Product Description

As a linguist, Noam Chomsky aims not only at making a technical contribution with his generative theory of language but also at integrating his linguistic theory into a wider view of the relationship between language and the human mind. The crux of this view is his hypothesis that human beings are born with an innate knowledge of universal principles underlying the structure of human language.

Chomsky's ideas have exerted a powerful influence on other disciplines by restoring language to a central position in cognitive psychology and in the philosophy of mind. The wider impact of his redefinition of the subject gives him a permanent place in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews (1)

good book, good ideas
this is a great book. it covers a bunch of very interesting topics, including the meaning of the "/" in mind/brain. includes a lecture by chompsky + 3 responses by a phyisist, a psychologist and aneurosurgeon and how what they are doingrelates to what chompsky says. ... Read more

Product Description
The primary aim of God, Language and Scripture is to provide guidance in the use of biblical languages. Secondarily this volume initiates the reader to the wonders and workings of language and points out how language is often misused, especially in regard to the Bible. This volume, however, in no way anticipates all the ways of mishandling language. Silva's emphasis is on 'global' rather than detailed concerns (though selected specific examples are used) of how language is misused. The book includes an account of the birth and growth of modern linguistics, an appreciation of its interdisciplinary character, particularly its ties with literary criticism, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and science. It surveys all levels of language description, but emphasizes the semantic and stylistic aspects of grammar and syntax, vocabulary, and discourse. In addition, it considers the transmission of the Bible (textual criticism and translation) as a mode of linguistic communication and interpretive process. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Concise and Powerful Survey of Language
Professor Moisés Silva in "God, Language and Scripture" furnishes concise and thought-provoking essays on the historical, theological, and practical relationship of linguistics as well as its proper exercise concerning biblical languages. The linguistic dilettante usually takes much for granted in the power and working of language and this can include many exegetes. Thus Dr. Silva (b. 1945, professor: Westmont College (1972-1981), Westminster Theological Seminary (1981-1996), and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1996-2000); received a PhD at the University of Manchester in 1972; was a translator of the New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version) discusses how language is frequently distorted and misapplied particularly in biblical interpretation and exposition.

With precision and scholarly care Dr. Silva converses the following topics:

- The beginning and advancement of modern linguistics
- Literary criticism, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy in relation to the study of language
- Semantic and stylistic aspects of grammar, syntax, pronunciation vocabulary, sound and discourse
- Biblical language transmission of scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
- Textual criticism and translation of scripture
- Habitual exegetical errors.

Some may deem the author's mild emphasis on the importance of Aramaic as unfounded forasmuch as the bulk of Jewish works from the era of the New Testament are written in Hebrew (Mishnah/Talmud), Jesus spoke to Paul in Hebrew in the Book of Acts (yes many assert that Hebrew=Aramaic), first century ossuaries and coins have Hebrew inscriptions. Either way the NT writers had a Hebrew/Aramaic mindset and the word order in the Gospels often follows Hebrew. This type of research is fascinating and educational; nonetheless God's word is infallible and authoritative.

This exacting volume is potent in its precision, brief (160 pages), and accessible to the non-scholar. "God, Language, and Scripture" is an excellent resource for ministers and commentators and all those who yearn to rightfully utilize language. It makes an outstanding escort to Poythress's book on language.
The Necessary Existence of God: The Proof of Christianity Through Presuppositional Apologetics

Silva on Language: what a treat
Reformed scholar has written a wonderful and blessed book on language. not only is God-talk intelligible, but God is the being who makes language unavailble as he sustains the elements we need for communication we all take for granted. not just the hardware, but the software as well - plus other non-phycical entities which need theism.
This may not be the last-word on words, but it is a great start.
Read all you can from this guy - check the web for his many articles.

Rightly dividing the Word of Truth
Why would anyone want to learn biblical Greek and Hebrew?

Some think the biblical languages hold the key to deep understanding. Others that a good English translation is all any scholar really needs. In God, Language and Scripture, Moises Silva reveals the truth somewhere between these two extremes.

This is a pretty easy read: a brief, semi-popular overview of linguistics in biblical interpretation. Silva provides many pointers to understanding the connection between language and hermeneutics. The book is non-technical, entertaining at times, and accessible even to beginners. I highly recommend it.

God speaks! Human language capable of God-talk.
Silva takes on the whole idea of language in relationship to God and concludes not only that God has chosen to use human language to communicate with humans, He has also allowed people to use language to talk to and about Him. Silva provides a health-giving antidote to the unscientific views of Hebrew and Greek which are often presented in studies on the languages of the Old and New Testaments. A must for all serious students of biblical Hebrew and Greek. ... Read more

Product Description
Written by a linguist who is a journalist, this is a uniquely informed account of the language of the news media.In Western countries we hear more language from the media than we do directly from others in conversation, and within the media, news is the primary language genre. The aim of this book is to explore this influential language, to ask what the patterns of media discourse tell us about wider linguistic issues and what they also reveal about news and the media.Allan Bell emphasizes the importance of the processes that produce media language, as stories are molded and modified by various hands. He stresses it is indeed stories that journalists and editors produce, not articles. These stories have viewpoint, values and structure that can be analyzed. He is concerned too with the role of the audience in influencing media language styles, and in understanding, forgetting or misconceiving the news presented to it.Based in the frameworks of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, this book draws together a growing research literature and informs it with the author's own immediate observations and experience as both journalist and researcher. ... Read more

Product Description

Inspired by the collaboration among Minnesota's Concordia Language Villages, the National Capital Language Resource Center, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, the authors offer lesson plans and supporting activities that capture the essence of this hugely successful program and translated it into equally successful programs for traditional foreign language classrooms. This book reflects ACTFL Standards' five Cs—Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities—ensuring that future teaches are ready to meet the expectations of students, parents, principals, and communities. For educators, volunteers, and aids teaching foreign languages.

