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Very Short Introductions #093
Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction
Linguistics falls in the gap between arts and science, on the edges of which the most fascinating discoveries and the most important problems are found. Beginning at the 'arts' end of the subject with the common origins of languages, and finishing at the 'science' end with the newest discoveries regarding language in the brain, this stimulating guide covers all the major aspects of linguistics from a refreshing and insightful angle.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
152 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
October 5, 2016
What’s wrong with linguistics? Linguists. They’re involved in a huge and fascinating field, but bogged down in areas that are mind numbingly dull and don’t seem to tell us much of anything. For instance, do all languages have a universal root? Well, let’s look at commonalities across and between languages, say, Greek and Sanskrit, until we’re bored to tears before admitting what could have prevented such a wasteful exploration in the first place: we don’t know (and even if we did, what would that really tell us?). Next up, what are some features of languages? Well, in English, you’ll be happy to discover, one is that we tend to talk about things in the singular and plural. What? You already knew that? Well, here’s five pages of examples (dog vs. dogs) just in case you didn’t. And are you in need of a refresher on prepositions? How about this to get your intellectual juices flowing? The pen is INSIDE the box. No? Okay, try this one: Mary is BETWEEN Bill and Andrew. And such constructs might affect the way we think? Isn’t that amazing? Onward. Having trouble sleeping? Sentences like this should help:
“Thus, if we take a set [a, b, c], with members a, b, and c, and subtract from it a set [b, c], with members b and c, the result must be also a set, [a], which has a single member a.”
There, are you now clear on the concept of “sets” or do I hear snoring?
And, say, what’s the connection between language and thought? Certainly that’s an area worth exploring, eh? Is language thought? Or is thought language? Well, a picture of a woman wearing a sling accompanied by the question, “Has she or has she not broken her arm?” should have you doing a philosophical contortion act in your quest for enlightenment and by that I mean you’ll probably be icing your wrists and sharpening a blade.
Goodness gracious. Is this book really from Oxford? The writer starts out by telling us it’s hard to study linguistics because language is partly a social construction, only it takes several pages for him to get this out and then he keeps coming back to it as though it’s a stunning revelation. Yes, yes, we know, we know. The social world is socially constructed. Just say it once, and move on. Also, just as the reader’s spotted a topic that seems interesting, e.g. for me: What is language?, the writer wanders off in some other direction, telling us how many languages there are or that languages are “abstractions” (what does that mean?) and – brace yourself – dialects may be whole other languages.
This is effort is poor. I read the books in this series on the British Empire and Carl Jung and they were outstanding. They touched on all the foundational knowledge, included lots of citations, and went into the debates, e.g. ‘Was Jung a Nazi sympathiser or anti-Semite? How have his theories held up?’ and ‘Was the Empire good or bad? Can it be distilled to something as simple as good or bad?’ Those books provided excellent OVERVIEWS, giving you a framework and sources for further exploration, but this book seems to discuss only what the writer finds interesting and that, to oversimplify, mainly involves language’s origins, language families (yawn), and an array of linguistic nuts and bolts. There are few references to other linguists (except ones whose views are outdated, with the exceptions perhaps of Chomsky and Saussure), other branches of linguistics, or key and competing theories, e.g. conceptualizations of what language is, etc. But the worst part of this book is that it is so incredibly dull. Finally, this review represents a criticism and therefore could provide you with more insight into what language is than the book it criticizes.
Troy Parfitt is the author of War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada
“Thus, if we take a set [a, b, c], with members a, b, and c, and subtract from it a set [b, c], with members b and c, the result must be also a set, [a], which has a single member a.”
There, are you now clear on the concept of “sets” or do I hear snoring?
And, say, what’s the connection between language and thought? Certainly that’s an area worth exploring, eh? Is language thought? Or is thought language? Well, a picture of a woman wearing a sling accompanied by the question, “Has she or has she not broken her arm?” should have you doing a philosophical contortion act in your quest for enlightenment and by that I mean you’ll probably be icing your wrists and sharpening a blade.
Goodness gracious. Is this book really from Oxford? The writer starts out by telling us it’s hard to study linguistics because language is partly a social construction, only it takes several pages for him to get this out and then he keeps coming back to it as though it’s a stunning revelation. Yes, yes, we know, we know. The social world is socially constructed. Just say it once, and move on. Also, just as the reader’s spotted a topic that seems interesting, e.g. for me: What is language?, the writer wanders off in some other direction, telling us how many languages there are or that languages are “abstractions” (what does that mean?) and – brace yourself – dialects may be whole other languages.
