the origin of language is not to be solved by a study of older records or by comparing the languages of the world with each other. The writer said that there is one minor side result which is of fascinating suggestiveness: As Hockett and Ascher have defined duality; its development is so far-reaching, so revolutionary, and as fruitful as to suggest that it was created only once, and in one place.

Our own family of language

            The chapter told about the creative sense of the word. All languages changes constantly. An understanding of change-processes is therefore central to an understanding of language; and if generalizations are possible it is likely that these generalizations will have some importance for other human activities. The writer shown that some of the more outlandish developments that characterize Indo-Aryan (that us, the Indo-European spoken in India) were such as to bring it closer to membership in an Indian structure-type to which some non-Indo-European languages are belong.

Some aspects of the history of the English language

            The chapter gives us some information of the history of the English language. That fifteen hundred years have elapsed since a number of Germanic tribal organization—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—invaded the British Isles from the east and the south and pushed the Celtic inhabitants and their languages back in wasterly and northerly direction in what is now England and Scoutland. This chapter also told about three major dialects was current in England and southern Scoutland during the early middle Ages. The writer have illustrated of the ways in which both the British-English and the American-English vocabulary has been enriched through contacts with other people.

Dialects: British and American standard and nonstandard

            Firstly, this chapter told about the definition of dialect. Dialect is simply any habitual variety of a language, regional or social. The chapter also told about the factors that influence dialect patterns. The writer said that culture will not really be able to accept the aspiring minorities until it realizes that all dialects are legitimate forms of the language, arising through normal interactions of human beings in social contexts.

Language and the total system of communication

            This chapter told about the definition of language and it relationship with the total system of communication. Language is a learned, shared, and arbitrary system of vocal symbols through which human beings in the some speech community or subculture interact and hence communicate in terms of their common cultural experience and expectations. The write said the interrelatedness and completely human nature of all of the modalities in the total communication package must be mentioned again. There is a danger in thinking that language, and language alone, is the only important modality becouse it is the most highly structured one. There is a danger in thinking that only language displays a cognitive function and that the other modalities are merely modifying the massage carried by language or are merely expressive of individual personality differences.

National and international languages

            This chapter told about the most impressive thing about the language situation in the world is its tremendous complexity. The process that underlies the creation of all those languages that we now refer to as national or international languages. They are the result not only of gradual differentiation, but also of a deliberate unification and cultivation. In this chapter the writer said, in history we have moved from local tribes to regional unions to nation-states, and from the natural diversification of languages to a pruning and grafting which has given us the relatively small number of standard languages that now exist.

Linguistics and instruction in the native language

            The chapter told about linguistics and instruction in the native language. The children begin their education, approximately half of the entire school day is devoted to instruction in the use of the mother tongue. The chapter also discuss about the most important contribution that linguistics can make to the classroom English teacher is in reshaping his view of language and of language learning. The writer said that linguistics has a potential application to the highly selective use of language which we call literature but it is a topic in itself.

Linguistics and teaching foreign languages

            This chapter told about the linguistic approach to teaching for foreign languages. The linguistic approach to teaching foreign languages can best be described by contrasting it with two other approaches which preceded it: the translation method and the direct method. The writer said, on the contrary, they have retained so much of their original potency that any questioning of their validity for all sorts and conditions of men is regarded as a linguistic heresy.

Linguistics and anthropology

            This chapter told about the subject matter of linguistics and also the subject matter of anthropology. The subject matter of linguistics is language, man’s prime means of communication. The subject matter of anthropology is man. Anthropology studies man’s body, as it is today and as it was in the past. It studies the behavior of man’s body, and through the external manifestations of that behavior, its effect on other man and on men’s physical surroundings. The writer said in this book that linguistics in anthropology, then, with its more recently developed and more recently recognized allies, paralinguistic and kinesics, on the one hand, and sociology, on the other, will play an increasingly important role in resolving problems of human relations, whether such problems are evident between different nations, between different groups within nations, or between individual human beings in their more personal contacts.

Language and psychology

            The chapter told about the language and its correlation with psychology. The English language is just one of many such systems, and it can be studied in the abstract, by studying the various kinds of units that are involved in language system with little reference to how the speakers of that language actually use the system in creating and understanding sentences. Developing a theory of language systems in the abstract means developing at the same time a theory of the competence of users of the language. One of the first task of the psychology of language is to account for how a child learns this system as his mother tongue. The writer pointed out that in fact, the psychology of language can hardly be studied without at least some reference to the psychology of thinking and concept formation.

                

Linguistics and literature: prose and poetry

            This chapter told about the linguistic and literature, but concern in prose and poetry. The chapter also gives us some information about the different between literary analysis and literary criticism. Ohmann analyzed the transformational model to indicate syntactical relationships in an attempt to explain intuitive responses to certain writers. The writer also used the transformational model to indicate syntactical relationships in an attempt to explain intuitive responses to certain writers. He has been more interested in the larger problem of establishing more general attributes of eighteenth-century prose style. The eighteenth century has long been noted for a characteristic prose style, and it is generally held today that certain eighteenth century authors exhibit a remarkable similarity of style.

