Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication - Softcover

Akmajian, Adrian; Demers, Richard A.; Harnish, Robert M.; Farmer, Ann K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262510294 ISBN 13: 9780262510295

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1984

Synopsis

This new and more comprehensive edition of Linguistics has, on the basis of classroom use, comments from linguists via a questionnaire, and letters sent to the authors, been radically rewritten and reorganized to accommodate the needs of teachers and students. The text is suitable for use in introductory courses in linguistics, and as a supplement in courses such as communication, language and literature, anthropology, speech and hearing, and psychology.

In the first part of the book, Background, the material on animal communication has been shortened and is now a single chapter. In the second part, The Structure of Human Language, the chapters on morphology, phonology, language variation, and language change have been totally revised. The book now contains a new section, Human Communication and Cognitive Science, which contains a completely rewritten chapter on pragmatics, and new chapters on the psychology of language and language acquisition. Exercises have been made easier to use and are graded in difficulty. A "key words" section has been added to appropriate chapters, and the book now contains a glossary.

About this title

About the Author

The late Adrian Akmajian was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.

Review

Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication has long served as the yardstick introductory textbook to Linguistics. This new edition continues in that tradition, offering a carefully updated presentation of diverse aspects of the discipline. The text succeeds in being engaging without sacrificing conceptual sophistication or analytic accuracy, it challenges the reader without overwhelming. Its comprehensive coverage of traditional linguistic topics combined with its cognitive science perspective makes this textbook uniquely adaptable for a broad range of courses. It is to my mind the best overall single volume for making state-of-the-art linguistics accessible to the novice student.

(Steven Franks, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures; Chair and Professor of Linguistics, Indiana University, Adrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish)

The 6th edition of Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication is a wonderful introductory textbook for linguistics. The book is flexible enough to be used in both introductory and more advanced survey courses by including more advanced special topic sections and lengthy reference lists for the interested student. It also combines 'famous' linguistic examples (e.g., Canadian raising) in the presentation of the material and in the exercises with new and clever examples (e.g, 'Cops-ization') to give students a range of linguistic data to consider.

(Susannah Levi, Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University)

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0262510294
• ISBN 13: 9780262510295
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 536