Product Description
This book is an introduction to statistics for linguists using the open source software R. It is aimed at students and instructors/professors with little or no statistical background and is written in a non-technical and reader-friendly/accessible style.It first introduces in detail the overall logic underlying quantitative studies: exploration, hypothesis formulation and operationalization, and the notion and meaning of significance tests. It then introduces some basics of the software R relevant to statistical data analysis. A chapter on descriptive statistics explains how summary statistics for frequencies, averages, and correlations are generated with R and how they are graphically represented best. A chapter on analytical statistics explains how statistical tests are performed in R on the basis of many different linguistic case studies: For nearly every single example, it is explained what the structure of the test looks like, how hypotheses are formulated, explored, and tested for statistical significance, how the results are graphically represented, and how one would summarize them in a paper/article. A chapter on selected multifactorial methods introduces how more complex research designs can be studied: methods for the study of multifactorial frequency data, correlations, tests for means, and binary response data are discussed and exemplified step-by-step. Also, the exploratory approach of hierarchical cluster analysis is illustrated in detail.The book comes with many exercises, boxes with short think breaks and warnings, recommendations for further study, and answer keys as well as a statistics for linguists newsgroup on the companion website.The volume is aimed at beginners on every level of linguistic education: un ... Read more

Product Description
Corpus linguistics is leading to the development of theories about language which challenge existing orthodoxies in applied linguistics. However, there are also many questions which should be examined and debated: how big should a corpus be? Is the data from a corpus reliable? What are its applications for language teaching? This book exams these and other questions related to this emerging field. This book discusses these important issues and explores the techniques of investigating a corpus, as well as demonstrating the application of corpora in a wide variety of fields. It also outlines the impact corpus linguistics is having on how languages are taught in the classroom and how it is informing language teaching materials and dictionaries. This book makes a superb and accessible introduction to corpus linguistics and is a must read for anyone interested in corpus linguistics and its impact on applied linguistics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a great book
The book is really interesting and easy to read. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in applied linguistics. ... Read more

Product Description
An in-depth introduction to all research methods in linguistics, this is the ideal textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Research Methods are important skills for students of linguistics to learn prior to undertaking research projects at either undergraduate or postgraduate level. Students need to learn how to develop research methods appropriate for their chosen study, and how to record, transcribe, code and analyse the data collected. This comprehensive introduction to research methods in linguistics guides the student through these areas, offering advice at a theoretical and practical level. The book covers formal, computational, quantitative and qualitative research methods in detail, and each chapter is written by an academic renowned in the field. Topics covered include: using corpora, questionnaire design, computer-assisted content analysis, interview methods, observation, fieldwork in linguistics, and statistic analysis. Providing an in-depth introduction to all research methods in linguistics, this is the ideal textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students encountering linguistic data for the first time."Research Methods in Linguistics" is a new series from Continuum providing a series of introductions to the quantitative and qualitative research methods needed by undergraduate and postgraduate students. The centre of the series is "Research Methods in Linguistics" edited by Lia Litosseliti, which provides a comprehensive overview of all the research methods needed by linguistics students. Each book in the series takes one of the research methods described in the general introduction and expands upon this in a book length study. ... Read more

Product Description
This accessible introduction to the linguistic structure of Portuguese looks at its social and historical background. In addition to covering the central topics of syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics and pragmatics, it explores the development of the language, the spread of Portuguese in the world, and sociolinguistic issues such as dialect variation and language planning. Keeping linguistic theory to a minimum, the book focuses on presenting linguistic facts within a useful global survey of the language and its issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

This book is full of incorrect information
Somehow I have the feeling that author tries too hard to find ''average'' or ''transatlantic'' Portuguese usage in which differences between Continental and SouthernAmerican usage are minimized...But, by doing so, you get a distorted idea of both Continental and Brazilian Portuguese.
The only chapter worth reading is the one on Brazilian diglossia.

An extremely accessible, readable, lucid introduction to both applied linguistics and the Portuguese language
I wish I had found this sooner. It would have been a useful resource for my graduate students in applied linguistics.The focus we chose in our seminar, of preparing ESL materials for Brasilian students and visitors to the U.S. is the "inverse" of the the author's attempt to provide a thorough linguistics-based orientation for English-speakers learning Portuguese. Nevertheless, valuable comparisons can be found throughout this very amenable introduction to linguistics for ESL or EFL teachers who are English-speakers with limited to no knowledge of Portuguese who are attempting to anticipate useful comparisons or as I have decided to call them to avoid the pejorative impression given by talking about "contrasts/conflicts"---"opportunities for clarification".