Machine translation

            The chapter discuss about machine translation. Machine translation is based on the assumption that the grammar and dictionary of languages can be specified completely enough so that a computer can manage them. The translation which is being carried out by machine today is crude, so that crude that it is edited before it s made available to users. The writer said, there are several problems for translation by machine. First, to produce machines that can identify equivalent sounds spoken by different speakers, such as a man and a woman. Second, the semantic component of language.

Computer linguistics

            This chapter discuss the various applications of the computer in linguistics, some of them real, some of them conjectural. The premise is, at any rate, that computer linguistics is basically no different from any other kind, except perhaps in terms of explicitness and the degree of exactness induced by the need for explicitness. This chapter also discusses briefly the research being done by linguists in the United States in morphology and syntax, on dictionaries, in communications, in historical and comparative applications, in language pedagogy, and in other areas. The writer pointed out that the computer will be an important tool in investigation of language structure, of communication, and of many areas related to language and communication.

Simulated speech

            The chapter begins with playing a simple of artificial speech, produced by machine from line drawings which tell machine what sounds to make. Such simulation of speech is not to be confused with the sound reproduction of phonograph and tape recordings. One of the most obvious ways to build a talking machine is to imitate nature. One goal of speech synthesis could be to produce an utterance using every detail found in an analysis of natural speech. In this chapter, the writer pointed out that such an operation is readily possible and that the resultant speech is recognizable.

The Prague school of linguistics

            This chapter told about a typical characteristic of the Prague school. Unlike many other currents in linguistics, the Prague School is truly representative of the intellectual currents of its heyday, the 1930s. The writer enthusiastic about the work of the Prague School, because that work has had a significant influence on his own thinking in linguistics.

Glossematics

            The chapter told about glossematics. Glossematics is not to be thought as a “Danis school” or a “copenhagen school” of linguistics. Now glossematics begins by looking for a common element in these apparently quite different kinds of statement. The important immediate consequence is to be found in the very first division that glossematic procedure makes of any given text. This division is always the same kind—a division into expression and content, the two largest parts of the text that are mutually defined by the fact that each requires the presence of the other. In this chapter the writer already noted that the glossematics views the sciences as also being languages or semiotics. It follows from this that linguistics in the broader sense—semiology—will be in the curious situation of being the only science that studies itself and provides its own definition.

Generative grammar

            The chapter told about the generative grammar. The term “generative grammar” has come to refer to the research of a group of American linguists, and recently some others abroad, whose works depends on the theoretical advances made by Noam Chomsky. It is in fact a misnomer to refer to the work of this school of linguistics as “generative grammar,” since the distinguishing claim of Chomsky’s group is not that grammars should be generative but that a generative grammar should be of a certain form. In this chapter, the writer believe that a scientific revolution of major important is occurring in American linguistics under the impact of the fresh views of Chomsky and his followers, and further, that the implication of his questions and formulations are only beginning to be spelled out in detail.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

1.      How the book organized?

The book organized properly. All chapter of the book the book related to other and also to the title of the book. The book doesn’t organized from the simple content to the complex, but it mix all the chapters.

2.      Were the topic presented grouped properly based on the interest or field?

Yes, the topic presented grouped properly based on the interest or field. The topic is cover all the field of the text and it’s presented clearly.

3.      How the writers’ background (origin, education, job) differ from each other?

I think the writers’ background is almost same. Most of them have high education. They have been a professor of linguistics in some university. Besides, some of them is a director or the chairman of the linguistics committee. The writer’s background is related to the topic that he or she presented in this book.

4.      Who is/are the editor(s)? Have you ever heard the names?

The editor is Archibalad A. Hill. I never heard his name before. Therefore I can’t give some statement or argument about him. But about the book, it is quite well for linguistics or a student who wanted to be linguistics.

5.      What is the book best for? Why?

The book best for the linguistics and also for them who wanted to be linguistics. Because this book discusses much about linguistics today and of course it will give very useful information for them.

6.      Which article/s you like best from the book? Why?

The article I like best from the book is about language and psychology. It because I like to study about psycholinguistic that studied about the language and psychology. It is interest because actually language has special correlation with our body such as discuss in this book.

7.      Which article/s you like least from the book? Why?

The article I like least from the book is about the glossematics. It because firstly I don’t have background knowledge about the glossemmatics and beside this chapter doesn’t give me a brief explanation about the glossematic itself.

8.      Would you recommend this book to a friend? Explain.

I would recommend this book to my friends who wanted to be a linguistics. Because this book give the information about linguistic today and very useful for them who want to be a linguist.

9.      On a scale of 1-10, how difficult was this book for you? (1 = easy, 10 = difficult) Why?

I think this book is quite difficult for me. Maybe on a scale of 1-10 i got it in 7, because many vocabulary that is unfamiliar for me and I does not have a big interest in studying linguistic, besides I have no background knowledge about the subject. That makes me difficult to understand the book.