This is effort is poor. I read the books in this series on the British Empire and Carl Jung and they were outstanding. They touched on all the foundational knowledge, included lots of citations, and went into the debates, e.g. ‘Was Jung a Nazi sympathiser or anti-Semite? How have his theories held up?’ and ‘Was the Empire good or bad? Can it be distilled to something as simple as good or bad?’ Those books provided excellent OVERVIEWS, giving you a framework and sources for further exploration, but this book seems to discuss only what the writer finds interesting and that, to oversimplify, mainly involves language’s origins, language families (yawn), and an array of linguistic nuts and bolts. There are few references to other linguists (except ones whose views are outdated, with the exceptions perhaps of Chomsky and Saussure), other branches of linguistics, or key and competing theories, e.g. conceptualizations of what language is, etc. But the worst part of this book is that it is so incredibly dull. Finally, this review represents a criticism and therefore could provide you with more insight into what language is than the book it criticizes.
Troy Parfitt is the author of War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada
December 30, 2021
Brains, words, history, anthropology, culture - how does all of it compress into the territory of a human interaction? How did we come to learn to exchange clever combos of sounds to mean stuff? Why are languages so very different? Are they even translatable or do we lose large layers of meaning each time stuff gets translated? River - riviere/fleuve?
July 27, 2015
I was constantly asking myself throughout this book "what is he getting at?" or "what is the point of this chapter" "or what is the point of these examples." It was a very sporadic and poorly organized introduction to linguistics.
April 16, 2018
این کتابچه معرفی مختصری است از دانش زبانشناسی و موضوعات مرتبط با آن. مخاطب چنین آثاری معمولاً انتظار دارد موضوعات بهشکلی ابتدایی و مناسب خوانندۀ مبتدی عرضه شود؛ اما برخلاف آنچه در پیشگفتار مترجم آمده، نویسنده در جاهایی بیشازحد به مبحثهای جزئی و تخصصی وارد شده و ریزهکاریهایی را بررسیده که چندان درخور چنین کتابی نیست. بهعلاوه، آنچه تااندازهای فهم مطلب را برای مخاطب فارسیزبان دشوار میکند، این است که عمدۀ مثالها و شواهد از زبان انگلیسی است. ازاینرو، برای فهم دقیق و درست مطلب، لازم است مخاطب دانشی نسبی از این زبان نیز داشته باشد. ایراد دیگر، فصلبندی نامناسب کتاب است. بهگمان من، فصلهای کتاب نظمونسق دقیق و درستی ندارد و خواننده را از کلیات بهسوی جزئیات یا از موضوعات عام بهسوی موضوعات تخصصی هدایت نمیکند. بااینهمه و بهرغم اشکالهای موجود، این اثر یکسره خالی از فایده نیست. بهبیان دیگر، کتابی است که به یک بار خواندن میارزد و میتوان آموزههایی از آن برگرفت.
February 25, 2008
As the title says, this is indeed a very short introduction. Linguistics is a science that is well over a century old, and there's been reams and reams of paper devoted to it. Most, however, is incredibly obscure and not really geared for the casual reader. This book, fortunately, is. It does get dangerously close to an insomnia cure at times, though.
I figured I'd pick it up on the basis that I would soon be immersing myself in an intensive study of English, How To Teach It. I don't honestly know if knowing something about linguistics will help or hinder that study, but it seems like a step in the right direction.
Anyway, linguistics: the study of language, how it works and why it works. This book covers a lot of the basic branches of linguistics - the study of structure and rules, the study of phonetics, language history, brain science and so on - without bogging down too far in the details. It also provides a nice little reading list if you're interested in reading more.
Which, at the moment, I'm not.
I figured I'd pick it up on the basis that I would soon be immersing myself in an intensive study of English, How To Teach It. I don't honestly know if knowing something about linguistics will help or hinder that study, but it seems like a step in the right direction.
Anyway, linguistics: the study of language, how it works and why it works. This book covers a lot of the basic branches of linguistics - the study of structure and rules, the study of phonetics, language history, brain science and so on - without bogging down too far in the details. It also provides a nice little reading list if you're interested in reading more.
Which, at the moment, I'm not.