Product Description
A type system is a syntactic method for automatically checking the absence of certain erroneous behaviors by classifying program phrases according to the kinds of values they compute. The study of type systems--and of programming languages from a type-theoretic perspective—-has important applications in software engineering, language design, high-performance compilers, and security.This text provides a comprehensive introduction both to type systems in computer science and to the basic theory of programming languages. The approach is pragmatic and operational; each new concept is motivated by programming examples and the more theoretical sections are driven by the needs of implementations. Each chapter is accompanied by numerous exercises and solutions, as well as a running implementation, available via the Web. Dependencies between chapters are explicitly identified, allowing readers to choose a variety of paths through the material.The core topics include the untyped lambda-calculus, simple type systems, type reconstruction, universal and existential polymorphism, subtyping, bounded quantification, recursive types, kinds, and type operators. Extended case studies develop a variety of approaches to modeling the features of object-oriented languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent book
Writing baby interpreters using OCaml for the funny languages (include lambda calculus!) used in the theoretic chapters is a pretty cool idea and I really like it.

Elementary discrete mathematics and first-order logic are required for grokking the maths materials through out the book though. If you don't have enough patience to deal with math symbols, theorems, and formal proving, then this is not the right book for you ;)

IHMO, this is a highly comprehensible book for introducing lambda-calculus and type theory to readers without much background knowledge in either abstract algebra or theoretic computer science (like me ;)). I've been looking for such a book for long, in fact :)

Besides, this was the very book which directly inspired the birth of Pugs (a Perl 6 interpreter/compiler in Haskell) according to Audrey, the Pugs project's leader.

Highly recommended!

Just right
This is a textbook about programming language theory, somewhat mathematical-- but it's must-read material for anyone who wants to gripe about programming languages cluefully, much less design them.

For me, this book strikes exactly the right balance between theory and practicality.Chapters on the mathematical properties of various tiny programming languages are interleaved with chapters that provide annotated implementations of those languages.

The book will also give you the background (notation and terminology) you'll need to read cutting-edge research papers on programming language theory.

This book contains all the information I was missing.Excellent presentation of the material, well written, great exercises, doesn't go off into lala-land.Highly recommended.Some math background very helpful (you need to know what a mathematical proof is).

Not quite what I was looking for
I need basic information on type safety, theory of object oriented typing, and how to axiomatize nonstandard kind of typing systems. I need it now, in a form that I can put to use without too many side trips

This book is almost what I was looking for. It builds up a semantic logic based on lambda calculus, then creates typed versions. Pierce really does work very methodically up through the levels, ending at about the place where C++ templates and recursive type definitions start. Along the way, he's careful to match the typing axioms to semantics, covering unusual topics like exceptions and type inference while he's at it.

Almost what I was looking for, but not quite. As I said, I have immediate needs, and I'm not into theory for its own sweet sake. That means I had little appreciation for all the chapters that created arithmetic all over again, starting from Peano axioms (or something like), via the lambda calculus. I know that low-level axiomatizations and lambda calculus are much beloved of the theoreticians, but I encounter them only rarely, and when I was trying to get something else done, like now. For me, they created a diversion blocked by an impediment. Also, however convenient it may be for theory, functional programming is mostly a journal-page peculiarity in industrial practice. I admit, analysis of functional programs pushed me into insight I might have missed, but I would probably have been quite happy dealing with assignment formalisms instead.

I almost gave this three stars, because its unnecessary notational baggage and off-main-stream topics weren't doing my job. Bruce's book (ISBN 026202523X) was a much more profitable use of my time. Still, Pierce's goals weren't mine, and the mansion of type analysis has many rooms. Not all of those rooms are furnished to my taste, and don't need to be. I rounded up to four stars for what it meant to do.

//wiredweird

Well put, practical and theoretic book on types.
Extremely well written book on type systems in programming languages. Uses lambda calculus to explain type systems. Practical aspects show up in the ML implementations downloadable on the books site.
Contains a lot of programming language theory besides just type-systems. Can be used as an introductionary book to programming language design. Concluding: Great book!

An accessible yet thorough introduction to type systems
This text is perhaps the most accessible yet thorough introduction to type systems I've encountered.

On the one hand, it offers excellent grounding: practical motivation is provided, numerous examples illustrate the concepts, and implementations are provided which can be used to typecheck and evaluate these examples. At various points, extended demonstrations of the type systems under consideration are given (e.g. showing how objects may be encoded). The exercises are well constructed and in many cases, accompanied with answers and detailed explanations in the appendix.

On the other hand, it offers an excellent exposition of the material: Pierce provides a lucid account of the static and dynamic semantics (primarily small-step operational) for various lambda calculi. He proceeds in a stepwise fashion via the gradual accretion of features: from first order (simply typed) systems to higher order systems incorporating bounded subtyping and recursion. He also gives attention to the metatheory of these systems (focusing on proofs of progress and preservation, and for systems with subtyping, of decideability). Internally, the text is well organized, with clear dependencies among the chapters, and the bibliography is extensive.

