Language through the Looking Glass Exploring Language and Linguistics

by Yaguello, Marina; Harris, Trevor

• ISBN13: 9780198700067
• ISBN10: 0198700067
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

What can wordplay--as understood in the broadest sense--teach us about language, its functions, characteristics, structure, and workings? Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Yanguello takes the reader on a vivid and unconventional voyage into the world(s) of language, charting themajor themes of linguistics along the way. This is an entertaining and original introduction to the nature of language that will appeal to students and teachers alike.

Table of Contents

Introduction So, you are a linguist...	1	(5)
1. What Language is For	6	(16)
2. The Tower of Babel Universal characteristics of language	22	(2)
3. Pink Elephants Redundancy at work	24	(4)
4. The Canny Canner The speech chain and its components	28	(7)
5. Anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism Words and morphemes	35	(9)
6. Did You Say Pig or Fig? The sound systems of languages	44	(26)
7. Words as Signs	70	(10)
8. A Rose by Any Other Name Are signs arbitrary or motivated?	80	(7)
9. The Incredible Lightness of Meaning Sense and nonsense	87	(12)
10. The House that Jack Built Competence and performance	99	(14)
11. Green Ideas The boundaries of syntax and semantics	113	(17)
12. Murdering Time Figures of speech	130	(7)
13. The Miser and the Prodigal Son Lexical meaning	137	(15)
14. Tweedledum and Tweedledee The tricks and traps of syntax	152	(9)
Conclusion	161	(1)
References	162	(6)
Index	168