Download Free Reflections On Language Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Reflections On Language and write the review.

Described by the New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," Noam Chomsky is known throughout the world for his highly influential writings on language and politics. Featuring two of Chomsky's most popular and enduring books in one omnibus volume, On Language contains some of the noted linguist and political critic's most informal and accessible work to date, making it an ideal introduction to his thought. In Part I, Language and Responsibility (1979), Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking through a series of interviews with Mitsou Ronat, the noted French linguist. In Part II, Reflections on Language (1975), Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language.
How is it that chimpanzees can learn to "speak" at a higher level than some so-called wolf children? What happened that day in the pumphouse, when Helen Keller suddenly grasped the meaning of words? And picture this: a father and mother who shun the advice of professionals, who doggedly force their way into the closed world of their autistic son, and who reverse his grim prognosis, revealing him to be gifted. How to explain? In this book, a philosopher combines these famous cases with a lifetime of study to examine the threshold of language--that point "between speech and not quite speech." He provides fascinating accounts of the deaf and blind Helen Keller, of chimpanzees like Washoe, and of feral children such as Victor, the "wild boy of Aveyron," putting a new spin on their stories. When does it start, he asks, that miracle most of us take for granted? Where does it come from, that uniquely human power to transform perception and action into thought and the singular activity we call speech? Here is evidence that, for chimp or child, the crucial factors in acquiring language have less to do with intellect and everything to do with social interaction. Here is confirmation that the "give-and-take, push-and-pull" of daily life forces virtually all of us to acquire language simply to live and work together. Author Jerry Gill offers no pat answers. Rather, he emphasizes imitation and reciprocity--for example, playing pat-a-cake with a baby--as essential to becoming part of a speaking community "and thereby becoming a human being." In addition, Gill gives dozens of examples to show how gesture and facial expression both create and change the meaning of language. In compelling fashion, he underscores the point that language acquisition can be fully understood only in terms of such physical and social activity. The author exposes the flaws of research focused mainly on mental processes and gives little credit to findings based upon artificially contrived experiments. With vigor, compassion, and a broad-minded humanism, these pages invite the reader to think again about how we say what we mean, how we mean what we say, and where it all starts in the first place. Valuable to students of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and anthropology, the book will also appeal to general readers who welcome an opportunity to explore familiar things in a new and entirely enjoyable way.
In Reflections on Language and Language Learning: In honour of Arthur van Essen, thirty-one leading language scholars and educational linguists in the Netherlands and abroad with whom over the years Professor van Essen, one of the grandees of applied linguistics, has collaborated provide original essays and studies which discuss the most recent insights and trends in the fields of linguistics and foreign language teaching. While interdisciplinary in scope, the volume encompasses theoretical advances in (educational) linguistic thinking; for example, the perceptive articles written by Michael Byram, Christopher N. Candlin, Natalia Gvishiani, Peter Jordens, Jan Koster, Leo van Lier, and Bondi Sciarone — as well as a sample of the latest methodological developments in areas such as ELT, LSP, and content-based language teaching; cases in point are the useful contributions by Jeanine Deen & Hilde Hacquebord, Michaël Goethals, Paul Meara & Ignacio Rodríguez Sánchez, Rosamond Mitchell & Christopher Brumfit, and Uta Thürmer.
Task-based language teaching is now a well-established pedagogic approach but problematic issues remain, such as whether it is appropriate for all learners and in all instructional contexts. This book draws on the author’s experience of working with teachers, together with his knowledge of relevant research and theory, to examine the key issues. It proposes flexible ways in which tasks can be designed and implemented in the language classroom to address the problems that teachers often face with task-based language teaching. It will appeal to researchers and teachers who are interested in task-based language teaching and the practical and theoretical issues involved. It will also be of interest to students and researchers working in the areas of applied linguistics, TESOL and second language acquisition.
This essay reflects on the fact that as we learn more about the biological underpinnings of our language faculty, the dominant evolutionary narrative coming out of the linguistic tradition most explicitly oriented towards biology ("biolinguistics") appears increasingly implausible. This text offers ways of opening up linguistic inquiry and fostering interdisciplinarity, taking advantage of new opportunities to provide quantitative, testable hypotheses concerning the complex evolutionary path that led to the modern human language faculty. The essay is structured around three main themes: (i) renewed appreciation for the comparative method applied to cognitive questions, leading to the identification of elementary but fundamental abstractions in non-linguistic species relevant to language; (ii) awareness of the conceptual gaps between disciplines, and the need to carefully link genotype and phenotype without bypassing any "intermediate" levels of description (certainly not the brain); and (iii) adoption of a "philosophical" outlook that puts the complexity of biological entities front and center.
The two most popular titles by the noted linguist and critic in one volume—an ideal introduction to his work. On Language features some of Noam Chomsky’s most informal and highly accessible work. In Part I, Language and Responsibility, Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking. In Part II, Reflections on Language, Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language. “Language and Responsibility is a well-organized, clearly written and comprehensive introduction to Chomsky’s thought.” —The New York Times Book Review “Language and Responsibility brings together in one readable volume Chomsky’s positions on issues ranging from politics and philosophy of science to recent advances in linguistic theory. . . . The clarity of presentation at times approaches that of Bertrand Russell in his political and more popular philosophical essays.” —Contemporary Psychology “Reflections on Language is profoundly satisfying and impressive. It is the clearest and most developed account of the case of universal grammar and of the relations between his theory of language and the innate faculties of mind responsible for language acquisition and use.” —Patrick Flanagan
As the spell of Jacques Derrida grows stronger, with more translations and analyses appearing every season, it is possible--and necessary--to determine what in his work is truly new and what continues philosophical and literary traditions. Although Martin Heidegger ahs been mentioned before as a precursor of deconstruction, Herman Rapaport is the first to develop the connections between the writings of the German philosopher and Derrida. Heidegger and Derrida discusses the French philosopher's adoption of certain Heideggerean themes and his extension or overturning of them. But Rapaport does more than show how deconstruction builds on the philosophical foundations laid by Heidegger (and also by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud). In the most comprehensive study of Derrida's works to date, he tackles the problem of writing an intellectual history about a figure who has put into question the possibility of such a construction and acknowledges Derrida's concerns with Jewish history in relation to Western thought.