Reviews for Fuzzy Grammar: A Reader

The average rating for Fuzzy Grammar: A Reader based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-15 00:00:00 Tareva Borges Penelope Eckert combined methodologies from anthropology and linguistics to create an influential study of the social meaning of language use among students at a suburban high school near Detroit in the '80s, which she has written up in several variations over quite a few years. Her earlier book about it (Jocks and Burnouts) is shorter, I think less dry/theoretical/data-intensive, and more widely read. This volume is pretty slow-going and maybe not the best introduction - she has article-length treatments as well as Jocks & Burnouts. But I found her painstaking theoretical positioning and use of Lave & Wenger worthwhile. Communities of practice, which I had previously encountered as above-average organizational jargon/theory, made a powerful concept for going beyond class, gender, race, etc, which always carry some air of determinism. The result is a view of teenagers that emphasizes how kids find agency in situations where they have very little. Also I liked retrospectively recognizing people & things I found alienating in high school as (literally) "corporate."

Review # 2 was written on 2021-03-15 00:00:00 Wayne Troy I found this to be a good book to fill in my gaps in knowledge about pragmatics. Underatanding that I already have a background in linguistics.