language and symbolic systemsby yuen ren chao

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Language and Symbolic Systems by Yuen Ren Chao Review by: Chin-chuan Cheng Foundations of Language, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Aug., 1971), pp. 439-440 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25000547 . Accessed: 28/06/2014 19:17 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foundations of Language. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.31.195.34 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:17:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Language and Symbolic Systems by Yuen Ren ChaoReview by: Chin-chuan ChengFoundations of Language, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Aug., 1971), pp. 439-440Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25000547 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 19:17

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foundations of Language.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.31.195.34 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:17:28 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS 439

Yuen Ren Chao, Language and Symbolic Systems, Cambridge University Press, 1968. 240+xv pp. $ 1.95.

In 1968 Professor Chao published three books: Sayable Chinese (Asian Language Publications, San Francisco), A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, and the book under review, Language and Symbolic Systems. It is truly inspiring to witness the continuing creativity of a scholar who was born in the last century.

The book, as Professor Chao says in the Preface, is written for "the general reader - general reader in the sense that he may be a specialist in some other

subject, but new to the field of liguistic inquiries" (v). The following topics are included in the twelve chapters: language and the study of language, phonetics, phonemics, vocabulary and grammar, meaning, change in lan

guage, languages of the world, writing, language and life, languages in con tact, language technology, and symbolic systems. The coverage is compre hensive. However, the content is similar and in some parts almost identical to that of one of Professor Chao's own earlier books in Chinese entitled Yi}ydn wenti (questions in linguistics, published by National Taiwan Uni

versity, Taipei, 1959), which consists of sixteen lectures he gave at Taiwan

University in 1959. It is odd that Professor Chao in no place mentions that book, but it is fortunate that many of the ideas given in the earlier work are now presented to English readers.

In most English introductory linguistics texts the emphasis is on western

languages. The Chinese language, which has a written history of more than three millennia and a geographical spread covering the larger part of Asia, is unfortunately rarely considered. As Professor Chao says (p. 5), just like the mathematician who is proud of being poor at figures, a linguist is often

proud of not being a polyglot. Professor Chao is a great linguist and is proud of being able to cite and speak many dialects of China and many languages of the world. In this book the Chinese language finds its proper place. Even

though no detailed structure of Chinese is given, the casual and frequent mentioning of Chinese in many places already provides a balanced view of

language. In this regard, however, it is surprising that Chapter 2, which deals with phonetics and phonetic symbols, does not discuss tone, which most of the general readers know to be a most distinct characteristic of many Asian

languages. I feel that a more balanced view of language would include, along with consonants and vowels, the nature of tone and the five-point scale which Professor Chao himself devised to measure tones and which has been used since the 1930's.

As to the linguistic theory underlying this book, it is quite clear that Pro fessor Chao is presenting mostly the basic ideas of the American descriptive

Foundations of Language 7 (1971) 439-440. All rights reserved.

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440 REVIEWS

linguistics. He says in the outset that "a language exists primarily in the brain of its speaker as a set of habits and dispositions" (p. 9). When he talks about grammar he gives order, modulation, phonetic modification, and selec tion as features of grammatical process. In fact he himself says, "Perhaps I owe it to the reader in the profession to explain what school of thought I

belong to, though a glance over a few pages of the book will quickly give me

away as a practising phonetician and a descriptive linguist" (vi). Neverthe less he has a section (pp. 64-65) on generative and transformational gram

mars, where he speaks of kernel sentences and transformations. But he does not explicitly mention the more important aspects of the philosophy of

generative-transformational grammar, such as the view of language as a set of rules, the differentiation of competence and performance, etc. Moreover, in the Suggested Further Readings one finds no titles in generative-trans formational grammar. It seems to me that a general reader should also be

directed to the generative-transformational literature for a balanced view of

language theory. Professor Chao says in the Preface that this is a somewhat personal book

and the personal pronoun 'I' appears very often. In fact he gives freely not

only his own linguistic experiences but also those of one of his daughters and his granddaughter. Moreover, we find almost in every page that Professor Chao approaches his subject with warmth and humor. His book will make

interesting and pleasant reading for the specialist in linguistics as well as the

general reader.

University of Illinois CHIN-CHUAN CHENG

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