30.3289, Review: General Linguistics: Thompson (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3289. Fri Aug 30 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.3289, Review: General Linguistics: Thompson (2019)

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 15:45:39
From: Colleen Gallagher [cgallagher1 at udayton.edu]
Subject: A Short Introduction to the Study of Language

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-376.html

AUTHOR: Ellen  Thompson
TITLE: A Short Introduction to the Study of Language
PUBLISHER: Equinox Publishing Ltd
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Colleen E Gallagher, University of Dayton

SUMMARY

With this volume, Ellen Thompson has written an accessible introduction to key
topics in linguistics. The explanations of foundational terms and concepts,
clear examples of linguistic phenomena, and interpretations of studies should
make this an easy-to-understand text for a reader without prior knowledge of
the field. It provides examples from various languages to illustrate points
about language as a system and to help readers gain perspective on English.
The text balances between synthesizing, summarizing, and making broad
generalizations, providing in-text citations to support assertions for those
who want to follow up. Each chapter provides suggestions for further reading
and multimedia viewing. 

Chapter 1, “What is language?” begins with interesting general questions to
establish the author’s purpose for the book and hook readers unfamiliar with
linguistics, e.g., “Is English getting worse (or better)?” and “How do
children and adults learn language?” (p. 2). It introduces key topics in
linguistics such as the creativity and infinite capacity of language, the
rule-governed nature of language, and the nature of linguistic competence as
unconscious knowledge. It defines and exemplifies prescriptive vs. descriptive
approaches to language and explains the historical origins of common
prescriptive grammar rules. The chapter also rebuts the misconception that
colloquial English is sloppy with examples of systematic expletive infixation
in English and comparative examples of infixation in the Bontoc language of
the Philippines. 

Chapter 2, “Language and other animal communication systems,” asks what makes
human language special and answers with reference to the design features of
language (Hockett, 1960; 1967) and the concept of recursion (Hauser, Chomsky &
Fitch, 2002). After describing aural, visual, chemical and other forms of
animal communication, Thompson analyzes the communication systems of bees,
birds, vervet monkeys and cephalopods, explaining why each does not fulfill
the requirements for human language with reference to the design features and
recursion.

Chapter 3, “Teaching human language to apes,” introduces the challenge of
researching animal language with the story of Clever Hans the horse. Thompson
then explains ape communication practices in the wild and reviews six
experiments in teaching apes human spoken and signed languages. The author
reports mixed results but ultimately concludes, citing Terrace and colleagues
(1979) and referring back to the concept of recursion, that the experiments
were a failure and that language is a uniquely human phenomenon. 

Chapter 4, “Language learning” packs in a lot of information, ultimately
supporting a nativist view on child language acquisition. Thompson first
explains two hypotheses for language development: (1) overt and covert
parental input and (2) imitation and repetition. The author then rebuts each
hypothesis with evidence from scholarship on child-directed speech (CDS) (e.g.
Schieffelin, 1994) and Chomskyan approaches to language acquisition (e.g.
Chomsky, 1967), explaining nativist theories as the best-supported. The
chapter continues with a brief description and examples of stages of language
acquisition from birth to age three, including the acquisition of grammatical
morphemes and negation. It concludes with a discussion of the gap between
expressive and receptive language for young children. 

Chapter 5, “Experiments in language acquisition,” provides an overview of
experimental methods in first and second language acquisition (SLA) while also
addressing developmental sequences and cross-linguistic effects in SLA. After
pointing out that infants can discriminate sounds from any human language, it
then explains three methods of experimenting with babies: high-amplitude
sucking, the preferential sucking technique, and the head-turn preference
technique. Thompson then moves on to SLA, posing the question of whether
second language learners unconsciously assume their second language will be
like their first. The author points out that second language learners go
through systematic and predictable stages like child language learners and
shares two experimental methods for studying the SLA of grammar:
grammaticality judgment tasks and sentence matching tasks. Thompson answers
the question of first language influence by concluding that learners do seem
to come to the process of SLA assuming the second language will be similar to
the first.

