Language: The BasicsLanguage: The Basics, gently introduces beginning students and general readers to the study of language. Written in an engaging and entertaining style, this book provides a clear overview of the key topics and an explanation of the basic terms and ideas. |
Contents
Arbitrariness | 12 |
Further reading | 26 |
The category of number | 39 |
Language and meaning | 47 |
Word meanings and the structure of the vocabulary | 53 |
Meaning and the world | 62 |
Further reading | 69 |
Other types of variation | 75 |
Further reading | 115 |
Language and context | 122 |
Writing it down | 130 |
Getting what you want | 138 |
Language mind and brain | 145 |
Funny things tongues | 159 |
Why is this happening? | 173 |
Attitudes to language | 187 |
Language and identity | 82 |
Further reading | 89 |
Thats a nice word youve got there | 97 |
English come from? | 108 |
a reprise | 206 |
| 229 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aitches American animal aphasia Auslan Basque Batua behaviour borrowed brain Broca's area called calque centuries Chapter child colour terms conversation course damage deaf distinctions Dyirbal England English grammar English words English-speakers example fact forms French gender German grammar of English grammatical endings h-dropping Hanunóo happened hence human language hyponyms hypothesis identical Ingvaeonic innateness hypothesis language acquisition language areas language faculty large number lexical categories linguistic Lisa London tomorrow look meaning metaphor Mike normal Norwegian nouns Old English particular perhaps phonaesthesia phonemes pidgin plural possible prescriptivism prestige produce pronounce pronunciation Proto-Germanic question right hemisphere rules Sapir-Whorf hypothesis sentence sign language Spanish speak speech sounds spelling split infinitives spoken language standard English talking tense things tongue Trudgill typical utterances variation variety of English verb vocabulary vocal tract vowel Wernicke's area women written