It introduces the analysis of the key elements of language--sounds, words, structures and meanings, and provides a solid foundation in all of the essential topics. The third edition has been extensively revised to include new sections on important contemporary issues in language study, including language and culture, African American English, sign language, and slang. A comprehensive glossary provides useful explanations of technical terms, and each chapter contains a range of new study questions and research tasks, with suggested answers.

    But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language —and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water —a "she"— becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial.

    From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.

    With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.

    Writing with her customary charm and erudition, Dent offers a wonderfully readable and endlessly entertaining exploration of language, answering 101 of the most intriguing questions about the English language, from word origins and spelling to grammar and usage. Dent ranges far and wide in her search for the oddities of language, pondering the ancient origin of the word tragedy (which originally meant goat song in Greek) as well as the modern meaning of the word donk in the Blackout Crew's song title Put a Donk in It. And throughout, the book brims with fascinating tales. Readers learn, for instance, that the word bankrupt comes from the Italian banca rotta or broken bench and the word broke (meaning out of funds) has the same origin. Dent explains that in the sixteenth century, money lenders conducted their business on benches outdoors and the usual Italian word for bench was banca (hence today's bank). The author also provides an entertaining account of the origin of the term white elephant (meaning a useless, burdensome possession) that dates back to ancient Siam, where rare white elephants were always given to the king. But since by law white elephants couldn't be worked (and earn money) or even be ridden, the king often re-gifted these worthless burdens to courtiers whom he didn't like. Sparkling with insight and linguistic curiosity, this delightful compendium will be irresistible to anyone fascinated with language--the perfect gift for word lovers everywhere.

    A. Hudson's Sociolinguistics will be welcomed by students and teachers alike. To reflect changes in the field since publication of the first edition in 1980, the author has added new sections on politeness, accommodation, and prototypes; and he has expanded discussion of sex differences in language use, and the relationship between language and thought. Ample coverage of classic topics such as varieties of language, speech as social interaction, the quantitative study of speech, and linguistic and social inequality, remains.

    This book provides a brief yet comprehensive introduction to the field. It explores how sociolinguistics is linked to other disciplines such as history, politics and gender studies.

    The world's foremost expert on the English language takes us on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the history of our vernacular through the ages.In this entertaining history of the world's most ubiquitous language, David Crystal draws on one hundred words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word — ‘roe’ — was written down on the femur of a roe deer in the fifth century.Featuring ancient words ('loaf'), cutting edge terms that reflect our world ('twittersphere'), indispensable words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what'), fanciful words ('fopdoodle') and even obscene expressions (the "c word"...), David Crystal takes readers on a tour of the winding byways of our language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.

    Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English--and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it's not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).

    In addition, it should have repercussions in a variety of disciplines, ranging from anthropology and psychology to epistemology and the philosophy of science. . . . Lakoff asks: What do categories of language and thought reveal about the human mind? Offering both general theory and minute details, Lakoff shows that categories reveal a great deal."—David E. Leary, American Scientist

    It is not a mere reorganization of the data into a new kind of library catalogue, nor another specualtive philosophy about the nature of man and language, but rather a rigorus explication of our intuitions about our language in terms of an overt axiom system, the theorems derivable from it, explicit results which may be compared with new data and other intuitions, all based plainly on an overt theory of the internal structure of languages; and it may well provide an opportunity for the application of explicity measures of simplicity to decide preference of one form over another form of grammar.

    This fully revised textbook is a new edition of Ronald Wardhaugh's popular and accessible An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.Provides an accessible, comprehensive introduction to sociolinguistics that reflects new developments in the field.Fully revised, with 130 new and updated references to bring the book completely up-to-date.Includes suggested readings, discussion sections, and exercises.Features increased emphasis on issues of identity, solidarity, and powerDiscusses topics such as language dialects, pidgins and creoles, codes, bilingualism, speech communities, variation, words and culture, ethnographies, solidarity and politeness, talk and action, gender, disadvantage, and planning.Designed for introductory and post-introductory students, and ideal for courses including introduction to sociolinguistics, aspects of sociolinguistics, and language and society.

    It examines the critical reactions to the different theories of second language acquisition.

    Using translation as his lens, David Bellos shows how much we can learn about ourselves by exploring the ways we use translation, from the historical roots of written language to the stylistic choices of Ingmar Bergman, from the United Nations General Assembly to the significance of James Cameron's Avatar.Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across human experience to describe why translation sits deep within us all, and why we need it in so many situations, from the spread of religion to our appreciation of literature; indeed, Bellos claims that all writers are by definition translators. Written with joie de vivre, reveling both in misunderstanding and communication, littered with wonderful asides, it promises any reader new eyes through which to understand the world. In the words of Bellos: "The practice of translation rests on two presuppositions. The first is that we are all different: we speak different tongues, and see the world in ways that are deeply influenced by the particular features of the tongue that we speak. The second is that we are all the same—that we can share the same broad and narrow kinds of feelings, information, understandings, and so forth. Without both of these suppositions, translation could not exist. Nor could anything we would like to call social life. Translation is another name for the human condition."

    It is designed to take absolute beginners to a point where they can approach the current literature in the subject. It contains numerous in-text exercises which involve the reader in doing morphology by formulating hypotheses and testing them against data from English and numerous other languages. Although primarily intended to be a course book for use on morphology courses, it will also be useful for students taking courses in the closely related sub-fields of phonology and syntax. The book is divided into three parts:. Part 1 surveys traditional and structuralist notions of word-structure which still provide the necessary background to morphological investigations. Part 2 explores the relationship between the lexicon, morphology and phonology in current generative grammar. Part 3 examines issues in the interaction between the lexicon, morphology and syntax.