It should be noted that, while reasonably comprehensive, the text is necessarily limited in scope. For example, aside from the discussion on Featherweight Java, systems other than typed lambda calculus variants are not considered. In my opinion, the focus on these (in some sense "low-level") calculi makes foundational issues more apparent, and the linear progression from simple to complex variants lends a pleasant cohesiveness that would have been lost in a more general survey. However, as object/class encodings were discussed at various points, it would have been nice to see a more integrated presentation, in the spirit of the paper Comparing Object Encodings [BCP97]. ... Read more

Product Description
There are many reasons why you might need to learn a foreign language quickly. The author, a U.S. Army Green Beret, often travels to foreign countries on short notice and needs to be able to communicate with military and government officials, many of who do not speak English. He tried all types of schools, classes, books and tapes, but none delivered what he needed when he needed it. So he developed his own method for learning foreign languages. It proved so effective for him and his fellow Green Berets that he decided to share his method with others who need to learn a language quickly. The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast is designed for people who have no interest in learning complicated rules of grammar. The author promises that his method will help anyone become functional in any language in seven days and proficient in 30. He's trimmed the fat, freeing your time for what's truly useful. Includes a day-by-day schedule, a handy workbook format and secret tips to help you master key elements quickly and easily. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast
This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). While everyone knows that learning a language takes time and effort,we are all looking for tricks and techniques that can fast-track our learning and help us to cut corners.Many of these techniques are employed in language courses, with flash cards, mnemonics, games and visual aids all being incorporated alongside traditional lessons and exercises to help us to stay motivated and feel like we are making progress at a steady rate.

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast outlines the method used by the author, A G Hawke,who often had to learn languages on short notice during his career as a Green Beret in the US Military.Being able to communicate clearly and quickly with foreign officials was essential,and many other courses failed to deliver the amount of fluency he required in the short time he had available.This book explains the method that Hawke devised in order to learn languages... fast!In fact, the author boasts that students who stick to the program should be conversational in seven days, and proficient in just thirty.It's a tempting promise.

The book provides a daily schedule, clearly instructing you on what must be done each day, and the workbook format lets you track your progress and make sure that you stick to the routine.You simply fill in the workbook for the language that you want to learn.

The key to Hawke's program is to skip any unnecessary vocabulary or information.Most courses use contextual examples to illustrate how a word, verb or grammar element is used, and these examples are often full of vocabulary that you will never need to use.Hawke emphasizes efficiency above all so that you only ever learn what you will truly use.The book guides you through identifying what you really need to know in the language that you are learning, and offers tips on how to retain and use that vocabulary.

The book is not a magic wand, and you will still need to put in the effort to see results, but if you stick to the method you should at least shave some time off of your learning curve. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to gain a strong grasp of the Spanish language in a short space of time,this book is ideal for the impatient, the dedicated and those with a short attention span.

In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1.Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This isactually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film.The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasant to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitionsentirely in Spanish. I use this one mainly because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish. According to him, this is the "standard" among university level Spanish professors.

Anna Rivera's review of the Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages
To tell you a little about my background, I am the editor of the Learning Spanish Products Reviews newsletter. I am also a native Spanish speaker and a Spanish instructor. In addition, I am the author of two learning-Spanish products offered at Amazon.com (USA):

1. Anna Rivera's 1000 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Words (English and Spanish Edition)
2.Anna Rivera's 800 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Phrases (English and Spanish Edition)

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast is a book designed to deliver the basics to anyone who needs to learn to communicate in a foreign language in a short period of time. The author, A.G. Hawke, is a former Green Beret who brings plenty of experience in this area due to his various short notice deployments to other countries. He promises that his book will allow students to become functional in any language in seven days and fluent in thirty.

Hawke sticks to the KISS theory of leaning. In other words, "Keep it Simple Stupid." His book organizes and prioritizes the most important information into charts, then breaks down lessons into a daily schedule. He also includes a workbook and some tips on how to approach your learning.

For the most part, The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast is a book about simplification and organization, and is a great starting point for helping foreign language students streamline their learning. I recommend it to anyone who is going to be traveling to a country in which a foreign language is spoken.

REAL WORLD FLUENCY.
Hi,I Bought this book years ago, To learn Vietnamese of all languages.(very little was available on Tieng Viet then)It Worked! Big time.
I've lived here for years, I went to school for about 2 months to learn to Pronounce the language correctly(about an hour and a half daily),I then studied the Vocabulary in these books diligently,My Vietnamese is clean and I am able to converse about all the basics situations you would find yourself in, Even chatting about whatever comes up. My Vietnamese is solid and I have met maybe two gentlemen in 7 years who speak "good" Vietnamese, This book is what did it, I avoided so much wasted time and useless info,

Also a very important part of this book is that once you reach a working vocabulary You Know WHAT Other things you need to learn(I've added only about 100 nouns or so to the original syllabus 7 years ago!)Pretty thorough and well thought out Vocab.(when was the last time you could say that about a language program? they are full of useless vocab and info.


Real World Fluency is totally different to what is presented in other Very expensive language programs, If you really want to Speak with People in their language this Should be the cornerstone of your Efforts,

I'm using this same Program to take on Spanish now, because languages through this method are fun to learn,
A month in Spain and running through this guide and I will speak clean Spanish and have some real understanding of The language.

I Jumped in with both feet with only this book and was swimming in no time.

A tip. Make Flash cards and burn through them daily,

I've wasted a ton of money on expensive programs, Go fill out this book in your target language sign up for some classes for a few months or better yet a month abroad. You will know what I'm talking about

A Good Jump on Language Acquisition
I studied French throughout my high school years, only to be released into the wilds, incapable of speaking French. I had to rethink everything I learned about LEARNING. I decided for myself the following: What is important to me? How would I decribe myself to someone, and how do I increase my vocabulary? I wish I'd had this little book. One of the good things about this book is that it has, in English, useful word lists that you can reproduce, although the one deficit is that the pages are small, and trying to write in a non-Latin alphabet or phonetically is difficult, given the space alotted. Better to reproduce the word lists and personalize them on Word.
The word lists do increase your vocabulary acquistion quite quickly, and the applications are endless. This book, of course is not meant to be a study guide in any particular language, but it will get you started in a logical, rapid fashion.

