16.2181, Review: General Linguistics: Malmkj ær (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2181. Sun Jul 17 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2181, Review: General Linguistics: Malmkjær (2004)

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1)
Date: 14-Jul-2005
From: Abdelgawad Mahmoud < atmahmoud4 at yahoo.com >
Subject: The Linguistics Encyclopedia: Second Edition 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:02:18
From: Abdelgawad Mahmoud < atmahmoud4 at yahoo.com >
Subject: The Linguistics Encyclopedia: Second Edition 
 

EDITOR: Malmkjær, Kirsten
TITLE: The Linguistics Encyclopedia
SUBTITLE: Second edition
PUBLISHER: Routledge
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2790.html


Abdelgawad T. Mahmoud, Associate Professor of Linguistics & Acting-
Chairman of the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Assiut University, 
Egypt.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

This book consists of 643 pages, and it is organized as follows: a long 
list of entries (566 pages), a preface, a key to contributors, brief notes 
on contributors, acknowledgements, an introduction and a long 
bibliography. Entries include a wide variety of topics that cover almost 
all areas of linguistics. The following is a list of the topics included 
in these entries in alphabetical order: 

Acoustic phonetics, animals and language, aphasia, applied linguistics, 
articulatory phonetics, artificial intelligence, artificial languages, 
auditory phonetics, behaviorist linguistics, bilingualism and 
multilingualism, cognitive linguistics, contrastive linguistics and cross-
linguistic studies, corpora, creoles and pidgins, critical discourse analysis, 
dialectology, discourse analysis and conversation analysis, distinctive 
features, dyslexia, field methods, finite-state (Markov process) grammar, 
forensic linguistics, formal grammar, formal logic and model logic, formal 
semantics, functional phonology, functionalist linguistics, generative 
grammar, generative phonology, generative semantics, genre analysis, 
glossematics, historical linguistics, history of grammar, International 
Phonetics Alphabet, interpretive semantics, intonation, kinesics, language 
acquisition, language and education, language and gender, language 
pathology and neurolinguistics, language surveys, language typology, 
language universals, lexis and lexicology, linguistic relativity, 
metaphor, morphology, non-transformational grammar, origin of language, 
philosophy of language, phonemics, port-royal grammar, pragmatics, 
prosodic phonology, psycholinguistics, rhetoric, semantics, semiotics, set 
theory, sign language, sociolinguistics, speech-act theory, speech and 
language therapy, stratificational linguistics, stylistics, systematic- 
functional grammar, teaching English as a foreign language, text 
linguistics, tone languages and writing systems. 

These entries are arranged alphabetically, and each entry contains a list 
of suggestions for further reading. The book ends with a long index 
consisting of 24 pages. It contains all the linguistics terms included in 
the different entries. This edition of THE LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA has 
been thoroughly revised and updated and a substantial new introduction, 
which forms a concise history of the field, has been added. Substantially 
revised entries include the following: bilingualism and multilingualism, 
grammatical models and theories, critical linguistics/critical discourse 
analysis, language acquisition, morphology, discourse analysis and 
conversation analysis, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, generative 
phonology, stratification linguistics, genre analysis, stylistics. 

The list of contributors includes the following linguists (in alphabetical 
order): Tsutomu Akamatsu, James M. Anderson, Colin Baker, James P. 
Blevins, Jacques Bourquin, David C. Brazil, E. Keith Brown, Ronald A. 
Carter, Richard Cauldwell, R. Malcolm Coulthard, Nikolas Coupland, René 
Dirven, Tony Dudley-Evans, Susan Edwards, Norman Fairclough, Eli Fischer-
Jørgensen, William A. Foley, Roger Fowler, Anthony Fox, Michael A. Garman, 
Christopher Hookway, Tony Howatt, Robert F. Ilson, Adam Jaworski, Chin-W. 
Kim, James P. Lantolf, Geoffrey N. Leech, David G. Lockwood, Michael J. 
McCarthy, Michael K. C. MacMahon, Molly Mack, Kirsten Malmkjær, Mark 
Newbrook, Frederic J. Newmeyer, Margaret Newton, Teresa Parodi, Allan M. 
Ramsay, William S.-Y. Wang and John N. Williams.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

THE LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA provides a comprehensive coverage of the 
major and minor fields of linguistic studies. The entries covering these 
fields are designed in alphabetical order, and they are easy to access. 
The language used to explain the linguistic concepts included in these 
entries is far from complexity. Indeed, some of the entries do not contain 
too much details, but I believe all the entries can provide the user with 
sufficient information about any of the included topics. Especially 
valuable about the book is the fact that, as far as my knowledge is 
concerned, no area in linguistic studies was ignored. To facilitate and 
simplify the linguistic notions for the reader, the authors have included 
illustrations, examples and diagrams.
 
