Watch the Amazon Original series Cross now on Prime Video. Yours with Prime.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
-55% $31.23
FREE delivery December 31 - January 3 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$31.23 with 55 percent savings
List Price: $69.00
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery December 31 - January 3 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Monday, December 30
In Stock
$$31.23 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$31.23
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
For the 2024 holiday season, eligible items purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2024 can be returned until January 31, 2025.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$9.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
This item shows wear including moderate wear to edges and cover. This item shows wear including moderate wear to edges and cover. See less
FREE delivery Monday, December 30 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Saturday, December 28. Order within 5 hrs 4 mins.
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$31.23 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$31.23
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Randy Allen Harris
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Linguistics Wars

by Randy Allen Harris (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 12 ratings
See all formats and editions

There is a newer edition of this item:

The Linguistics Wars: Chomsky, Lakoff, and the Battle over Deep Structure
The Linguistics Wars: Chomsky, Lakoff, and the Battle over Deep Structure
$39.33
(31)
Only 15 left in stock (more on the way).
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$31.23","priceAmount":31.23,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"31","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"23","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"RGFatpufmVOKGQr0YNMwkdmPyWPjkcf%2F%2BfAxY8drWHrQlcJGD7h7vKW1djHAu5cUViCV8H2XLfiir1KlzS2L5rm1io5w192uJAfHo8UohGkxRAMEerH1PQmbwHgZ5dBXjUfpKPkFKjk%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$9.99","priceAmount":9.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"RGFatpufmVOKGQr0YNMwkdmPyWPjkcf%2Fr66tjkZHim5yDbEZBuORZIoXF8BZYW9f49RcQ6Fda5UY4PRxRZpCWL7%2Bzekht8VJ8wPu%2BNkgag3o472DWRH4YxTXzKqqq2r8zrINMLR9OvM4iXEjqSiJuv8hnK0bDD8CaDvL4b7Lyyaz9M3YdZQNhwVj68JaW4c5","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades.
Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out.
In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties.
The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself.
The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.
Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-10
    019509834X
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0195098341
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press USA
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1993
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    8.95 x 6.01 x 1.08 inches
  7. Print length
    368 pages
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I enjoyed The Linguistics Wars immensely. Randy Harris writes with erudition and wit and always succeeds in presenting a balanced view of the controversies that have raged in the history of generative grammar. He made me reconsider a number of positions that I have argued for in my own work; typically, even where I remained in disagreement with him, he made me appreciate a complexity to the issues that I had overlooked."--Frederick J. Newmeyer, author of The Politics of Linguistics and Linguistic Theory of America

"In this evenhanded, trenchant and witty academic chronicle, Harris looks at the fierce, acrimonious controversies that have rocked linguistics since the 1950s."--Publishers Weekly

"Through his deep and extensive research, Randy Allen Harris has managed to throw new light on the schism in generative linguistics which indelibly colored the period from the late sixties to the late seventies. His insightful account of this period and the major figures involved reveals many new aspects of the disagreements and disputes at issue and the features of fact, theory and personality which underlay them. Future study of this period in linguistics will surely be shaped by this excellent work, which captures very closely the feel of what went on. I am inclined to say that the level of scholarship which the author manifests on nearly every page in many ways puts to shame that of much of the material he deals with."--Paul M. Postal [Note: no affiliation, per author request]

"Highly informative and entertaining....Highly recommended for all libraries, essential for academic libraries."--Choice

"Harris has captured the flavour and fervour of the [linguistic] debates to perfection....[He] has achieved the near impossible: being fair to both sides in a civil war."--Nature

"This is intellectual drama crossed with a Shakespearean history play."--The Sciences

About the Author

Randy Allen Harris is Associate Professor of English at the University of Waterloo.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press USA (January 1, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 019509834X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195098341
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.95 x 6.01 x 1.08 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Randy Allen Harris

Randy Allen Harris

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Randy Harris was born in the new hospital in Kitimat, BC, Canada, in 1956. After some time there, and some more time in Campbell River, BC, he spent an inexcusably long time moving around the continent, from university to university, getting an education. He attended the University of Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta, mostly studying philosophy. He transferred to Queen's University, in Southern Ontario, where he earned an Honours B.A. in English Literature. He went to Dalhousie University, in Halifax, where he earned an M.A. in English Literature, specializing in Henry Fielding. Next came the University of Alberta, where he earned an M.Sc. in Experimental Linguistics, specializing in aphasia. To round things off, he went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY, where he earned an M.Sc. in Technical Communication, specializing in graphics, and a Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric, specializing in scientific argumentation and Chomskyan linguistics. Whew.