Chapter 6, “Abnormal language,” differentiates the typical language
development discussed in the prior chapter from cases involving brain damage
or environmental deprivation. Thompson addresses the role of the brain in
language and then examines four types of conditions with examples: aphasia,
language impairment and stuttering, language isolation, and the case of
language savants. Thompson positions these conditions as evidence of the
development of language separately from general cognitive capacities, a
critical period for language acquisition, and the existence of universal
grammar.

Chapter 7, “Bilingualism,” asks, “How does the process of learning multiple
languages take place?” (p. 99). As a first step in answering the question,
Thompson shares two possible models of childhood bilingualism: the Unitary
Language System Hypothesis (Volterra and Taeschner, 1978) and the Independent
Development Hypothesis (Padilla & Liebman, 1975), and provides evidence to
support each. She does not, however, offer clear conclusions on which is
better-supported in the literature. The chapter continues on to define
code-switching and address why bilinguals code switch with reference to
Zentella (1997), emphasizing code switching as a resource for meaning making. 

Chapter 8, “Are there primitive languages?” argues effectively that there are
not. The author makes this position clear from the start with a quote stating
“all languages meet the social and psychological needs of their speakers”
(Crystal, 2010, as cited in Thompson, 2019, p. 115). Thompson begins to
support this answer by addressing the differences between speech and writing
and the culturally and historically conditioned connection between these two
forms. The chapter successfully argues against the fallacy of assuming one’s
own language to be superior by illustrating with examples from Turkish,
African American English Vernacular (AAEV), Standard American English (SAE),
Arrente, and Chinese how all languages can express new and complex ideas.
Summarizing Wright (2011), Thompson uses the example of click sounds in
English to emphasize that perceptions about a language are more closely
related to cultural perceptions of its people than to objective linguistic
facts. 

Chapter 9, “Non-standard dialects,” opens with an explanation of the
linguistic criteria of mutual intelligibility for distinguishing language from
dialect but concedes that national boundaries and other social and political
factors complicate the definition. The chapter compares features of British
and American English, including /r/-lessness in New York City dialects (Labov,
1966), to illustrate the arbitrary variation between dialects and the socially
constructed nature of the concept of a standard language. Thompson goes into
some detail on African-American English Vernacular (AAEV), illustrating the
complexity and efficiency of the language by addressing morphosyntactic and
phonetic variations between AAEV and standard American English (SAE). The
chapter concludes with good references for further reading and viewing.

EVALUATION

Overall, this short volume accomplishes the goals it sets with the key
questions posed in the first chapter. Chapters Two and Three, for example,
effectively illustrate what sets human language apart from communication by
other species. Chapter Eight is also particularly effective in accomplishing
its goals of establishing the linguistic equality of all languages. The
chapter does so by providing comparative examples in AAEV, SAE and others
illustrating the complexity of language and using the example of clicks in
British and American English (Wright, 2011) to help English-speaking readers
re-think what might seem like exotic and unfamiliar sounds. 

In a few places, a broader perspective would have helped answer key questions
more fully. For example, Chapter Four on child language acquisition does not
fully consider social interactionist views (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978) that stress
the importance of the environment beyond CDS; nor does it address the value of
CDS in creating a warm, inviting interactional environment (Melzi & King,
2003). Additionally, Chapter Five on language experimentation could make more
explicit for novice readers that cross-linguistic as well as developmental
factors influence second language acquisition. 

This book has some notable positives relating to its suitability for novice
readers in the field of linguistics. The author assumes no prior background in
linguistics, providing clear explanations of key terms and concepts such as
chapter one’s discussion of prescriptive and descriptive language; ample
concrete examples in English and other languages such as Chapter Four’s
transcript excerpts of parent-child interaction; reference to seminal authors
and studies such as Hockett’s (1960, 1967) design features of human language,
Chomsky’s (1967) critique of behaviorism, and Labov’s (1966) department store
study; and suggested materials for further study. These suggested materials
are varied print and multimedia resources, including books, scholarly
articles, online video clips, documentaries and narrative films, all of which
would be useful for an independent reader or for an instructor preparing
syllabi and classes. Finally, the text covers a range of topics likely to be
included in an introductory linguistics classes, albeit with a tendency to
focus on formal rather than social or applied elements. 

