Language: An Invitation to Cognitive Science. Vol. 1

If you teach an undergraduate course in Cognitive Science, you have to decide whether you will attempt to cover the whole field by yourself, or whether a small group of you and your colleagues will attempt the job, or whether you will simply coordinate a series of guest lectures. \+‘hen it is time to choose a textbook, you have a sbilar range of options. You can choose a coherent if idiosyncratic monograph, an individual view of the field such as Johnson-Laird’s 77ie Coiiipriter aiid the M i i d (1988). Such a book will be interesting and provocative, but cannot pretend to give a broad and balanced overview of the field. You can choose a book that attempts to provide an integrated and representative overview of the field, such as the multi-authored Stillings, Feinstein, Garfield, Rissland, Rosenbaum, Weisler, and Baker-Ward’s Cogiiitive Science: An Iiitrodtrction (1987). Or you can decide to use a book in which acknowledged leaders in cognitive science, all working within a single approach to the topic, individually review their area of special interest. The present book, Language: An Iiwifatioiz to Cognitive Science (Vol. l), offers you this last option. It is the first volume of a 3-volume, 30-chapte1, introduction to cognitive science, which presents psychological, linguistic, philosophical, biological, and computational approaches to topics in human cognition including language, vision, action, and thought. The contributors are, for the most part, identified with approaches to cognitive science found at MIT, and the first volume has a decidedly “East Coast” flavor to it. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the resulting mixture of chapters is unlikely to appeal to many introductory students. The chapters vary greatly in accessibility and the extent to which they attempt to engage the interest of young people who may be only mildly curious about cognitive science. The student is first faced with a third of a book on straight linguistics, with chapters on syntax (Howard Lasnik), semantics (Richard K. Larson), and phonology (hforris Halle). Students who have not chosen to take a course in linguistics, frequently must be introduced carefully to the field, if they are to learn what game linguists are playing and how much fun it can be. These chapters leave that task as an exercise for the instructor. They are, to be certain, highly competent. Lasnik’s chapter on syntax is especially succinct and easy to follow. Larson’s chapter on semantics, however, has only the former quality. It would be a marvellous chapter for the student who can keep up