November 17, 2020
A pretty decent read. I went into this already quite familiar with linguistics, wanting to get reacquainted with some concepts. On the historical side, this was very much accomplished. Our journey through the history of language was paved with nice wording and concise text. Jolly good!
Unfortunately, the linguistic side is rather lacking. Very little is covered, I believe too little even for a very short introduction. Language theories are very briefly mentioned and only a couple aspects of grammar are touched upon.
If I was new to the field, or if I wanted to read about this topic as an outsider, I believe this would be a 4/5. It does just enough to entice you to delve deeper into linguistics. But unfortunately (and maybe unsurprisingly) this is not very useful for more experienced readers. Still, a light read!
Unfortunately, the linguistic side is rather lacking. Very little is covered, I believe too little even for a very short introduction. Language theories are very briefly mentioned and only a couple aspects of grammar are touched upon.
If I was new to the field, or if I wanted to read about this topic as an outsider, I believe this would be a 4/5. It does just enough to entice you to delve deeper into linguistics. But unfortunately (and maybe unsurprisingly) this is not very useful for more experienced readers. Still, a light read!
February 9, 2018
It makes my curiosity great again.
January 10, 2018
với mình cuốn này vừa đủ để gọi là dẫn nhập ngắn.
việc sử dụng tiếng việt của mình hoàn toàn là bản năng, trong khi nếu phải học để sử dụng một ngôn ngữ khác thì hoàn toàn là bị áp đặt(về ngữ pháp, cách dùng), nên mình nghĩ cũng sẽ thú vị nếu thử đọc một cuốn sách để tìm hiểu cách thức người ta tạo ra, sử dụng, các biến đổi ngôn ngữ ra sao ... nhưng mà mãi giờ mới đọc :p
việc sử dụng tiếng việt của mình hoàn toàn là bản năng, trong khi nếu phải học để sử dụng một ngôn ngữ khác thì hoàn toàn là bị áp đặt(về ngữ pháp, cách dùng), nên mình nghĩ cũng sẽ thú vị nếu thử đọc một cuốn sách để tìm hiểu cách thức người ta tạo ra, sử dụng, các biến đổi ngôn ngữ ra sao ... nhưng mà mãi giờ mới đọc :p
July 19, 2019
آنقدر درگیر تحلیل مثالهای جزئی میشد که نمیتوانست مفاهیم پایه را منتقل کند
March 29, 2021
Excessively lightweight
August 2, 2025
Malce hecno, da grem to brat, ko delam doktorat iz lingvistike, ampak je v resnici kar soliden pregled nekaterih osnov. Ni sicer zelo up to date, malo je za časom, ampak kot neko izhodišče pa ni slabo. Me pa vedno malo zmoti, ko nekdo dokaj extensively (v tem primeru glede na dolžino knjige) piše o ednini in množini in kako nimajo vsi jeziki nujno enakega koncepta, ampak pri tem sploh ne omeni obstoja dvojine - niti historično ("prava" dvojina v indoevropskih jezikih včasih ni bila taka redkost). Bi bilo na mestu in za marsikoga zanimivo, bi rekla.
3.5
3.5
August 1, 2017
A great quick introduction to linguistics if you know next to nothing about the subject. Matthews does a good job of explaining advanced concepts and deep insights in a simplified manner, accessible to the lay reader. This book left me with a piqued interest in languages and the study of them. The author being a linguist, and this being a very basic introduction to the field, I naturally expected everything to be in simple terms. But ironically, even though the concepts presented were greatly simplified, I kept encountering long-winded, hard to parse sentences from time to time. That could very well be just a peculiarity (or a shortcoming) of my comprehension. That doesn't make the book any less interesting! Certainly recommended if you are fascinated by languages.
August 19, 2015
I learned some new things such as the origin of speech, that speech is generated in the left hemisphere of the brain, that languages can be connected through their phonetic structures, and how distance leads to the creation of new languages. It started to get too boring to pay attention to. I actually went to sleep reading it more than once.
June 5, 2016
A very frustrating read. The book fails to encompass the subject the way an introductory book should. Oh, and the author overuses commas like the world is going to run out of them!
January 31, 2019
I enjoyed the last chapter but the book as a whole wasn't what I expected. I was expecting an overview and history of linguistics.
dnf
March 10, 2023Incredibly boring, covering a lot of familiar material, with too many obvious examples. DNF at 50%
April 20, 2015
This series from OUP is a great idea: renowned figures from different fields of learning write a short introductory work (100-150 pp) which serves to pique interest, provide an overview, refresh memories or provide a gateway to a decent bibliography. Like a classier version of the …For Dummies franchise.
