I-Language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science (Core Linguistics) - Softcover

Isac, Daniela; Reiss, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199534209 ISBN 13: 9780199534203

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-to-earth style Daniela Isac and Charles Reiss give a crystal-clear demonstration of the application of the scientific method in linguistic theory. Their presentation of the research programme inspired and led by Noam Chomsky shows how the focus of theory and research in linguistics shifted from treating language as a disembodied, human-external entity to cognitive biolinguistics - the study of language as a human cognitive system embedded within the mind/brain of each individual. The recurring theme of equivalence classes in linguistic computation ties together the presentation of material from phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The same theme is used to help students understand the place of linguistics in the broader context of the cognitive sciences, by drawing on examples from vision, audition, and even animal cognition.

This textbook is unique in its integration of empirical issues of linguistic analysis, engagement with philosophical questions that arise in the study of language, and treatment of the history of the field. Topics ranging from allophony to reduplication, ergativity, and negative polarity are invoked to show the implications of findings in cognitive biolinguistics for philosophical issues like reference, the mind-body problem, and nature-nurture debates.

This textbook contains numerous exercises and guides for further reading as well as ideas for student projects. A companion website with guidance for instructors and answers to the exercises features a series of pdf slide presentations to accompany the teaching of each topic.

About this title

About the Author

Daniela Isac is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Concordia University. She has taught at the University of Bucharest and held research fellowships at the universities of Oxford and Quebec. Her published work includes articles in Revue Roumaine de Linguistique and Linguistic Inquiry.
Charles Reiss is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Concordia University, Montreal, co-editor with Gillian Ramchand of The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces (OUP 2007), and co-author with Mark Hale of The Phonological Enterprise (OUP 2008).

Review

"This book is an engaging and pioneering introduction to Biolinguistic theory construction and scientific method. It's one of very few texts I've ever read that clarifies, with formal yet accessible linguistic analyses and argument, the Chomskyan shift in focus away from treating human language as
some kind of non-psychological human-external entity to the study of human language as "I-language" - a cognitive system embedded within the mind/brain of each individual." --Dr Samuel Epstein, University of Michigan

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199534209
• ISBN 13: 9780199534203
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336