As possible areas of need for clarification are identified through error analysis of the learners' "interlanguage", this thorough contrastive study provides the vocabulary and information needed to be able to provide guidance to English speakers learning Portuguese, and with some further inference and experience to support reversing the direction of the analysis, to assist Portuguese speakers who are further refining their command of English as a Foreign or Second Language.

I do not dispute the previous reviewer's concerns about inaccuracies in a few details regarding differences in European and Brasilian Portuguese, as I certainly lack any credentials to judge that. I did notice a few minor typographical/copy-editing errors of the sort that seem to plague everything that has been published in the last twenty years, but that hardly inclines me to blame the author, who probably had little or no opportunity to review every page and line of the final copy.

Nevertheless, after spending "time and treasure" trudging through a number of other sources, none of which were accessible to novice students of applied linguistics, few of which were readable for those who like to read with their eyes open, and none of which could be described as "lucid", much less useful for practical purposes...I certainly cannot find justification for rating this as less than a 5-star career achievement for the author and a positive delight for me as a reader and as a lecturer seeking useful examples of applied linguistics which fulfill some of the promise of that approach, with few of the defects of other writers who lack the ability to select and relate the pertinent aspects of a field of study which has evolved in a series of wild gyrations between intriguing theories and practical misuses.

Thank you, Professor Azevedo, you "made my day"!

It could be better
This book contains a good deal of relevant information, but its impressive linguistic jargon may distract from the book's defects.

A rather irritating feature is that a Latin language like Portuguese is analyzed from an Anglophone angle. Where it does not fit, it is 'wrong', as particularly evident in the distorted treatment given to the 'se indeterminado'.

Claimed contrasts between Brazilian and European Portuguese are erratic and full of incorrect statements. The expression 'a gente' appears in this book as a Brazilian Portuguese vulgar alternative to the 1st person plural, overlooking the fact that it is equally and widely used in Portugal. At the most elementary level, this book has yet to learn that the European Portuguese for bathroom is not 'casa de banhos' but 'casa de banho'.

I was also disappointed with the pages on forms of address. Inaccuracies are everywhere, e.g., using 'tu' for maids in Portugal would not be an expression of solidarity as the book tells you but a way of talking down to them.

This takes me to something else I find rather irritating. In the bibliography at the end of the book plenty of minor works are included but some key works are missing. Unfortunate lapse!

In the chapter on forms of address the book states that a study has not been carried out yet on this topic. What about the excellent analysis by Manuela Cook, Uma teoria das formas de tratatmento na lingua portuguesa, published by Georgetown University in Hispania in 1997. This book should know about it!

Summing up, there is some good information in this book, but it could be better. It could be much better. ... Read more

Product Description
In Uttering Trees, Norvin Richards investigates the conditions imposed upon syntax by the need to create syntactic objects that can be interpreted by phonology—that is, objects that can be pronounced. Drawing extensively on linguistic data from a variety of languages, including Japanese, Basque, Tagalog, Spanish, Kinande (Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Chaha (Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia), Richards makes two new proposals about the relationship between syntax and phonology.

The first, "Distinctness," has to do with the process of imposing a linear order on the constituents of the tree. Richards claims that syntactic nodes with many properties in common cannot be directly linearized and must be kept structurally distant from each other. He argues that a variety of syntactic phenomena can be explained by this generalization, including much of what has traditionally been covered by case theory. Richards's second proposal, "Beyond Strength and Weakness," is an attempt to predict, for any given language, whether that language will exhibit overt or covert wh-movement. Richards argues that we can predict whether or not a language can leave wh in situ by investigating more general properties of its prosody. This proposal offers an explanation for a cross-linguistic difference—that wh-phrases move overtly in some languages and covertly in others—that has hitherto been simply stipulated. In both these areas, it appears that syntax begins constructing a phonological representation earlier than previously thought; constraints on both word order and prosody begin at the beginning of the derivation.

Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 56 ... Read more

Product Description
Linguistics for Non-Linguists, Fourth Edition, is a highly readable introductory text that presents students with the basic elements of linguistics in a clear and concise style that any beginner will understand. This newly revised edition continues to expand on the success of earlier editions, taking a subject that is generally considered quite complicated and making it accessible to virtually anyone who requires a basic understanding of linguistics. The authors illustrate major concepts in an easy-to-read style, giving students and specialists in language-related fields an introduction to the essential principles and methods of linguistic theory. Non-linguistics majors will also find this book user-friendly, with a wealth of exercises and references interspersed throughout to help reinforce concepts.Specialists in language-related fields, including Speech-Language Pathology, Experimental Phonetics, Communication, Education, Psychology, and English as a Second Language, will find this text a must-have reference for all courses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great Foundation
This text provides great examples and explanations for students to aquire an understanding of foundational linguistics. Every teacher should be required to study this text in an undergraduate course.

linguistics for non-linguists
They said that the book is looked like very good condition.
But, it's different.

Intro to linguistics
This is a very clear introduction to the various fields of linguistics (The chapters are: Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax, Morphology, Phonology, Language Variation, First Language Acquisition, Second Language Acquisition, Written Language, Language Processing, The Neurology of Language). The book explains the basic concepts and gives some examples. There is a "Supplementary Readings" section at the end of each chapter with recommendations for specialized books on these topics. The exercises the first reviewer is complaining about are mostly very basic and it seems to me that they are designed to give additional examples rather than to challenge the reader. The text focuses on English, which is OK for an introductory book. One thing that may make you think twice before buying this book is its price, which naturally reflects the ideology of the textbook publishing companies - "Students are _required_ to buy textbooks, so we might as well charge them a fortune."

Best Intro to Linguistics Available
My guess is that the other reviewer was disappointed with his or her instructor NOT this textbook. As someone who has been studying and teaching linguistics to novices for twenty years, I recommend this book over any other introductory text. The authors include far more and far better exercises than any of the other introductory texts. The fact that the book includes answers for only a portion of the exercises is, I'm sure, a consequence of marketing this book as a college textbook. The assumption is that a knowledgable instructor will ask students to work the exercises and bring answers to class for discussion. Although a highly motivated and bright student might learn linguistics using this book without an instructor, I have met few such students in the past twenty years.

Thin, inadequate examples, few answers to a text devoted to "exercises"- Don't choose for your students.
I am currently taking a graduate applied linguistics course and this is our text.It is a frustrating book.Half of each chapter is devoted to practice "exercises" {the book is subtitled "a primer with exercises"}, however the authors provide answers for less than 10% of these exercises which are supposed to help us understand each new concept.

Further, I am extremely disappointed that with each concept introduced, on average only one example of the concept is given.Imagine trying to understand a concept of word relations, when only one example is provided, when the study of linguistics implies that there are so many different ways to interpret words and sentences.With only one example, what if my interpretation of the example is "wrong" and I go on to apply this wrong interpretation to further understandings and problems.

In our course we have to answer the chapter questions, and since there has been so little modeling in the book itself, and this is an online class, I cannot adequately judge if I am learning the concepts throughout the chapter exercises that I then have to demonstrate for a grade at the end of the chapter.

The lack of answers to the instructional content of this text makes me feel like I paid for one text book, and the authors supplied only half a text book.Please don't choose this text for your course unless the authors include complete answers for the practice exercises in future editions. ... Read more

Product Description

This state-of-the-art exploration of language, culture, and identity is orchestrated through prominent scholars’ and teachers’ narratives, each weaving together three elements: a personal account based on one or more memorable or critical incidents that occurred in the course of learning or using a second or foreign language; an interpretation of the incidents highlighting their impact in terms of culture, identity, and language; the connections between the experiences and observations of the author and existing literature on language, culture and identity.

What makes this book stand out is the way in which authors meld traditional ‘academic’ approaches to inquiry with their own personalized voices. This opens a window on different ways of viewing and doing research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL. What gives the book its power is the compelling nature of the narratives themselves. Telling stories is a fundamental way of representing and making sense of the human condition. These stories unpack, in an accessible but rigorous fashion, complex socio-cultural constructs of culture, identity, the self and other, and reflexivity, and offer a way into these constructs for teachers, teachers in preparation and neophyte researchers. Contributors from around the world give the book broad and international appeal.