Linguistics should be ideal for this treatment: here is a field where advances in knowledge of the mechanics of the brain can have game-changing consequences, where cultural changes like increased visual grammars can make their mark, where increasing or decreasing literacy levels can change some of its ground rules, where ever-larger corpuses can offer up some useful avenues of statistical or documentary research and where the upsurge in video material provides unbeatable material from earlier decades which now could have some bearing on the work being done today. Essentially, it's like the 15th century on Earth, where there is still plenty out there to find and maybe even discover (or "discover"). And writers like Steven Pinker have found a way to delve into and shine a light on some of its more technical areas without necessarily blowing the gaskets in their lay readers' brains.
Unfortunately Matthews can't really seem to bring this lively field to life. The different clumps (which could have been diverse and exciting horizons) sort of lay around without a thread. This is not necessarily a bad thing - sometimes the academic writer strives too hard for a thread and it feels contrived - but here there's a definite sense that the book doesn't really take off. Language, when you think about it is such an extraordinary achievement and apparently so tightly wired into our DNA that it's practically more of a poser for Darwin's theory than the eye was. How did we get from grunts and fists to this? And now the linguist, viewing this extraordinary machine, gets tools that are getting closer to allowing a form of reverse engineering. One would think this could lead to trembling hands, light heads along with the proper scientific sobriety.
Instead what we get is, well, more or less the tedious hinterland of dullsville. There are some writers on linguistics who focus on word use (and word games), there are some who dive into the neurological area. Matthews is a linguistic morphologist, looking at the structure of morphemes in words, the sequences they are placed into etc. and this is a (very) late career work. That can be an abstruse branch which needs a sprightly touch, but done right there's a whole wealth of intercultural similarities or telling connections to call upon. Here he touches on pretty well everything (with a touch that's much less than sprightly), but really illuminates nothing, provides us with very little to go on with, other than a reasonable but brief bibliography, and then slips away like a chief in a fight, having failed in the bid to inspire people to enter the wonderful world of linguistics, if only for a few hours, but probably not really caring one way or the other.
Linguistics should be ideal for this treatment: here is a field where advances in knowledge of the mechanics of the brain can have game-changing consequences, where cultural changes like increased visual grammars can make their mark, where increasing or decreasing literacy levels can change some of its ground rules, where ever-larger corpuses can offer up some useful avenues of statistical or documentary research and where the upsurge in video material provides unbeatable material from earlier decades which now could have some bearing on the work being done today. Essentially, it's like the 15th century on Earth, where there is still plenty out there to find and maybe even discover (or "discover"). And writers like Steven Pinker have found a way to delve into and shine a light on some of its more technical areas without necessarily blowing the gaskets in their lay readers' brains.
Unfortunately Matthews can't really seem to bring this lively field to life. The different clumps (which could have been diverse and exciting horizons) sort of lay around without a thread. This is not necessarily a bad thing - sometimes the academic writer strives too hard for a thread and it feels contrived - but here there's a definite sense that the book doesn't really take off. Language, when you think about it is such an extraordinary achievement and apparently so tightly wired into our DNA that it's practically more of a poser for Darwin's theory than the eye was. How did we get from grunts and fists to this? And now the linguist, viewing this extraordinary machine, gets tools that are getting closer to allowing a form of reverse engineering. One would think this could lead to trembling hands, light heads along with the proper scientific sobriety.
Instead what we get is, well, more or less the tedious hinterland of dullsville. There are some writers on linguistics who focus on word use (and word games), there are some who dive into the neurological area. Matthews is a linguistic morphologist, looking at the structure of morphemes in words, the sequences they are placed into etc. and this is a (very) late career work. That can be an abstruse branch which needs a sprightly touch, but done right there's a whole wealth of intercultural similarities or telling connections to call upon. Here he touches on pretty well everything (with a touch that's much less than sprightly), but really illuminates nothing, provides us with very little to go on with, other than a reasonable but brief bibliography, and then slips away like a chief in a fight, having failed in the bid to inspire people to enter the wonderful world of linguistics, if only for a few hours, but probably not really caring one way or the other.
December 22, 2022
[4.25/5]
A good introduction for anyone who doesn't know much about Linguistics. It is very interesting and relatively well-written.
