Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Language: A Preview
• Chapter 2: Phonetics: The Sounds of Language
• Chapter 3: Phonology: The Function and Patterning of Sounds
• Chapter 4: Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure
• Chapter 5: Syntax: The Analysis of Sentence Structure
• Chapter 6: Semantics: The Analysis of Meaning
• Chapter 7: Cognitive Grammar
• Chapter 8: Historical Linguistics: The Study of Language Change
• Chapter 9: The Classification of Languages
• Chapter 10: First Language Acquisition
• Chapter 11: Second Language Acquisition
• Chapter 12: Psycholinguistics: The Study of Language Processing
• Chapter 13: Brain and Language
• Chapter 14: Language in Social Contexts
• Chapter 15: Writing and Language
• Chapter 16: Animal Communication
• Chapter 17: Computational Linguistics

Promotional Information

Contemporary Linguistics is the best-selling introductory survey for courses on linguistics and language study. It introduces students to the structure of language in all its various contexts, from origin to acquisition to development.

Reviews

"Contemporary Linguisticsis a reader- and instructor-friendly book. It is well paced and clearly written, and each chapter ends with a concise summary of the material, up-to-date recommendations for further reading and an extensive set of exercises. The individual chapters are nicely linked, allowing the reader to integrate information that is presented in different contexts and parts of the book. An excellent primary textbook for beginning linguistics undergraduates; it will also be a useful reference work for more advanced students... Accessible and informative, with tried and tested sequencing of material." - Reviewed in Times Higher Education