Barely Better Than Nothing
Having directly taught or directly supervised instruction in exactly thirty languages (at Stanford, Georgetown, US Naval Academy, State U of NY, US Defense Languages Institute, etc), I picked up this book with considerable enthusiasm but found it seriously wanting. Other reviews here have handled some of the details well; I'll direct my comments to just one overriding principle.

This book's structure and method tend to reinforce the unfortunate assumption that, in general, languages consist of pieces interchangeable with the pieces you already know in your own language. This brick-by-brick concept leads to word lists where English is presented in one list of words matched up with the target language's list of words. This reinforces the incorrect feeling that each language is put together with bricks, and you match up your red bricks wih the other language's yellow bricks.

Whereas the reality is that each language presents a different structure. You may think of bricks, but your target language may be frame-stucco or an animal-hide teepee. To understand a teepee, you wouldn't be helped by looking at it and wondering, "Where are the bricks?" As just one example, using two common languages. the American English construction "because I FELT like doing it that way," is very often rendered in Spanish as, "porque sí." How would it help the learner of Spanish to wonder, "Where is the FELT," or "Where is the doing?" The fact is that the Spanish, literally, is just "because yes." But it can often and easily mean "Because I felt like doing it that way."

And yet, despite this very fundamental weakness, this book does offer helpful info of the type to which it's limited. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a practical overview of the most important methods in the field. Readers are drawn into classrooms where various teaching methods and approaches are being used. They are encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs and to develop their own approach to language teaching.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Inaccurate description of book
The delivery of the book was quite prompt.The book had multiple highlights and writing throughout.It was listed in good condition, but I was not impressed with the condition.I was unable to put my own markings in the book, because there was so much writing and highlighting in it.

Great condition of the book
I was very pleased to get a used book in a very good condition. It looks just like new and when I opened it, it had a couple of highlights in it, but they were not bad at all.

shipment
The book came in excellent condition, and arrived just a couple of days later.The quick shipment was a life saver!

ESL Methods by Example
This little book is a great introduction to some of the methods in use for teaching ESL.It gives a sample lesson, key features and an overview.It provides a great taste of what it would be like to be in that classroom and why the lesson is structured in that way.

Amazon is the best
Hi! I'm from Chile
and Amazon is the best! I'm so glad!
They were awesome and expeditious.
In addition, it was my first time ordering stuff over the internet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

THE place to start!
I first read this book in 1992, as a college text.At the time it was all theory; however, after teaching second languages for seven years, I can now HIGHLY recommend this as a fabulous place to begin an understanding ofsecond language acquisition, and the research thereof.The book is clearlywritten and understandable, even for individuals who are unfamiliar withSLA lingo.If you are just beginning to teach second languages, you willfind many an explanation and resolution for problems and questionsencountered in the classroom. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

SIMPLEEASY TO UNDERSTAND
Only 39 Pages. But you LEARN to READ THE CHARACTERS,Breaks down complicated Chines Characters into simple things you can easily memorize and remember. Build a small READING VOCABULARY. Fun Book, Small, Thin, Booklet, you can LEARN CHINESE on Bus, Waiting, or in a car as passenger, makes learning fun.

Bollocks
This book bollocks, it barely teaches you anything useful.
It teaches you like "the sheep is on the mountain" and stuff.
If you wants something more practical try some conversational book.

nice and easy
This book is very easy to understand and gives the reader a fundamental view of the chinese language. I just wish thebook was a little longer. The author though really makes it easy and clear.

A little too simplistic
This is a great book for small children, but not for anyone who cares to really learn Chinese.It is very interesting with some simple words and builds both characters and sentences.I thought is was helpful in gaining an understanding of how the language works and how characters are related.My biggest complaint is only the very small size and the small number of words you actually learn.If you want to get a flavor of Chinese and learn about 50 words, it's OK; for anything more serious, it is too simple.

fun little book
If you have any interest in the Chinese language, this is a fun book to start with. You will read a simple Chinese sentence easily in the first few pages. (You will appreciate this when you get to page 17, 'Man too much big') The author quickly introduces you to the basic components necessary to get started, some of which are not explained well or hidden in more sophisticated texts. Very fun to read! ... Read more

Product Description
Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. Scheme demonstrates that a very small number of rules for forming expressions, with no restrictions on how they are composed, are enough to form a practical and efficient programming language that is flexible enough to support most of the major programming paradigms in use today. This book contains the three parts comprising 'R6RS', the sixth revision of a series of reports describing the programming language Scheme. The book is divided into parts: a description of the language itself, a description of the standard libraries and non-normative appendices. Early chapters introduce Scheme and later chapters act as a reference manual. This is an important report for programmers that work with or want to learn about the Scheme language. ... Read more

