Customer Reviews

Exploring Language with Logo (Exploring With Logo)

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This book is basically about using simple programs in Logo to generate natural language at various levels, mainly syntax and morphology, but also some phonology and, you could say, etymology. There are also interesting and often profound digressions into the history of English, various aspects of synchronic and diachronic linguistics, and even what it means to formulate a linguistic theory. Parts of this book feel like a good intro-linguistics book, parts of it feel like a jr-high or high school intro-to-programming book, and parts of it feel like just a fun book written by people enthusiastic about language.

First off, this book is interesting and entertaining just to read on one's own.

Second off, this could form the basis of a course (or part of one) in, well, exploring language, at any level from junior high to college. This book could just as easily be useful for a ninth-grade computer science teacher to pull two or three exercises out of, as it could be for someone devising a college course based entirely around this book.

Now, I was somewhat surprised by Logo having been the language chosen for this book, but: 1) it's a harmless choice, and the code in the book is easily intelligible to people with a programming background but no knowledge of Logo; 2) I don't consider any of the points in the book to depend on the choice of language; and 3) any instructor who felt the use of Logo to be problematic could easily provide students with translations of the code into some other language, or maybe just teach them just enough Logo to be able to read the examples.