Product Description
All languages change, just as other aspects of human society are constantly changing. This book is an introduction to the concepts and techniques of diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time. It covers all themajor areas of historical linguistics, presenting concepts in a clear and concise way. Examples are given from a wide range of languages, with special emphasis on the languages of Australia and the Pacific. While the needs of undergraduate students of linguistics have been kept firmly in mind, the book will also be of interest to the general reader seeking to understand langauge and language change.

For this fourth edition, a number of new sections have been written, including many new problems and several datasets. Existing materials have been supplemented with new sections on grammaticalization, tonogenesis, morphological change, and using statistical methods in language classification. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

as a textbook
This is a textbook used for my introductory comparative and historical linguistics course. It is a good choice because it is easy to read and to understand. It provides foundation knowledge on languages formation then begins to discuss different topics covered in the comparative and historical linguistics. It gives plenty of exercises for practice and discussion. (unfortunately there is no solution provided) Some of them are pretty challenging and need some thoughts to solve them. I highly recommend this book you all of you. ... Read more

Product Description
"Tell kids not to worry. sorting my life out. be in touch to get some things." Instead of being a text message from one partner to another, this text message turns out to be crucial and chilling evidence in convicting the deceptive killer of a mother of two. Sent from her phone, after her death, a few tell tale signs give him away to a forensic linguist. Rarely is a crime committed without there being some evidence in the form of language. The book includes the much-discussed dispute between the publishers of The Da Vinci Code and the author of Daughter of God where Dan Brown was accused of plagiarism and Olsson provided expert opinion. The case of Jenny Nicholl, so recently in the press, is also covered. There are a series of further chapters where gripping cases are described - involving murder, sexual assault, hate mail, suspicious death, code deciphering, arson and even genocide. Olsson describes the evidence he gave in each one. In approachable and clear prose, he details how forensic linguistics helps the law beat the criminals.This is fascinating reading for anyone interested in true crime, in modern, cutting-edge criminology and also where the study of language meets the law. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Elishia's Windfohrs review on Word Crime through Forensic Linguistics
I really recommend this book to anyone interested in forensic linguistics, little it be known a beautiful science. A taste one must acquire in really understanding motive in any case, understanding it's not what's being Said it's really listening to what's not being said. In this fast paced world everyone wants open and shut cases one must pay attention to words One of the case studies within the book tells of a suspected suicide which is in fact a murder; a murder which may not have been solved if the murderer had used a simple comma instead of a full stop within the forged suicide note. So investigators/ profilers will enjoy this book and maybe be open minded to understand and get to grips with the methods described in the bookprobably will find them really useful in their examination of suspected fraud involving documents, mostly in any case where Discovering the author of a particular document, email, text is an important part of the case. I know it will change the way I review Doc's/text/email in future cases. great read!

Elishia Windfohr

A perfect book for the CSI/mystery/true-crime fan
Fans of CSI, true crime books and mysteries looking for new plots and unique ways of solving crimes will find Wordcrime a deep and rewarding trove of reading.

Internationally renowned forensic linguist John Olsson has created a work that is both highly readable and factually rigorous. This book simultaneously entertains and educates -- a nearly impossible feat in both fact and fiction.

Indeed, some of the true-crimes have details that would have been unbelievable had they been written as fiction.

Written in bite-sized chapters, Wordcrime takes a "from the files of ..." approach as Olsson explains the origins of some of the hundreds f cases he has worked on. Olsson leads us through the genesis of each crime, the methods he used to sleuth his way to the guilty party, and the resolution.

Olsson devotes a small part of each chapter to explain some facet of forensic linguistics -- brief enough to be entertaining and long enough to impart a substantial degree of understanding.

... Read more

Product Description

The first textbook of its kind, Quantitative Corpus Linguistics with R demonstrates how to use the open source programming language R for corpus linguistic analyses. Computational and corpus linguists doing corpus work will find that R provides an enormous range of functions that currently require several programs to achieve – searching and processing corpora, arranging and outputting the results of corpus searches, statistical evaluation, and graphing.

Customer Reviews (4)

Great book for corpus analysis and R!
I have only started reading the book, but it seems like it will be very helpful for my dissertation analyses.I have never used R before, but with the book instructions, I have been able to understand basic commands. I'm not yet far enough to see how easy useful commands will be, but things so far are very well explained. I do have a background in computer science and linguistics, but I haven't used many scripting languages and certainly not for a long time.