Product Description
Affect in Foreign Language and Second Language Learning offers high school and college/university second language teachers, or teachers-in-training, practical suggestions for creating activities that take into account learner anxieties, frustrations or discomfort in the language learning process.The objective of the book is to offer concrete instructional approaches for language learning that are rooted in second language acquisition research and, at the same time, that promotea low-anxiety classroom environment. The authors of each chapter are specialists in specific areas of language learning and their essays, composed specifically for this volume,lay the groundwork for continued research on affect in language learning.This text is part of the McGraw-Hill Second Language Professional Series, edited by James F. Lee and Bill VanPatten. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1991, the idea of drafting in plain language was difficult for many lawyers to accept, but now plain language has become almost mainstream. This edition has been revised to cover the significant developments in plain language and the law since 1991. It also includes a new section on document design and document testing. Plain language has now become an essential tool for lawyers who want to offer their clients a modern legal serice. This book uses examples to illustrate the various points raised. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a comprehensive description of the theoretical foundations, design, and implementation of an innovative logic programming language in which computations are produced directly from equational definitions. Like LISP and Prolog, the equational programming language is based on the concept that a programmer should give a mathematical description of the result of a computation rather than a series of commands to direct a computation. Unlike LISP and Prolog, however, the equational programming language strictly follows the rules of equational logic, providing powerful programming techniques not available in conventional languages.Equational Logic as a Programming Language covers the entire spectrum of theoretical and applied work involved in eight years of designing and implementing the equational logic programming language. Separate chapters cover the intuitive logical semantics of the language, the powerful programming techniques supported by it and their connections to procedural techniques such as coroutines, the methods used to produce a highly flexible implementation of the language with very little manpower, and the potential for implementation on parallel computers.Michael J. O'Donnell is Associate Professor of Computer Science at The Johns Hopkins University, on leave from Purdue University. Equational Logic as a Programming Language is included in the Foundations of Computing Series, edited by Michael Garey. ... Read more

Product Description
In this book, Bob Horn has brought together the depth of his years of experience in information design with a wealth of research on the history and practice of visual languages. The result is a new synthesis: a way of thinking about visual language that integrates and extends the different elements on which he draws. It may come to be, as he predicts, the starting point for a new field of study that develops the "global language for the 21st century."Amazon.com Review
Uh-oh, McLuhan was right. As our information stream meets a confluence of new media, our language has changed accordingly. Stanford scholar Robert E. Horn lays it all out for us in Visual Language, incorporating visual elements with writing to show and tell simultaneously. Reminiscent of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, the book thoroughly explains how we recognize and interpret this new language; rather than teaching us how to read or write, it lays the groundwork for better use of the still-evolving communication tool.

Simple clip art and occasionally confusing text boxes amply demonstrate that this language is unfinished and even uncomfortable for some readers--but the power of combining graphics and words still shines through. Complex issues and wide ranges of opinion can be grasped quickly and particular problems can be highlighted for greater scrutiny. (It's no accident that Horn is best known as a pioneer of hypertext.)

Sections cover the basic units and form, semantics, and pragmatics, exploring all elements of advertising, comics, static multimedia, and other uses of visual language. Anyone who is involved in advertising or uses PowerPoint professionally--or just wants insight into the new directions our language is taking--should read Visual Language carefully for clues to the future of communication. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Last Time I Buy A Book without Checking Reviews First
This is a terrible book.It is comically cluttered, almost like a Rube Goldberg contraption of a book!A hundred-and-one steps to do a very simple thing -- that's this book in a nutshell: basic graphic design principles stretched for pages on end...in very bad black and white clip art!!!In fact, I think most of it was quickly drawn on a tablet with a lightpen by the author himself -- that's how bad it is!I swear I think I've seen bad community college student newspapers with better visuals and layout...I can't begin to express my displeasure at having bought this book without amazon censoring my review, except to say that it makes inner-city graffiti look intelligent!!

I strongly recommend reading it &/or having a copy in your personal library!
In the early nineties, I have had the rare opportunity of spending almost two solid days in a boot camp on the beautiful island of Kona, Hawaii, with Jim Channon, recognised worldwide as the original pioneer of the corporate visioning process. He was one of the principal instructors &taught the group the art of creating a personal vision quest, starting with personal values & higher purpose all the way to strategic intentions & tactical objectives, using his Advanced Visual Language (AVL). [The power & beauty of AVL is this: Everything pertaining to the quest goes into one single page. Wow! That's really cool!] I was completely mesmerised by his high-speed colour marker illustrations & spell-binding story telling, against the background of soothing but energised music. I even bought a copy of his Basic Strokes Workbook (with video) to keep as a memento.

That's how I got hooked on to the applications of visual language (& visual thinking) in my work & my life.

Since then, I will always lay my hands on & browse any book that has a connection to visual language (& visual thinking) & its applications. Robert Horn's wonderful book is one of them.

To me, VL is very good compendium of tips & techniques on combining & integrating text, graphics & shapes to communicate ideas &/or arguments, despite its shortcomings in some areas. In fact, it is the first in its genre to actually use VL to describe & analyse that language for lay persons. I also like the book's plethora of varied visual examples.

In a nutshell, it covers:

- introduction to the basic concepts of VL;
- concise history of some major innovations that form the core history of the language;
- survey of research on the emerging syntactical & semantic elements of the language;
- guide to the many varied applications of VL;

From my personal perspective, the shortcomings pertain to the relatively light treatment & perfunctory emphasis on multimedia & animations.

Ever since I have learned VL from Jim Channon & further from my own personal & professional explorations with its applications, I have found VL (& visual thinking) can be useful in:

- navigating & visualising complex subjects or issues;
- facilitating brainstorming & creative problem solving;
- fostering critical thinking;
- making group processes visible;
- facilitating project planning & control;
- presenting multiple & diverse points of view;
- facilitating cross-cultural communications;
- exploring deeper personal connections, beliefs & feelings;

On the whole, the book is very well written. Presentation is crisp & concise.

I strongly recommend reading it &/or having a copy in your personal library, if you are generally keen in conveying holistic & complex ideas.

A valuable reference for visual communication
This book is a valuable reference in educational field. As information explodes in drastic speed, we need to adopt new means of communication to enhance the interactivity among people and also with the computers. But it seems that the Eastern hasn't realized the needs bringing up with such a change.

A valuable reference for visual communication
This book is a valuable reference in educational field. As information explodes in drastic speed, we need to adopt new means of communication to enhance the interactivity among people and also with the computers. But it seems that the Eastern hasn't realized the needs bringing up with such a change.

