Understanding Language A Basic... | Buy

Understanding Languageis an introduction to linguistics aimed at non-major undergraduate students who are new to the subject. The book is comprehensive in its coverage of the key areas of linguistics, yet explains these in an easy to understand, jargon-free way. Pictures, jokes, diagrams, tables and suggestions for further reading make this an accessible, student friendly guide which should enable students to navigate this often complicated area of study. Topics covered include language acquisition; speech sounds; the make-up of words; grammar; meaning; communication; the history of English; language variation and change. This is an essential introduction for students who are taking linguistics at university, whether as their core subject of study, as a non-major or as a bridge between school and undergraduate.

Dr Elizabeth Grace Winkler is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Western Kentucky

Preface	p. xi
List of Figures	p. xiii
Acknowledgements	p. xv
What every native speaker of a language secretly understands	p. 1
The sound system	p. 2
The lexicon: the human dictionary	p. 4
Morphology	p. 7
Grammar	p. 8
How the world's languages differ	p. 9
The boundaries of a language: language versus dialect	p. 12
How does a standard develop or get chosen?	p. 14
Standard and written language versus normal or non-standard speech	p. 17
A linguistic approach to language diversity	p. 19
Human Language versus Animal Communication Systems	p. 22
Naturally occurring animal communication systems	p. 24
Black Austrian honeybee communication	p. 24
Bird calls and songs	p. 26
Dolphins and whales	p. 28
More complex animal communication systems	p. 29
Primate communication	p. 29
Artificially taught animal communication systems	p. 30
Chimpanzees and great apes	p. 30
African grey parrots	p. 32
Language Acquisition	p. 36
Early theories of first language acquisition	p. 37
Challenges to behaviourism and structuralism	p. 38
The innateness hypothesis	p. 38
Support for the innateness hypothesis	p. 39
Problems with reinforcement and imitation	p. 40
What children's 'errors' tell us	p. 41
Studies supporting the innateness hypothesis	p. 43
Studies on the living brain	p. 44
Critical age hypothesis for first language acquisition	p. 45
Stages of language acquisition	p. 46
Learning the sound system	p. 46
Sound and meaning	p. 48
From single words to grammar	p. 48
Second language acquisition	p. 49
SLA and behaviourism	p. 50
First language interference in SLA	p. 52
SLA and feedback or correction	p. 53
Individual differences	p. 55
Critical age hypothesis for second language acquisition	p. 57
Recent developments in second language acquisition	p. 58
Phonetics	p. 62
How is speech produced?	p. 63
The consonants	p. 64
Voicing	p. 65
Place of articulation	p. 65
Manner of articulation	p. 66
The International Phonetic Alphabet	p. 72
The vowels	p. 73
Classification of vowels	p. 73
The vowel chart	p. 73
Diphthongs	p. 74
Vowel length	p. 75
Advantages of a phonetic system	p. 76
Other features of sound: suprasegmentals	p. 78
Morphology: The Makeup of Words in a Language	p. 82
Categorizing the words of a language	p. 84
Morphemes	p. 85
Inflectional and derivational morphemes	p. 86
Morphology and phonetics	p. 89
A final word about morpheme structure	p. 91
Our ever-expanding and changing vocabulary	p. 91
Word formation processes	p. 92
Linguistic borrowing	p. 98
The dictionary	p. 100
New dictionary words	p. 101
Grammar	p. 105
Traditional grammar	p. 108
Language word orders	p. 110
Phrase structure grammars	p. 111
Advantages of a phrase structure grammar	p. 113
Determining phrase structure grammar rules	p. 113
Other aspects of syntax	p. 128
Semantics: Language and Meaning	p. 132
How is meaning developed?	p. 133
How is meaning encoded?	p. 134
Word meaning: sense and reference	p. 135
Proper nouns: the problem of names	p. 136
What native speakers understand about meaning	p. 138
Ambiguity	p. 138
Synonymy	p. 139
Antonymy	p. 140
Levels of specificity	p. 140
Meaning inclusion	p. 141
Compositional versus non-compositional utterances	p. 142
Phrasal verbs	p. 146
Figures of speech	p. 147
Irony and sarcasm	p. 148
Pragmatics: Language in Use	p. 152
Speech acts	p. 153
Direct versus indirect speech acts	p. 155
Speaking the unspeakable: indirection as a linguistic strategy	p. 156
Euphemisms	p. 156
Euphemisms for pregnancy	p. 157
Proverbs as indirect speech	p. 158
Language and advertising	p. 160
Weasel words	p. 161
Open-ended comparisons	p. 162
Ambiguous language and modal auxiliaries	p. 163
Politics as advertising	p. 164
Meaning and humour	p. 167
Humour and the sound system of a language	p. 167
Humour and morphology	p. 167
Humour and semantics	p. 168
Humour and syntax	p. 169
The History of English	p. 172
Periods of English	p. 174
Effects of the Norman invasion	p. 176
The return of English	p. 177
The influence of Geoffrey Chaucer	p. 178
The printing press	p. 179
The influence of James I	p. 181
Lexical change	p. 182
English expands through military and economic expansion	p. 184
Sound change	p. 186
The Great Vowel Shift	p. 187
Evidence for sound change from Old English	p. 188
Changes in grammar	p. 189
The spelling 'system' of English	p. 190
Fixing the spelling problem	p. 194
Language Variation and Change	p. 197
Why languages change	p. 197
Lexical and semantic change	p. 198
Changes in the sound system	p. 199
Changes to grammar and morphology	p. 201
Language variation	p. 202
Causes of dialectal diversity	p. 203
Social attitudes about language varieties	p. 206
Measuring attitudes about language varieties	p. 207
Dialects of language contact	p. 208
Chicano English and codeswitching	p. 208
Codeswitching	p. 211
Pidgins and Creoles	p. 215
Varieties of English	p. 225
Appalachian English	p. 225
African American Vernacular English	p. 229
Cockney English	p. 232
Language and gender	p. 234
Use of titles	p. 235
Asymmetries in language	p. 236
Generic 'he' for unspecified reference	p. 237
Effects of gender on language	p. 238
Common beliefs about gendered language	p. 239
Language and the workplace	p. 242
Early socialization by gender	p. 243
The future of English and its dialects	p. 244
References	p. 249
Index	p. 253
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.