Extremely pedagogic introduction to R
When I started reading this book, I knew nothing about R but I was able to follow every single paragraph and example, as all the steps are clearly explained and nothing is taken for granted. Also, the exercises found in the companion website are of great help to acquire the needed practice. This is the perfect textbook for any introductory course to applied corpus linguistics or empirical linguistics.

Considerate Corpus Linguistics and R Introduction
This book was not just written, it was designed--and well designed to teach readers about both corpus linguistics and the R statistics package.This electronic version allows busy readers with Kindles or iPhones to study productively during long commutes, even longer delays at the doctor's office, and endless unpunctuated speeches by boorish colleagues in staff meeting.

The six chapters of Stephan Th. Gries' book unfold in an instructionally sound sequence.Chapter 1 briefly introduces corpus linguistics and directs readers elsewhere for a thorough treatment of its history and theories.The second chapter defines word frequency lists, word collocations, and concordances--three basic analysis tools of the discipline.Chapter 3 shifts focus and introduces the R software.This is an excellent and thorough coverage of R data manipulation, programming, and the text processing needed to analyze linguistic corpora.

Building on this foundation, the book integrates R with linguistic analysis.Chapter 4 revisits word lists, collocations and concordances, teaching readers to implement these methods in R.Chapter 5 reviews the basics of statistical reasoning and introduces additional analysis techniques in R.Chapter 6 presents case studies and points readers to the book's supporting web site for associated data files and R syntax files.

The book is considerate of the reader.It uses only freely-available, open source software such as R, the Tinn-R text editor, and OpenOffice Calc.Beyond the price of the book and access to a computer, the author intends no financial barriers to learning.The micro-design of the chapters is also reader-friendly.R code and output are clearly marked and helpfully annotated.Frequent "Think Breaks" in the chapters challenge readers to solve a small problem before reading the answer.This technique encourages active reading and produces a feeling of satisfaction as one progresses through each section.Chapters end with "For further study/exploration" sections that contain pointers to R documentation, web resources, and further reading.

I recommend this book as a self-contained source about statistical methods in corpus linguistics as implemented in R.I would supplement it with Svenja Adolphs' Introducing Electronic Text Analysis to learn how the results of statistical analysis are used in applied linguistics and related disciplines.

Very Useful book
If you already work with Corpus Linguistics or plan on doing so, this is a book you MUST have, read thoroughly and ensure its application. The use of R as a tool to both manipulate and analyze corpus data is surely an important step towards a more systematic and more quantitatively-oriented CL. Sure enough, this book is the biggest contribution towards this end thus far! ... Read more

Product Description
Corpus Linguistics has quickly established itself as the leading undergraduate course book in the subject. This second edition takes full account of the latest developments in this rapidly changing field, making this book the most up-to-date and comprehensive textbook available. It gives a step-by-step introduction to what a corpus is, how corpora are constructed, and what can be done with them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not useful as a textbook
I am a professor of linguistics, and was assigned to teach a general Corpus Linguistics course for the first time.This book was billed as a standard first textbook in the subject, suitable for uninitiated linguistics students.We have found that the book is chiefly an annotated bibliography of the field, and does not cover enough topics in sufficient depth to serve as a course textbook.I have had to supplement nearly every portion of the course with either additional readings or methodology that I provide on my own.The students find it dreadfully dry, it reads almost like a phone book, jumping lightly from one barely-treated topic to another without ever actually teaching a single thing.

Unfortunately, the publisher refused my efforts to contact them to get myself an advance copy.Now I know why this happened---by letting me see the book in advance, they would likely have lost a bunch of sales.

good introduction to the topic
Even as a non-computational linguist, I found thisbook very readable.It covers a nice range of the relevant topics, and is very careful about defining terminology---a practice that other writers in computational linguistics would do wellto follow.The book is unusually well-organized.Though there's not much depth of coverage of many topics, the references for further reading are very well selected, and do a lot to make up for this.The final chapter gives a very nice example of the application of empirical data to a theoretical question, and is worth the price of the book itself. ... Read more

Product Description
This book explores English as an international language, and how and why it has become so dominant. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

superior scholarship
The good thing about this book is that it becomes clear that linguisticimperialism is really just a widespread (but not universal) shambles inEnglish teaching.It also becomes clear that this shambles is the resultof an unholy alliance between shabby EFL "professionals" andundeserving elites in certain countries where English is taught as anon-native language.It follows that effective reform of paranoid languagepolicy in the relevant countries can deal with the problem of linguisticimperialism as defined.

