Roy
Harris
Online
The Language-Makers (1980)
Hardcover: 194 pages
ISBN: 0801413176
Languages do not come ready-made, any more than philosophies, religions, or forms of government. They are what we make them. As language-makers, people need more than heads for talking. They need the physical and mental equipment to take part in the many social activities which alone provide the context for a relevant conceptualisation of what a language is. For language-making involves much more than merely the construction of systems of signs. It is also the essential process by which individuals construct a cultural identity for themselves, and for the communities to which they see themselves as belonging.
– ‘Profound and disturbing’: Anthony Burgess in The Observer
– ‘Harris’s kind of thinking is much needed in linguistics, where epistemology and ideology are always near the surface’: Marie Louise Pratt in Language
– ‘displays erudition of rare breadth, aptly deployed’: Barbara Strang in London Review of Books
The Language-Makers may be purchased using one of the following links
The Language-Makers at Amazon.com
or via bookfinder.com