Upon escaping university, he worked for several years at Bell-Northern Research, in Ottawa, but somehow ended up back in university: he now teaches linguistics, rhetoric, and communication design in the English department at the University of Waterloo. He also researches and writes about a range of things, most of which sound terribly pompous, but are really an awful lot of fun.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
12 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Jonathan Visona
    5.0 out of 5 stars As Promised
    Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    : )
    Helpful
     Report
  • Iván
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Really cool book and really good state almost new.
    Helpful
     Report
  • Librum
    5.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting and very challenging read
    Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2012
    Kudos to the author for attempting the impossible (in the first half of the book, at least): to offer a concise overview of the long history of linguistics as well as the much briefer -- yet enormously complex -- history of modern linguistics, peppered with just enough linguistic theory to serve as a creditable (and highly intelligible) introduction (of sorts) to the discipline. As a non-specialist reader, I found the first half of TLW especially satisfying, and learned an enormous amount about the field as it is practiced in its many bifurcating subfields. Besides being a terrific guide to this highly abstruse subject matter, Harris is also a terrific writer. What could otherwise have been a completely dry academic account sparkles, instead, with fascinating observations and the author's oft- and effectively-deployed wry humor. As a non-specialist reader, I found the going increasingly difficult in the second half of the book, which revolves principally about a several years' war between the interpretivists (Chomsky et al) and the generative semanticists (Lakoff et al). The chapters dealing with the meat of this conflict were a little less transparent on the substance of the ideas at stake, and seemed (to this reader) to presuppose some (if not considerable) expertise on the part of the reader. I don't fault the author, though. It's hard to imagine TLW was intended for a non-specialist readership. I'm delighted to have made it through from cover to cover with a general understanding of the linguistics wars, and the different aims of the interpretivists v. the semanticists. If there were parts of TLW I had a tougher time grasping than others, the entire book still gave me worlds to chew on. TLW is a brilliant history, a fascinating sociology of the field of modern linguistics, an incisive introduction to current (at least roughly current) thinking in the field, and a very entertaining read to boot. It is a model study of its kind, a truly outstanding book.
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Luca turin
    2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
    Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Written in a chatty but unfocused and messy style, this book is 50% scholarly history and 50% gossip. There is nothing wrong in principle with this mix, which could make for a very entertaining story. Except that the scholarly stuff is poorly explained so that the nonspecialist has no idea what the words and concepts mean, while the gossip is mostly parochial and unilluminating. Reading this book is like being married to an ambitious linguist: through repetition you become familiar with the names but, at length, couldn't care less about this irrevelant war between tiny piranhas in an academic fishbowl. All in all confirms my general belief that, in the social sciences, eloquence, charisma and the ability to bully others into submission matter more than being right, assuming such a thing is even possible.
    11 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Christopher Schroen
    5.0 out of 5 stars The big picture
    Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2004
    This book does a fantastic job of explaining the ever-shifting scope of linguistics, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. Even better, it puts the field of linguistics into a larger context, so you can see where the influential thinkers were coming from.
    What do linguists think the study of human language should entail? What does a linguist consider important, interesting, relevant, and/or worth examining and studying? The answers to these questions have changed over the years, and sometimes radically so. You'll read a lot, of course, about Chomsky's ideas and theories, and the disagreements he had with many linguists who considered themselves his disciples, but you'll also come away with an appreciation of the influence that 20th-century philosophy (Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, Logical Positivism) had on the field of linguistics, and a realization that the age-old empiricism/rationalism debate is still going on, and is still important, today.
    "The Linguistics Wars" is a great read, an excellent history of linguistics, a decent intro to Chomsky, and a good reminder of the importance of philosophy as well. If you're at all interested in linguistics, or curious about what kind of work linguists actually do, or want to know why everybody thinks Chomsky is such a big deal, you'll probably enjoy this book.
    17 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Kevin B. Cohen
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books about linguistics ever written
    Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2000
    This really is one of the best books about linguistics ever written--maybe the best. As a linguist, it brought me to a whole new level of insight about my field. I wish I'd read it before I ever started graduate school, instead of afterwards--every graduate student should read this before taking their first syntax course. I managed to make it through six years of graduate school without ever understanding why people found syntax and semantics interesting; this book helped me to understand why they did. That's not really the best thing about this book, though; the best thing about it is the story that it tells about an exciting and turbulent time in the scientific field that's more interesting (to me, at any rate) than any other.
    29 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report