CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW

OF
LANGUAGE STUDIES

CREATED BY:
ADELIANA SIMANJUNTAK

LITERATURE 17’ B CLASS

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDY PROGRAM
PREFACE
 FOREWORD

Praise gratitude authors say the presence of the omnipotent God for His blessing and love, so can
finish this CBR well.
As for the complention of this CBR can not be separated from the help of various parties. Thanks to
the author say to the lecturer who teaches English lecture, sir Mara Untung Ritonga, S.S., M.Hum., Ph.D
who taught the author in the preparation of CBR. Thanks also the authors say to friends who helped to assist
the author in the completion of this CBR.
Because of that, we want to say thank you to all individuals who helps in the process of writing this
paper. Hopefully Allah replies all helps and bless you all. Then we hope this book can helps the readers to
gain more knowledge about listening and think critically.

Medan, November 2017

Authors

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ………………...……………………………………………………. Page 2

Table of contents …………………………………………………………… Page 3
Chapter one
Introduction ...………………………………………………………………. Page 4 – 5
Book Information ……………………………………………………………. Page 5
Chapter two
Summary …………………………………………………………………..... Page 6
Opinion ………………………………………………………………………. Page 7
Chapter three
Suggestion …………………………………………………………………… Page 8

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. Background
In everyday life whether as a student, language teacher, speaker, author, journalist, or
as anything related to language. Of course we will face linguistic problems.
Along with the development of the era of language development also developed and
experienced shifts of meaning. Shifting the meaning of language cannot be avoided; it is
influenced by many factors that will be disc Linguistics will provide us with an
understanding of the nature and subtleties of the language as the only means of
communication that only human beings have, and how it is played out in human society.
As a tool of human communication, language is a system that is systematic and
systemic. On this occasion we will only discuss about semantics theory and semantics
pragmatics.

2. The purpose of writing CBR

1. To fulfil the the lecture assignment of English studies
2. To review the content of book that is critized
3. Finding and knowing the information contained in the book
4. Practice youself to think critically in searching for information provided
5. Compare the content of the bookto real situation

3. The benefits of writing CBR

1. In order for the reader to be responsive points in this chapter
2. To understand about English studies ranging from materials to applying them
3. Train the ability of writer in critical thinking to seek the informations

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BOOK INFORMATION

Main Subject : Semantic Theory

Book Title : Theories Of Lexical Semantics
Writer : Dirk Geeraerts
Publisher : Oxford University Press.
Year Published : 2009
Edition : second edition

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 CHAPTER TWO

SUMMARY

Max Hecht appropriately summed up the position and the scope of historical-philological
semantics: on the one hand, it yields classifications of semantic changes, on the other, it tries
to explain those changes on a psychological basis. In 1927, the German linguist Leo
Weisgerber used precisely that quote from Hecht as one of the starting-points for his
vigorously polemical article ‘Die Bedeutungslehre – ein Irrweg der Sprachwissenschaft?’
(Semantic theory – a wrong direction in linguistics?). Weisgerber leaves no doubt as to how
the question should be answered: while he does make allowance for the practical value of the
classificatory schemas that lexical semantics had so far come up with, the psychological
conception of meaning is a major mistake, because it blocks an adequate view on language
as a symbolic system. Taking its inspiration from the structuralist conception of language
that is basically associated with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralist lexical
semantics would be the main inspiration for innovation in word meaning research until well
into the 1960s. The following sections of the chapter will then separately take up the main
forms of structuralist semantics. The structuralist conception of meaning (including Arguing
against historical-philological semantics, Types of structuralist semantics), Lexical field
theory (including Trier’s concept of lexical fields, Lexical fields and syntagmatic relations,
Lexical fields and formal relations, The discreteness of lexical fields), Componential analysis
(including Componential analysis in American ethnosemantics, Componential analysis in
European structural semantics), Relational semantics (including Major sense relations,
Theoretical issues), and the last but not the least, Beyond structuralist semantics.

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OPINION

This book is very detailed on describing all of the topic including some that don’t really
necessary topics such as explain the chess game as the illustration for founding father of
structuralism. There are more like that in the book that makes us tend to skip some pages for
that.
The e-book also does not have a cover which is very unfortunate. We know it’s pretty usual
in e-book. But in online book store, you have to make an interesting thumbnail of your book
to attract the reader to buy your e-book.
As for the typing style, the writer seems not really pay attention to the visualization of his
book. Observable from his pharagraph which is pretty messy fo an e-book. His paraghraph
often too long for an paraghraph which actually can be separated so that can help the reader
to not get lost from where his reading at.
But in the positive side, this book contains exclusive information that can’t be found in
another book. There are many study result for the topic that can help the reader to find out
what he looking for.

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 CHAPTER THREE

SUGGESTION

First, the book really needs a cover. Like what I’ve said in the previous chapter, cover is the
fisrt thing seen in the book, so it’s really important for a writer to put a cover for his work.
Second, it would be more easier for a student like us to read this e-book if the e-book
contains lower vocabulary level on it.
Third, writer can cut off some unnecessary explanation to shorten some paragraph which can
help readers to enjoy this book.
The last thing, we hope writer can manage the paragraph more neatly.