Food for thought but not an easy read
When I first saw this book I was a bit surprised.My interest in the book came from a personal tendency to convey messages through graphical/drawing means.When I saw this book I expected a book full of descriptions of techniques that could be used to convey messages, etc.Big was my surprise when I opened the book and it was mainly "pictures". Don't get me wrong there is writing as well, but it is mainly used within the context of the graphics on the pages - a completely different ratio than usual.

At first I struggled to read the book as it appeared somewhat unstructured, but as time commenced I started to realize that this was exactly what I expected.The only difference is the author does (sort of) what he preaches.The book is in my opinion a "fair" example of the use of visual language.What better way to learn something that from good examples? Ok, not all examples are equally good, but there are certainly enough good ones.

I find that now, even after I systematically worked through the book, I continuously open it at random spots to ponder some of the ideas and concepts portrayed.

If you buy this book DON'T EXPECT AN EASY READ - it takes careful study to get the value out of the book (from there the only 3 stars), but that value at the end of it worth the effort.Be prepared to be amazed at the richness of visual language.However, it does also get the message across that using "visual language" is far from arbitrary but requires a lot of work and many,many careful considerations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

the master
By far the best book to learn assembly bar none!
Before reading this book I thought the Jeff Duntemann assembly book was pretty good but this book makes it look bad!
First half of book has you working in debug which comes with every version of windows and easier to get going than masm.
2nd half covers masm but code still works with latest version of microsoft assembler 8.0 which I'm currently using!

Great book/ Great authors/ A must-read
I've readthis book, and I really liked it. It is great. It teaches assembly language in a simple a versatile way. If you want lo learn Assembly language, this is a MUST-READ.

A must book on assembly concepts and tutorials
Norton and Socha's authority makes this book a must to every "beginner" assembly programmer. This book presents basic items such as binary numbers, registers & basic arithmetic inside the 8086 family processors into part 1. The contents of the book becomes closely related with DSKPATCH - a real program written in assembly -so the reader has a UNIQUE opportunity to see how real programmers (and here Norton is a PC guru) use step-wise refinements techniques and modular projects in a real world. The 2nd edition is based in MASM 5/5.1, Borland TASM and OPTASM features. Maybe we must wait for MASM 6.1 update... then it'll become a rating 10...

My first Assembly book
This book has the great advantage of presenting such a difficult subject just like a personal teacher would do. It's written in a clear way and explains some important concepts about the 8086 processor.My advice is:if you want to learn assembler here's a good book to start with (even if it seems a little dated!) ... Read more

Product Description
com/~bs/) have been added. The result is complete, authoritative coverage of the C++ language, its standard library, and key design techniques. Based on the ANSI/ISO C++ standard, The C++ Programming Language provides current and comprehensive coverage of all C++ language features and standard library components.

For example:

abstract classes as interfaces class hierarchies for object-oriented programming templates as the basis for type-safe generic software exceptions for regular error handling namespaces for modularity in large-scale software run-time type identification for loosely coupled systems the C subset of C++ for C compatibility and system-level work standard containers and algorithms standard strings, I/O streams, and numerics C compatibility, internationalization, and exception safety

Bjarne Stroustrup makes C++ even more accessible to those new to the language, while adding advanced information and techniques that even expert C++ programmers will find invaluable.Amazon.com Review
This classic work shows a care and understanding of C++ thatonly Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer of the language, can achieve. Italso conveys the punctilious and sometimes suffocating detail thatonly Stroustrup would desire to communicate. The novice programmerwill have difficulty distinguishing between the essential and thedispensable material. However, experienced C++ programmers willappreciate the reference manual portion of the book, which contains anexact definition of C++ that even numerous examples cannotexpress. Stroustrup's book has several chapters on classes and thereference manual component of the book contains the complete grammarof classes. This is a book that every experienced C++ programmer needsto own. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (284)

The right c++ book
Being a java programmer, I was searching for a book giving me more insight in the c++ programming language. Before reading this book, I had good conceptual knowledge and practical experience of object oriented programming in java and c++.

This was not my first c++ book and I also successfully followed, during my bachelor studies, courses on data structure and algorithms based on "Algorithm in Java 1-5" by Robert Sedgewick (Addison Wesley books). However, the STL was quite new for me.

This book was definitively the right book to purchase. Yes, it is not an easy read: every sentence seems to contain important information and so it has to be read slowly to get the maximum benefit of it.

Bjarne-Stroustrup makes a magnificent job at explaining the c++ language from a compiler perspective, language design perspective and software design perspective. He helps you understand that the design of c++ is based on a series of choices and carefully taken decisions.

I have although very much liked the structure of the book which supports well its difficulty: every chapter start with a list of concept to be explained and end with advices and exercises. I found the advice section very useful to test the understanding of what you read. Moreover, every time the author makes a reference to an example - particular topic (already seen or to be seen), there is a paragraph reference. This is of a great help!

Finally I found the part on the Standard Library very understandable despite the fact that my knowledge of it before reading the book was limited.

Many thanks to Bjarne-Stroustrup for this book!

C++ is not what it should be
C is Unix and C++ is just another Multics in the programming language world.
I would consisder C++ a testbed for language design and implementation, but
not a successful language.

It has lots of features, and most of programmers would be misled and get confused(
this culminates in c++0x)
Bajarne told people to focus on techniques not features, it's really hard
to follow in the real world though. I think a good programming language should
be simple and elegant, and won't cause confusion for any level of programers.
C does a better job, and Java is ok. If I have other choices of OO programming
languages, I would give it a try. C++ is really a dilemma for me.

