Plz recommend some *intelligent* style guides...

[agradman]

I'm looking for a styleguide or book on linguistics. I'm not talking about Strunk & White ... Ideally, I'd like a book that takes into account the advances in linguistics and cognitive science in the last few decades, and explains them in a way that helps me improve my writing. I'm talking about a book like "The Stuff of Thought" by Steven Pinker, or "Style" by Joseph Williams (though I wish it contained more science). I'm happy to read something more technical (like a journal article, etc.), if that's necessary.

[Insatyable]

It seems to me that you're asking for two vastly different things. A book on linguistics would be descriptive; a style guide would be prescriptive. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a book that attempts to be both, except perhaps ESL textbooks.

[goofy]

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage is imo the best usage guide. It describes usage and lets the reader decide for themselves. They sometimes incorporate a bit of linguistic theory. Insatyable has a point though, you aren't going to find much advice in how to improve your writing in books about linguistics.

[agradman]

Thank you both for the replies. I think you are saying that there is a distinction between books on prose style (prescriptive) and books on cognition (descriptive).

That may be true, but I still suspect that there has been scientific research into what makes verbal communication more effective, and why that is so. For example, style manuals talk about the importance of coherence & cohesion in writing, and I can't believe that cognitive scientists haven't accounted for that in terms of how the mind simulates objects.

Just doing a random google search for <linguistics coherence cognitive> I found two , of unknown prominence/relevance, which suggest that this line of inquiry does exist:

http://www.latest-science-articles.com/Philosophy_Humanities/A-Cognitive-Contrastive-Study-of-Discourse-Coherence-in-English-and-Chinese-17770.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=uZcs6poXkfEC&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=linguistics+coherence+cognitive&source=bl&ots=Vevj2qVhtQ&sig=-inO5sLNexeajJ7j7pxbHaOwDoc&hl=en&ei=20UOTsaMMY-0sAOa8NWEDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=linguistics%20coherence%20cognitive&f=false

So I'm in the frustrating situation of knowing that the thing I'm looking for exists, but not knowing where to find it

[goofy]

You could ask at Language Log.