Moreover, new entries on applied linguistics, such as cognitive 
linguistics, contrastive linguistics and cross- linguistic studies, and 
forensic linguistics are included in the book. The list of contributors 
includes a large number of linguists representing the different schools of 
thought. The academic reputation and the competence of those authors are 
indeed beyond dispute. The book presents the linguistic concepts in a 
simple manner and a scholarly fashion as well. For anyone with an academic 
or professional interest in linguistics, I believe that THE LINGUISTICS 
ENCYCLOPEDIA is an indispensable reference. Therefore, I strongly 
recommend this book for both graduate and undergraduate students of 
linguistics, as well as researchers in this field. I also believe that the 
book is a very useful reference and is an asset to any linguistics 
library. 

However, I have few remarks regarding the form rather than the content of 
the book. These remarks are listed below:

First, I think the way the different areas of linguistics are listed as 
entries may imply what I would call "lack of parallelism", in the sense 
that some areas of linguistics are represented in the book by certain 
entries while others are not. To make the idea clear let me state an 
example. While the book, for instance, contains an entry entitled 
Semantics, it does not contain an entry entitled Syntax. Similarly, while 
the book contains an entry entitled Phonemics, it does not contain an 
entry entitled Phonetics. Indeed, instead of an entry on Syntax, the book 
has an elaborate entry entitled Generative Grammar (22 pages), where most 
of the syntactic topics and syntactic theories are covered. 

Second, I think the way the entries are organized might imply what I would 
call "Gapping". For instance, since there is an entry devoted to 
Generative Grammar, the reader would expect parallel entries for the other 
types of grammar such as Functional Grammar, Relational Grammar, Lexical 
Functional Grammar etc.. Instead, the book contains one entry on Non-
transformational Grammar, where all the other types of grammar are listed.

Third, given the way the entries are organized, the reader expects that a 
topic like Case Grammar would be listed under the entry assigned for Non-
transformational Grammar; otherwise the book would contain another entry 
for this topic. However, in this book, Case Grammar is listed under the 
entry concerned with the History of Grammar. It might be difficult for the 
reader to relate a topic like Case Grammar to the entry concerned with the 
History of Grammar rather than to the entry concerned with Non-
transformational Grammar. Given the way the entries are designed and 
organized, I believe the entry concerned with the Case Grammar should have 
been listed under the entry assigned for Non-transformational Grammar. 

Fourth, I think that the way the entries are organized involves some sort 
of "overlap". For instance, while the book contains an entry on 
Sociolinguistics, it also contains other entries on such topics as 
Bilingualism, Multilingualism and Language and Gender, which are 
considered branches of Sociolinguistics. Similarly, while the book 
contains an entry on Psycholinguistics, it also contains another entry on 
Language Acquisition, which may be considered a branch of 
Psycholinguistics. I wonder if topics such as Bilingualism, 
Multilingualism and Language and Gender would be listed under the entry on 
Sociolinguistics. Similarly, a topics like Language Acquisition would be 
listed under the entry on Psycholinguistics

Fifth, given the remarks stated above, I wonder if it might be simpler for 
the reader if the book was organized as areas of linguistics (e., g., 
Syntax ,Semantics, Morphology, Phonology, Phonetics, Lexicology, 
Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics etc.), and then each area is broken 
down into entries such that entries related to each area are 
alphabetically listed under their respective areas. It seems to me that 
this suggested type of listing would be simpler for the reader. Also, the 
problem of "overlap" and "gapping" pointed out above would not arise 
according to this suggestion. 

As mentioned before, the remarks stated above are merely tentative 
suggestions concerning the form of the book. As far as the content of the 
book is concerned, I do not see any drawbacks. In fact, I have personally 
enjoyed reading this book so much. I have also learned a lot from the 
book. Thus, despite the remarks stated above, I strongly believe that THE 
LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA is an indispensable reference for anyone who has 
interest in linguistics. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Abdelgawad T. Mahmoud has obtained his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics from 
the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1989. He taught 
Arabic/English translation and Arabic as an FL at the University of 
Pittsburgh. Currently, he works as Associate Professor of Linguistics & 
Acting-Chairman of the English Department, Assiut University, Egypt. He is 
also the Director of the English Language Center at the same university. 
He has published a number of articles on Arabic and English Linguistics 
(e.g. The Syntax and Semantics of Middle and Unaccusative Constructions, 
Locative Alternations, Oblique Subject Alternations, Dative Shift, Psych-
Verbs, Lexical Incorporation and Resultative Predication and Implicit 
Objecthood). His current research interest is the relevance of Lexical 
Semantics to Syntax and Arabic/English translation.





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