Pretty good.
Good book.He did write the language.Perhaps a bit of a personality would make learning more enjoyable.
No offense to the author.All the information is in the book, just so darn hard to stay awake.

Sorry.Buy it if you have lots of coffee!

This is the definitive reference
Great book, and I believe an absolute must for any serious C++ programmer. Great as a reference, and a very informative (if a little involved) read. Nothing beats the thoughts of the language designer/creator when it comes to understanding how C++ works.

C++ by the Man Himself
There is nothing to review about this product. This is THE reference for C++ programming by the man who is behind the development of the language. His insight into the process of programming and what developers need is astounding. This book is the only book you need for C++ programming. ... Read more

Product Description
Introduces the SPARC assembly language and provides understanding of the complexity and cost of using various data and control structures in high-level languages.Includes the latest material on the new Ultra SPARC architecture. Softcover. DLC: Reduced instruction set computers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Straight Forward SPARC
I needed this as backup for an assembly programming course and it was a great help. It's pretty straight forward and basic, but it could go more in-depth and may not serve all that well as your only source for assembly language programming.

Dated but remains an excellent source of reference
This book is excellent considering the time it was produced and definitely an superb piece of work.

But an update is needed as technologies have progressed much over the last 8-9 years; e.g. Sun Microsystems have incorporated the GCC compiler into their latest architectures like the x86-Opteron; to compare and offer new perspectives on the subject maybe advances in compiler technology, if any etc would be terrific.

Confusing
I picked up this book to familiarize myself with the SPARC architecture for an upcoming project and I was extremely disappointed in the presentation of the material, both grammatically and intuitively.

First, when learning assembly language, the last thing a reader or student needs is the code to be obfuscated by a preprocessing tool such as m4. Hiding address offsets and variable alignments in nearly impossible to decipher macros is NOT helpful. This does not make it easier to learn assembly. I found myself learning more about a tool that I'll never use after finishing this book than about SPARC assembly.

Second, whoever edited the manuscript for this book should be fired. I found myself editing the book as I read so I could understand what the author was trying to say. I also found the language to be a bit obtuse in a few, unfortunately important, places.

Third, the diagrams in the book need some serious help as well. They were almost useless. Many of them made the topic being discussed more confusing. I found myself using Wikipedia or the Sparc V8 manual more than once.

All that said, the book does try to cover the important aspects of the SPARC architecture. I did get the needed information from the book, but it could have been organized and presented much better.

The book could be a great SPARC reference and tutorial book if these problems were addressed in a future edition.

Terrible!
I'm sorry, this book is an abomination! It makes a simple thing difficult. Students, prepare to suffer. This is one of the only SPARC books out there.

very clear, down-to-earth style
This is one the best books I've read on computing. The presentation is down to earth, as in "here's how a computer do such and such, it's not thaat difficult, see?' which i like very much. It's a complete contrast to Hennesy & Patterson's 'Computer Architecture', which spends most of its pages surveying grand technologies this and that without really getting down to details. If you like to understand & build things yourself rather than admiring other peoples 'technologies', I think you'd like this book. For me, it's also a great place to learn how to write a compiler, because the approach is clear & simple, not overfed with formal-language theory that's the norm in compiler design texts. ... Read more

Product Description
From a leading authority in artificial intelligence, this book delivers a synthesis of the major modern techniques and the most current research in natural language processing. The approach is unique in its coverage of semantic interpretation and discourse alongside the foundational material in syntactic processing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Before the invasion of the statisto-weenies, there was....
Last week, I was looking at the back flap of this book, and I saw something so shocking that I started choking on my pretzels!My wife, after slapping me on the back till I stopped choking, glanced down at the page--filled with bizzare symbols--and said, "How shocking could that page possibly be???"

Well, Iwas looking at a list abbrieviations of the categories (parts of speech) which the book used, and I noticed, for the first time after owning this book for over 10 years, that there was no abbriviation for "conjunction" listed.And indeed, after consulting the index and looking through the book, it is plain to see that this book doesn't treat conjunction at all!

I have many fond memories of this book--it is the book which my beloved professor at grad school taught me NLP from, and indeed, it contains far more information about NLP than most of its successors.For example, this book gives perhaps the best discussion of quantifier scope ambiguities of all the major NLP textbooks.(cf. with Jurafski and Martin's book, which devotes about 1/2 a sentence to quantifier scope ambiguities).

But it has odd ommissions, one of which is the lack of treatment of conjunction/disjunction.After devoting so much time to quantifier scope, why does Allen leave me in the dark aboutwhether "Every woman" can take scope over "a man"in the sentence "A man and every woman hug each other?"Does that scope differently from "Every woman and a man hug each other?"Or what about "Every woman and her mother fight?"Can that mean "Every woman fights with her mother" or are we to look for another antecedient for "her"?

Or again, Allen's treatment of prolog-esque definite clause grammars.Allen deserves major kudus here for including them.Its obvious that he comes from the LISP side of the tracks, and most LISPy books on NLP ignore DCG's altogether (Norvig's "Paridigms of AI programming" being a notable exception).But it seems almost like Allen goes out of his way to present DCGs in the most unattractive light possible.Prolog has a nice syntactic sugar which makes a DCG look almost exactly like a context-free grammar specification, but you'd never know that if you only read this book--Allen chooses a wierd way to translate strings into clauses, which implies a bizzare-looking prolog grammar for them.The student naturally recoils in horror, but unless she reads a prolog-oriented book on NLP, she would never know how much easier DCGs are to program than ATNs or the bottom-up parsing methods which Allen goes on to expostulate.