The author has no need for preposterous"linguistic theories" of the kind that crop up in Pennycook'swork, for example.We don't have to worry about the possibility thatcolonialism has somehow attached itself to the English language, forexample.Nothing in Phillipson's book rules out straightforward reform oflanguage policy.

Indeed, the strength of this book is the fact that itdoes not distract from the fact that the responsibility for reform lieswith the policy-makers in the countries where these neo-colonialistrelationships exist.Indeed, by pointing out the problem in unpretentiousterms, the author is arguing that reform of language policy is the key tobreaking the relationships which lie at the heart of the problem.

This isfar superior to Pennycook's work, which focuses on the responsibility ofthe western teacher (who is expected to shoulder the white man's burden bybeing self-critical, while ignoring the malpractice going on aroundhim).

Phillipson loses a star for not making it clear why theoreticallinguists don't police the field better.We can guess that they havelittle to gain, and a lot to lose, by doing so, but this is left to theimagination.

good questions but biased answers
Phillipson's Linguistic Imperialism is an important book and I doubt thatany serious discussion of English as a World Language should avoid adiscussion of his work. Linguistic Imperialism raises the point (all toooften disregarded) that English Language Teachingdoesn't happen in thinair, that it is connected with politics and ecconomy.

Phillipson arguesthat the center (that is the English speaking countries of the West) haveused English to supress the people of the former colonies. This phenomenonhe refers to as "linguistic imperialism". He deals with 5tenets,or rather fallacies, which have been used for such imperialisticpurposes; the most important of these fallacies are that English is besttaught monolingually (without using other languages) and that it is besttaught by a native speaker.

While Phillipson raises many interestingpoints (the fallacies of ELT among them) his overall thesis has to berejected on the following grounds (to name but a few):

on its in-builtpower asymmetry, that is that the devloping countries are seen as beingincapable of independent decisions.

that fact that linguistic imperialismis not falsifiable: there is no scenario where Phillipson would admit thatEnglish DOES fulfill a useful role in a third world country.

Phillipson's left-wing terminology and tone: imperialism itself is aleft-wing term.

a country's linguistic ecology is to complex to fit intoPhillipson's neat "black and white" scenario.

Phillipon's bookcan thus be only a start for a discussion on global English. For furtherreading I recommend Kachru's "The Alchemy of English", Crystals"English as an International Language" (critical readingnecessary) and Pennycook's "The Cultural Politics of English as anInternational Language." ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: History / North America; ... Read more

Product Description
At last, a concise encyclopedia of NLP patterns!The Big Book Of NLP, Expanded, contains more than 350 techniques, patterns & strategies written in an easy, step-by-step format. The methods include a full array of the fundamentals that every practitioner needs, such as the Swish pattern and The Phobia Cure, as well as advanced and unique patterns, such as The Nested Loops method and Learning Strategies. Many of these techniques were never published before and cannot be found elsewhere.Perhaps more important, and unlike most other NLP books and programs, the patterns are written with great care and testing to ensure that they are clear and can be followed immediately. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Powerful NLP book!
Hello,

I bought the "The Big Book of NLP, Expanded: 350+ Techniques, Patterns & Strategies of Neuro Linguistic Programming ", together with a couple of other books on the subject, and founded that this is definitely one of the best books on NLP, at the moment,

The techniques and scripts are very clear and easy to follow,

I would recommend this.

The Big Book of NLP, Expanded: 350+ Techniques, Patterns & Strategies of Neuro Linguistic Programming
There aren't a lot of purely practical books on NLP, and I found this one to be very helpful and easy to use.

Every technique is divided to steps and fully explained. Instead of the usual NLP jargon, the writing is quite clear and to the point, making it easy to practice the tools instantly.

There are a few chapters in the beginning of the book that give a good overview on the future of NLP and answer some of the hardest questions a new learner would have: why isn't NLP a mainstream field? How to go about practicing and mastering these techniques and ideas? how to choose a good training program and why are there so many low-quality training programs? why nobody is supervising the quality that is offered with the "NLP" name? and so on.

The rest of the book is packed with practical techniques and advice.

In summary, I recommend this book to anyone who's interested in the application of NLP without the jargon or theory based discussions.

