Reddit Reddit reviews The Linguistics Wars

We found 5 Reddit comments about The Linguistics Wars. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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5 Reddit comments about The Linguistics Wars:

u/bri-an · 5 pointsr/linguistics

If you just want a short, "basic summary", then read the Wikipedia entry on Generative semantics.

If you want something more in-depth, I suggest Randy Allen Harris's The Linguistic Wars. (By the way, Wikipedia also has a short entry for the so-called Linguistic Wars.)

u/anuvakya · 4 pointsr/linguistics

Not so casual and perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but definitely read the Linguistics Wars by Randy A Harris. It's enjoyable, extremely rigorous (it came out of Harris's PhD dissertation) and very, very insightful: it digs really deep into one of the most controversial period of linguistics in the United States. The author even went through underground notes. The best part about it is that it doesn't require you to be a linguist but it's even better if you are; a lot of things in there you simply can't get from modern textbooks and you get to learn how linguistic ideas originated and evolved. He has a second edition coming out so you might wanna wait for that.

For something perhaps surprising and illuminating: read Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson. Most people I know were impressed at how pervasive metaphors actually are in language and cognition. It's very intuitive and sensible once you get the gist of it. This one is quite specific though.

Finally, although now I don't quite agree with it, Language Instinct is what lured me into linguistics so definitely check it out.

These books are quite old now and obviously linguists know much more (although not nearly enough) about language today than they did back then. Claims are also often exaggerated (with the exception of the first one, I think) but they're fun to read and will interest you for sure.

u/jufnitz · 4 pointsr/badphilosophy

> I'm not saying Pinker is right about everything, but he's a real scientist who does real science

Some of the folks in Everett's theoretical camp might dispute that. For the uninitiated, linguistics as a field has a history of very bitter personal vendettas.

u/Stargaters · 4 pointsr/linguistics

I'd highly suggest The Linguistics Wars.

u/flululululux · 2 pointsr/linguistics