Since this book was published, the field of NLP has taken a bit of a side-track through statistical learning of grammars--the thought being that, well, we really don't know how to do knowledge representation or pronoun resolution very well, so lets all spend a decade or so on how to induce grammars from corpora.This book doesn't cover any of this research, but frankly, I really don't consider that a critique of the book.Because now that grammar induction has been done to death, we're right back where this book leaves off--computers can parse sentences all right: heck, these days, computers can even assign numbers between 0 and 1 to parse trees-- but can computers UNDERSTAND sentences?

I would love to see a 3rd edition of this book, and I'm sure I'm not alone.What I'd like to see it cover is (surprise surprise) conjunction/disjunction, discourse representation theory, underspecification, and a more meaty discussion of knowledge representation and inference.Also, a few chapters on natural language generation would be nice, as well as discussions on dialogue.Skip the sections on ATNs and other parsing methods which are only of historical interest now.

Flaws and all, this book is beloved of generations of NLP researchers and is still indispensible, after all these years.

A classic
Allen's book is a standard introduction to NLP in industry and academia.His exposition permits straightforward implementation and provides a lucid motivation for the algorithms he describes."Natural Language Understanding" was the first NLP text I read (for a summer job), and I've always referred to it first for its balance of formal and practical considerations.

However, some developments in the past few years outpace his treatment.In particular, the stochastic viewpoint has become more common in natural-language processing, and Allen does not consider related innovations in great depth.Passing mention of the interaction between NLP and the speech processing and information retrievals would also benefit a revised version.

Now THERE'S a good book!
James Allen introduces the concepts required to build a NL system without losing you in the psycholinguistics, psychology and philosophy of language. The great part is that he gives you enough of a background in each of thesefields before going into a topic in depth. Plenty of examples help definewords like "morpheme" so you don't get lost in the psychobabblejargon of the required disciplines. (Wouldn't that be an ironic thing tohave happen in a NLP book?!) :)

I'd love to tell you more, but I onlystopped by to catch the author's name and look for whitepapers on his(hopefully existant) website.

A great text, and useful reference
This books serves as a very useful introduction to computational linguistics. It is clearly laid out, and will serve the reader for many years as a continuing reference.

The TRAINS project at Rochester (the author's institution) was based on many of the concepts outlined in this book... proof that they work and can be made to handle real-world situations.

I continue to use it, now in its second edition as a reference for myself, and to train those who need to work with our project.

I cannot recommend a book more highly. If you want to learn computational linguistics, or need to push the state of the art, this is the book you need.

The standard among NLP textbooks
An excellent book; the best introduction to the subject of Natural Language Processing, made even better by its second edition.If you wish to learn how computers can be made to process human language, go no further. ... Read more

Product Description

Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.

Customer Reviews (41)

One of the very best.
This book is one of the very best accounts of history from the dimension of language. Should be required reading for all interested in world history.

review of Empires of the Word

This is a profoundly important book.It outlines, as no other book has that I have seen, the way languages work in human history.It opens vast areas of knowledge about language that most of us, even if we have studied linguistics as I have, did not know of.How is it that the Spanish spread their language over huge areas in the New World, but the French did not succeed in turning England into a Francophone country after the Norman conquest?Why is Sanskrit so respected, and so little spoken? How do languages grow, spread, and die?

I recommend this book unreservedly.


Edward A, Nickerson

should be "A Language history of the WEST"
first of all, i admit that it is a magnificent book with decent introduction to Western language history, and i did learn a lot from this book. however, when it talks about eastern part of the WORLD, the author just shows his lack of basic knowledge and even some writing from wiki is better than this.

Boring!
this book is really boring I bought it for a class and I totally hate reading it. I'm half way through and I'm only on ch.5! The chapters are soooooooooo!!!! long! its riddiculous! this is a pretty thick book and it has really small writting! The author just talks over and over again about the same thing! Don't recommend it to read just for fun but if it is for a class then goodluck!

Unreadable
This book is very advanced and I feel I should caution anyone purchasing this book at an undergraduate level. The author goes straight into advanced material without providing any background information. The names of ancient cities, languages and peoples are spewed out one after another and the way the text is written seems to assume the reader has an extensive knowledge of geography (ever heard of Ugarit, Karkemish or Qatna?). New places and topics are introduced randomly within the same paragraph, and even the same sentence!

Sample of text: "The Hittites, flourishing from the sixteenth to the thirteenth century BC, created a massively literate civilization, and the royal library at Hattusas, discovered in modern Bogaz Koy, 150 kilometres west of Ankara, contains materials not only in Hittite and Akkadian, but also in Hurrian, Luwian, and Palaic, interspersed here and there with phrases in Hattic, Sumerian and the Indo-Aryan language of Mitannian aristocracy" (41). ... Read more

Product Description
This exciting new resource offers fun, innovative games in language arts. Based on the most recent brain research, the games engage students in becoming active, motivated learners. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, but Rather Involved
I purchased this book hoping for additional curriculum-reinforcing games that would enhance the learning experience of my English students. While the games in this book do just that, the instructions for some are rather lengthy; they may contain as many as ten or twelve steps. However, if you can work your way through the directions and the prep (cutting out and photo-copying), you will find the games to be fun and effective. The book is divided into four chapters: Reading, Writing, Language Conventions, and Listening and Speaking. Many games have extended learning activities (which is good for the more advanced students). Some of the material covers such things as defining vocabulary words through context clues, multiple-meaning words, root and compound words, tone and attitude in literature, literary genres, parts of speech, sentence parts, editing skills, literary devices (metaphors and similes), etc. While I do consider this book an asset, I doubt I will reach for it as often as some of my other books. I would have given it a definite five-star rating were it not for the lengthy, somewhat involved instructions of some of the games. ... Read more