Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!news.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!deb5
From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Book Review - The Language Instinct (Pinker)
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ellis.uchicago.edu
Message-ID: <Dqw5DI.oD@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: The University of Chicago
References: <4lmi16$191@morrow.stanford.edu> <DqHC64.A2C.B.ss1@bath.ac.uk> <chenrich-2704961308050001@ppp24.monmouth.com> <MILLIE.96Apr28054849@gauss.math.brown.edu>
Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 17:17:41 GMT
Lines: 47

In article <MILLIE.96Apr28054849@gauss.math.brown.edu>,
Millie Niss <millie@gauss.math.brown.edu> wrote:
>In article <chenrich-2704961308050001@ppp24.monmouth.com> chenrich@monmouth.com (Christopher J. Henrich) writes:
>
>   > In the referenced article, rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards) writes:
>   > >
>   > >Surely you're not saying that Chomsky's ideas are easily accessible to the
>   > >average reader without restating.  Or have I missed British irony again?
>
>Chomsky is not all that inaccessible.  

Try this:  Hand a copy of _Syntactic Structures_ to one of your non-
linguist friends and see how accessible they tell you it is.

>And someone who is reading a
>linguistics book is not exactly the general reader.

In general, yes, but Pinker's book is an exception.  I know that many of
the people who have recommended it to me have never read another book on
linguistics before, and certainly have not been exposed to details of
Chomskyan linguistic analysis (*political* analysis, yes, but not
linguistic).  The fact that Pinker spends so much time debunking prescrip-
tivism is also a major clue to who his audience is.  What English-
speaking linguist out there still needs to be convinced of the primacy
of descriptivism?

>I think Douglas Clark has a point-- every popular book on linguistics
>seems to spend a hundred pages summarizing phrase structure grammar
>and then has less space for whatever is supposed to be the point of
>the new book.  I suspect that most people who are reading one book
>about linguistics have read at least one such book previously, or have
>taken a course, or are in a related field...  I always wonder if the
>publisher forces the authors of these books to do this, because I am
>sure the authors would rather write about their own ideas.

I suspect you're right about what sort of people read books on popular
linguistics, but I also suspect that publishers keep hoping for one that
will end up on the best-seller list--as Pinker's did.  Assuming even a 
basic knowledge of generative grammar is not going to generate much cross-
over appeal in a society where the subject of formal grammar is practically 
dead outside of parochial schools. 


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