As usual with these sorts of texts, there are a few things that weren't new for me and others that are already out of date. I did learn more than I expected, though, which was good.
It might be the nature of it being an introductory book, but there were moments where I felt the author repeated himself quite a bit to reinforce an idea. This got a bit tiring at times, especially when I've understood his point the first time he made it and the repetitiveness just made me more confused about whether he had actually made a point or not.
A good introduction for anyone who doesn't know much about Linguistics. It is very interesting and relatively well-written.
As usual with these sorts of texts, there are a few things that weren't new for me and others that are already out of date. I did learn more than I expected, though, which was good.
It might be the nature of it being an introductory book, but there were moments where I felt the author repeated himself quite a bit to reinforce an idea. This got a bit tiring at times, especially when I've understood his point the first time he made it and the repetitiveness just made me more confused about whether he had actually made a point or not.
February 7, 2024
Parts I found very interesting, parts I found less so - the family trees of different languages with common roots was of limited value, the phonetic notation sorta lost me - and with these short guides there generally is a sense that certain parts could've been expanded a little more.. but in truth this was a very readable and somewhat enlightening taster of the field and a stimulus for further reading.
July 31, 2013
Not bad, but not great either. Matthews doesn't really give you a clear sense of what linguistics is, in my opinion, but he does cover a number of interesting areas. It's worth a read, if you're looking for a quick summary of a handful of interesting ideas, but if you want depth OR breadth, go elsewhere.
September 14, 2009
A really dry approach, which, though well informed and occasionally interesting, wasn't consistently so, and maintaining interest was tough going.
Read
January 21, 2021no rating, rather dull with a couple interesting bits. was hoping for something a little more technical, so those were the parts that I enjoyed.
December 20, 2021
Lately AVSI has become my starting book for topics. And Rarely the books of this series underwhelm. This was such a case.
September 15, 2025
An interesting if scattered summary of the field of linguistics. Part sociology, part anthropology, part neuroscience, all words words words. Like a lot of fields there are huge gaps in knowledge because of things like "we don't actually know how brains work" and "there are no existing records from this time period." But Matthews does a solid job of showing how analysis and theory based on trace evidence is the joyful work of lifetimes
April 2, 2023
برای منی که هیچ ایده خاصی از زبان شناسی نداشتم مرور جالبی به حوزه های تحقیق زبان شناسی داشت و ایده های جالبی بهم داد اما خب شاید میتونست منسجم تر از این بنویسه و گاهی اینقدر پراکنده گویی نکنه
June 30, 2023
i do not feel very introduced.
September 26, 2024
Useful, informative.
August 4, 2024
i literally have next to no coherent thoughts about this. i read it and my head is full of bees. the overarching vibe is: dull!
March 25, 2024
Short, but dull
May 30, 2013
A pretty good read, with some interesting parts about how English has evolved and some philosophical musings on the nature of structures, words, grammatical forms and meanings, with some illustrations of terrible quality to accompany.
To start with, Matthews does a good job in getting your attention, and he presents some interesting cases in linguistics that are worth researching further. However, he quickly loses some momentum, and he is too passive in acknowledging how linguists can contribute to fruitful interdisciplinary quests. For example, there are a lot of interesting ways in which linguistics can be combined with psychology (or even music psychology!), but Matthews shows an approach to this which seems almost dismissive. Also, biolinguistics is a new and very interesting field, but language and evolution does not receive enough attention in this introduction.
The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford is overall very readable, and Matthews book is no exception (apart from a kind of tedious chapter on phonetics), but unfortunately it does not engage enough to make the reader want to jump right on to the next book. A shame, since there are a lot of interesting aspects in linguistics if you take some liberties in broadening the field of study.
To start with, Matthews does a good job in getting your attention, and he presents some interesting cases in linguistics that are worth researching further. However, he quickly loses some momentum, and he is too passive in acknowledging how linguists can contribute to fruitful interdisciplinary quests. For example, there are a lot of interesting ways in which linguistics can be combined with psychology (or even music psychology!), but Matthews shows an approach to this which seems almost dismissive. Also, biolinguistics is a new and very interesting field, but language and evolution does not receive enough attention in this introduction.
The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford is overall very readable, and Matthews book is no exception (apart from a kind of tedious chapter on phonetics), but unfortunately it does not engage enough to make the reader want to jump right on to the next book. A shame, since there are a lot of interesting aspects in linguistics if you take some liberties in broadening the field of study.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews