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A Life of Language Love
by Julie Sedivy
Book Reviewed by:A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.
If there is one feature that defines the human condition, it is language: written, spoken, signed, understood, and misunderstood, in all its infinite glory. In this ingenious, lyrical exploration, Julie Sedivy draws on years of experience in the lab and a lifetime of linguistic love to bring the discoveries of linguistics home, to the place language itself lives: within the yearnings of the human heart and amid the complex social bonds that it makes possible.
Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love follows the path that language takes through a human life―from an infant's first attempts at sense-making to the vulnerabilities and losses that accompany aging. As Sedivy shows, however, language and life are inextricable, and here she offers them together: a childish misunderstanding of her mother's meaning reveals the difficulty of relating to other minds; frustration with "professional" communication styles exposes the labyrinth of standards that define success; the first signs of hearing loss lead to a meditation on society's discomfort with physical and mental limitations.
Part memoir, part scientific exploration, and part cultural commentary, this book epitomizes the thrills of a life steeped in the aesthetic delights of language and the joys of its scientific scrutiny.
Before meaning
Do you want to see our rabbits? asked Maura, my new friend, who at four years of age outpaced me by a year. She was speaking Italian, which I did not speak. I nodded. She brought me to a pen outside the barn with a mass of rabbits at its center. Looking closely, I could make out a few individuals, small clumps of fur huddled against the rabbit pile.
Do you want to see some bigger rabbits? she asked, still in Italian. Again, I nodded. In a nearby pen, much larger this time, were dozens of meaty rabbits flexing their legs, lurching around in the cage, hopping over each other, ignoring all the other animals including me and Maura.
Do you want to see bigger rabbits? asked Maura. I nodded vigorously. She led me to the barn, and we stepped into the sweet, stinking darkness. I could make out two enormous shapes, bigger than horses. I fled.
When Maura persuaded me the next day to reenter the barn, I could see, after I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, that the two animals were ...
Linguist Julie Sedivy's new book, Linguaphile: a Life of Language Love, explores the connection between human life and language through a fascinating combination of linguistic science and the author's own life story... As Sedivy points out, language is about connecting people, so it's fitting that the memoir sections of Linguaphile are focused more on the relationships in her life than on specific events. She explores both the good and the bad in her connections with her parents, husbands, siblings, and friends, and in doing so, evokes the compelling complexity of human life...continued
Full Review
(667 words)
(Reviewed by Katharine Blatchford).
In Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love, a combination of popular science and memoir, linguist Julie Sedivy shares that one of her worst fears is that an illness or injury will cause her to develop aphasia, a type of disorder that impacts a person's ability to use both spoken and written language. After this confession, she goes on to describe the experiences of Paul West, a prolific author who struggled with this very disorder. Born in 1930, West published a wide variety of work, including novels, essays, and literary criticism, in addition to teaching at multiple universities. In 2003, West had a stroke which damaged areas of his brain key to the processing of language, causing global aphasia, the most severe form. Immediately after the...
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