Rose-Marie Déchaine

This book was very easy to read and very interesting and entertaining. It's a good overview of linguistics which is far broader than I had even imagined. The authors have a good sense of humor and the book is very fast paced.

The down side, of course, is that it is an overview. There were brief sections on great topics and I would want to learn more, but then I would turn the page and we were off and running onto another topic. So, I need to read more detailed books on the branches of linguistics that I am interested in.

Did learn a few little tid-bits that I could tell other people about, especially my husband at the breakfast table.… (mehr)

I picked this up as a review and to catch up on some areas that weren't covered in my classes. However, I found the text extremely jumpy and hard to read. They were always telling you that they'd explain things later or referring you to explanations that were already past. Or worse, telling you information and then telling you not to worry about that information until many chapters later. The only use I can see for this book is as an alternate text in a linguistics course, where someone is already presenting the material in a logical order and you just want a different explanation of some of the fine points.… (mehr)