The Linguistics Wars

Reviews / Votes

The Linguistics Wars is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the dispute it covers and its aftermath, as long as its limitations are kept in mind. * Nicholas Allott, Journal of Pragmatics * The book is generative, indeed. * Judith Kaplan, Journal of the History of Science Society * The first edition of this volume recounts the "war" between linguists based at MIT from 1967 to 1977. It pitted Noam Chomsky and supporters of his then-current theory, interpretive semantics, against proponents of generative semantics, with the relation of syntax to meaning in dispute. In 2021, the "war" read very differently....Disputants were overwhelmingly male and students of the same teachers. Papers included insider jokes, and public confrontations turned personal...this second edition presents new material charting the careers of the major figures, regretting the tradition of rhetorical belligerence and celebrating a more open discourse in the emerging subdisciplines. Harris increases prominence of female scholars, particularly Robin Lakoff, and concludes by describing Chomsky's scholarly practice and speculating on his lasting legacy. Tracking the evolution of linguistic theory, this volume supersedes the first. * J. Adlington, McMaster University, CHOICE * Harris ... demonstrates a deep knowledge of the issues in the conflict; he also brings a needed sense of perspective to the story. His stunning bibliography runs a monograph-length 65 pages, with over 1600 entries, and he appears to have absorbed it all. * Andy Rogers, LINGUIST List 33.3261 * Randy Harris has written an extremely engaging account of the rise of generative syntax and of some of the linguists who participated in this development, focusing on the scruffy fights that held a lot of people's attention in the second half of the 1960s, and then tracking the trajectories of the linguists after that very belligerent moment. The book is great fun to read-Randy is a terrific writer, the likes of which we rarely see among academics-and along the way, the reader learns a lot of linguistics. * John Goldmith, History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences, University of Chicago * Linguists, whatever your persuasion, please read this book. Seriously, it's hard to understand the current field without knowing this history. It's unbiased (no one is immune), accurate, and most importantly, entertaining. * Adele Goldberg, Princeton University * Randy Harris has done the intellectual world a remarkable service. * Geoffrey Sampson, LingBuzz * [Harris's] style is direct and informal. He is sharp and clear even on quite technical topics, his grasp of competing theories is sound, and his tales of the rise and fall of GS are well documented. . . . Anyone who wants insight into what has been going on in Chomskyan linguistics this past half century should read the new edition of The Linguistics Wars. * Geoffrey K. Pullum, National Review * If you want to know how Chomsky's Minimalism and Lakoff's Cognitive Linguistics developed such different views on how knowledge of language is organized in the human mind, I strongly recommend reading the second edition of The Linguistics Wars. This new edition extends the history to the present in the same well-informed and lively way for which the first edition received so much praise. * Ad Foolen, Radboud University * Praise for the First Edition This is intellectual history crossed with a Shakespearean history play. * David Berreby, The Sciences * A fascinating tale of ambition and animus that makes the linguistic analyses (and antics) of a bygone day accessible to non-linguists. * Stephen O. Murray, Language Sciences * "[The Linguistic Wars] is extraordinarily well written, far more enjoyable and interesting than anything I've ever read in the history of linguistics, approachable by any non-linguist interested in the topics covered -- and utterly fascinating for linguists. ... the standard of scholarship exemplified in this book is simply stunning. * John Lawler, The LINGUIST List * [Harris] documents in meticulous detail, with great sensitivity and unswerving impartiality, how Chomsky's early theories captured the imagination of the new generation cognitive scientists and resulted in the overthrow of Bloomfieldian linguistics and behaviourist psychology more generally. He explains the elegance of 'deep structure' and the power of Chomsky's conception of language as expounded in the 'standard theory', and then shows how a disparate group of young scholars, the generative semanticists, effectively hijacked the fledgling theory and developed it in ways so radical that Chomsky soon came to be seen as a reactionary fighting a rearguard action against the forces of progress. . . .I can vouch for the accuracy and fairness of Harris's dissection. . . .Harris has achieved the near impossible: being fair to both sides in a civil war. * Neil Smith, Nature * Randy Harris... brilliantly combines human interest with a skilful and often highly technical commentary on analyses favoured by the opposing camps. * John N. Green, Modern Language Review * The Linguistics Wars^ Rcontributes to knowledge by way of bringing academic life down from its pedestal, allowing us to see it in human terms, and in the process showing us that it is both less pristine and more exciting than its image in the general culture would lead most people to expect. Doing so makes academic work more accessible and academic behavior more accountable. The great strength of Harris's account is that he combines the linguist's understanding of the technical issues involved in research and theory construction with the historian's appreciation of the role that social and psychological factors play in a scientific community. * John Laurence Miller, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research * In this evenhanded, trenchant and witty academic chronicle, Harris looks at the fierce, acrimonious controversies that have rocked linguistics since the 1950s. At center stage is Noam Chomsky whose search for the innate structures underlying language revolutionized what had been primarily a descriptive, behavioristic science. Chomsky's followers, notably George Lakoff, James McCawley, Paul Postal and Haj Ross, came to view Chomskyan deep structure"" as a barrier to forging a link between sound and meaning. * Genevieve Stuttaford, Publishers Weekly * Harris's book is a strikingly ambitious one, combining historical accuracy, conceptual detail, satirical humour, and theatrical imagery, written in a careful style that alternates between more formal and more casual tones and registers. * Cameron Morin, Cognitive Linguistics Studies * This book provides an interesting example of recent history and is an important milestone in Chomsky historiography. * J. LA (c)on, Histoire ApistA (c)mologie Langage *