Very good but ...
I like a lot Version 2 of this book. Therefore I bought the extended version. So far so good. One star got lost due to two basic changes: 1) the numbers of the techniques, patters and strategies got lost for whatever reason, 2) in the old version each part started with an overview, which got lost in the new version. This book will give you more ideas that you can implement. In this sense HAVE A LOOK!

General Review
This is one of the best books ever found that speaks about NLP and NLP Techniques.

I have well received it earlier than expected. The only problem I have faced is that I had to pay another 13 USD for the office to deliver the book to me. It's the only thing I don't like. What concerns the book. everything is great. I recommend this book for every NLP researcher. You will not regret it. ... Read more

Product Description
In Ideology and Linguistic Theory, two students of principals on both sides of the argument--Geoffrey J. Huck and John A. Goldsmith--reappraise the outcome of the Deep Structure Debate. They question the conclusions and the theoretical basis of both camps and propose that a reassessment of the period is overdue.

Supplemented by interviews with four of the major participants in the debate--Ray Jackendoff, George Lakoff, Paul Postal and John Robert Ross--this book shows that the paradigm which has dominated American linguistics for the last twenty years has failed to settle some of the most basic questions about the nature of language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

NOT A BOOK BY CHOMSKY...just so you know
It's actually about the debate between other linguists regarding his take on deep structure and "rival" linguistic theories in general. if you're into his research and lectures (or advanced language study in general) this has some good insights. Just don't expect an actual Chomsky book.

And to the 8 oh-so-"intellectual" people that were deeply wounded enough to lash out in hissy rage at this review as "not helpful" (or the one that voted 8 times and has no life), get over yourselves(/self); this review is to keep people anyone looking for additions to their Chomsky linguistics collection from accidentally buying what is a tangential contribution at best.

Saving people money is pretty helpful, kids. ... Read more

Product Description

An updated edition of the original classic on cognitive linguistics that brings together both cognitive semantics and syntax.

• Updated and extended comprehensive overview of Cognitive Linguistics, including major recent developments in the field.
• Incorporates additional clarification of basic notions.
• Contains additional diagrams and illustrations to make the theoretical argument more tangible to the reader.
• Includes extended exercises and updated suggestions for further reading
• Previous edition sold over 8,500 copies.

Customer Reviews (1)

In the field of linguistics...
I'm currently enrolled in a linguistics class at Tulane University, and we had to read this book so as to give us a cognitivist perspective on semantic theory. It is a well-written book with very helpful exercises toillustrate various experiments performed by linguists and psychologists. ... Read more

Product Description
Thirty-seven chapters, commissioned from experts all over the world, describe major concepts, methods, and applications in computational linguistics. Part I, Linguistic Fundamentals, provides an overview of the field suitable for senior undergraduates and non-specialists from other fields of linguistics and related disciplines. Part II describes current tasks, techniques, and tools in Natural Language Processing and aims to meet the needs of post-doctoral workers and others embarking on computational language research. Part III surveys current Applications.The book is a state-of-the-art reference to one of the most active and productive fields in linguistics. It will be of interest and practical use to a wide range of linguists, as well as to researchers in such fields as informatics, artificial intelligence, language engineering, and cognitive science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Somewhat Interesting, but possibly superfluous
This collection of academic articles that have varying degrees of relation to any particular area of natural language processing strikes me as pointless.

If one wants to get a sense of who is working in this broad field, certainly there are better ways to get at that information than dropping a nice piece of change on a "Dictionary".Any decent web search will give results at least as good as this book and certainly cost less.

The most valuable asset to anyone who wants to really learn something about NLP is the collection of bibliographies -- many of which mention Manning and Schütze, Jurafsky and Martin or Bishop.

This volume is completely useless for the engineer and mostly superfluous for the academic.

Comprehensive overview of the field
This `handbook' needs both hands to lift it! At 700+ pages and 38 chapters, detailed chapter-by-chapter review is impossible. Let me start with the top-level structure, which divides the book into three parts: Fundamentals; Processes, Methods and Resources; and Applications.

Part one, `Fundamentals', walks through the standard sub-disciplines of computational linguistics with chapter headings: phonology, morphology, lexicography, syntax, semantics, discourse, pragmatics and dialogue, formal grammars and languages, complexity theory. Each chapter is a short introduction and overview to the topic, aimed at the informed newcomer (i.e. it helps if you have a computer science/maths background and know about predicate logic and state machines).