Depending on the nature of their classes, instructors considering this book as
a course text may also take some potential limitations into account. For
survey courses, the instructor will likely want to address a greater breadth
of topics in greater depth than this text alone does, and so supplemental
readings would likely be necessary. Furthermore, while many common
introductory linguistics texts (e.g. Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2014; Department
of Linguistics at The Ohio State University, 2011) include ample practice
items, an instructor using this text would need to develop or adapt tasks
prompting students to think more deeply about course concepts.
 
This text may be appropriate for a short or introductory university course, an
advanced partial-year high school course, independent background reading, or
as a supplement in a course addressing language as one of several major
topics. It may, for example, be useful as an introduction to basic linguistic
concepts in an undergraduate education course on language and literacy, though
it does not address educational applications that an instructor may wish
students to consider as do some other short edited volumes (e.g. Silver &
Lwin, 2014) and longer textbooks (e.g. Wang, 2015) promoting teacher language
awareness. For example, the bilingualism chapter addresses two possible models
of bilingualism and code switching in depth, but not recent socially-informed
views of bilingualism (e.g. Garcia, 2009) or related concepts useful for
educators such as translanguaging, social and academic language varieties, or
biliteracy. Again, course instructors may find in necessary to supplement with
additional readings. 

In sum, A short introduction to the study of language (Thompson, 2019) is a
clearly-written, easy-to-understand introduction to key concepts in
linguistics. It would be a good choice for the inquisitive independent reader,
for background reading for an introductory linguistics course, or as an
assigned text for a course in which the instructor would like to introduce
these concepts yet have space to bring in additional texts, tasks, and
activities. 

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1967). The formal nature of language. In E.H. Lenneberg (Ed.),
Biological foundations of language (pp. 397-442). New York: Wiley and Sons. 

Department of Linguistics at The Ohio State University (2011). Language Files:
Materials for an introduction to language and linguistics (11th ed.).
Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press. 

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2014). An introduction to language (10th
ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.

Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global
perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 

Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, T.W. (2002, November 22).The faculty of
language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298(5598),
1569-1579. doi.org/10.1126/science.298.558.1569 

Hockett, C. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203, 88-96.
doi.org/10/1038/scientificamerican0960-88

Hockett, C. (1967). The state of the art. The Hague: Mouton. 

Labov, William. (1966) The social stratification of English in New York City.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. 

Melzi, G. & King, A. K. (2003). Spanish diminutives in mother-child
conversations. Journal of Child Language, 30, 281-304.
doi:10.1017/S0305000903005567

Padilla, A.M. & Liebman, E. (1975). Language acquisition in the bilingual
child. The Bilingual Review/LaRevista Bilingue, 2, 35-45.

Volterra, V. & Taeschner, T. (1978). The acquisition and development of
language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 5(2), 311-326.
doi:10.1017/S030500090000742

Schieffelin, B. B. (1994). How Kaluli children learn what to say, what to do,
and how to feel. New York: Cambridge University Press. 

Silver, R. E. & Lwin, S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Language in education: Social
implications. New York: Bloomsbury. 

Terrace, H. S., Petitto, L. A., Sanders, R. J., & Bever, T. G. (1979, November
23). Can an ape create a sentence? Science, 206(4421), 891-902. 

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Wang, X. (2015). Understanding language and literacy development: Diverse
learners in the classroom. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. 

Wright, M. (2011). On clicks in English talk-in-interaction. Journal of the
International Phonetic Association, 41(2), 207-229. doi:
10.1017/S0025100311000144

Zentella, A. C. (1997). Growing up bilingual. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Colleen Gallagher is an assistant professor in teacher education at the
University of Dayton, where she teaches future ESOL and world language
teachers as well as content area teachers of emergent bilinguals. Her research
focuses on facilitating learning for emergent bilinguals and their teachers in
content-based instructional settings at both the P-12 and university levels.
She holds a Ph.D. in applied linguistics and taught Spanish and ESOL in
Virginia and Arizona schools before moving into higher education.





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