Part two, `Processes, etc', covers a number of problem areas and techniques: text-segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, parsing, word-sense disambiguation, anaphora resolution, natural language generation and so on. There is little commonality between the chapters, but they are all informative.

The final part, `Applications' covers areas such as machine translation, information retrieval, text summarisation, second-language computer-assisted learning systems and spoken dialogue systems.

As a comprehensive, and relatively recent review of the whole field the book is excellent.Some points which caught my interest.

1. Speech and written language are hugely different, due to noise, self-repair, speech acts and discourse functions, accents and the strange `grammaticality' of utterances (p. 521).

2. The distinction between simpler finite-state dialogue models (machine-centric) vs. more dynamic planning-based dialogue managers (which can deal with mixed-initiative dialogue) - chapter 7.

3. The controversial role of real-world knowledge. This is different from semantics, which is more about representational and inferential adequacy. Chapter 25 on Ontologies surprising states "it is not clear to what extent NLP technology, in its current form, needs such ontologies and their complex knowledge representation systems". Apparently "large scale vocabularies with very limited reasoning are preferred". Interesting.

Human-to-human conversation seems, in performance, to be a unitary phenomenon. For scientific purposes, however, it has to be analysed into sub-fields, as in the chapter headings of part one. However, there is then both the problem of tunnel vision, and of scope creep: we see, for example, syntactic approaches expanding into the spaces of semantics and pragmatics in, to my mind, an unbalanced way.

I was most interested in Spoken Dialogue Systems, as these attempt to combine the state of the art in the separate disciplines into a unified architecture and implementation to address the original problem: a powerful constraint on one-sided development. The solution architectures seem to show that modular works, with bottom-up statistical techniques performing well at the speech-recognition level, and symbolic processing techniques such as automatic planning to achieve agent goals working at the dialogue level. The latter seems to be the least developed, however, as linguistics merges into a more general social agent theory.
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Product Description
This edition incorporates several important developments within systemic linguistics, including a new chapter on the logical relations of the clause complex, and discussion of the application of systemic linguistics to the analysis of multi-modal texts. ... Read more

Product Description
Quantitative Methods in Linguistics offers a practical introduction to statistics and quantitative analysis with data sets drawn from the field and coverage of phonetics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and syntax, as well as probability distribution and quantitative methods.

• Provides balanced treatment of the practical aspects of handling quantitative linguistic data
  
• Includes sample datasets contributed by researchers working in a variety of sub-disciplines of linguistics
  
• Uses R, the statistical software package most commonly used by linguists, to discover patterns in quantitative data and to test linguistic hypotheses
  
• Includes student-friendly end-of-chapter assignments and is accompanied by online resources at www.blackwellpublishing.com/quantmethods.

Customer Reviews (3)

Not for beginners of statistics and R
This textbook might help those who already know about statistics and R, it doesn't work for me.
It introduces a lot of statistics in a random order and I couldn't follow the content. Also, there is no clear instruction of R, so I can't learn the basics of R only from this book. I read only Chapter 1 and 2, then I stopped reading it.
So I don't recommend this book for beginners.

understandable stats!
Excellent, and, if you're familiar with Prof. Johnson's other writings, you'll find his characteristic humor in this book, lightening up what can be an intimidating topic. Really accessible, and talks about quantitative methods in several core subdisciplines of linguistics. The web site is very useful, as well. Highly recommended.

stats for linguists
Although the book is really fast-paced and requires either prior knowledge of statistics or a companion statistics text for *complete* understanding, it does a fantastic job of applying the various statistical methods to real-life linguistic experiments and research. If you are conducting research in any field of linguistics and require stats for your data, this book is a must have. The R codes provided are super helpful because once you have the basis for the code, it's easy to transform it to meet your needs even with only a basic understanding of R.
One caveat, though, is that because this is a first edition, there are several typos. Dr. Keith Johnson welcomes any comments about this and any other issues, and is approachable enough to respond to emails with questions about the text. ... Read more

Product Description
Preface; XI; Chapter 1; The cognitive basis of language: Language and thought 1; 1.0 Overview 1; 1.1 Introduction: Sign systems 1; 1.2 Structuring principles in language 5; 1.3 Linguistic and conceptual categories 13; 1.4 Summary 20; 1.5 Further reading 21; Assignments 22; Chapter 2; What's in a word? Lexicology 25; 2.0 Overview 25; 2. ... Read more