An Introduction to Language (w/ MLA9E Updates) / Edition 11

by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams

Overview

Whether you are studying education, languages, cognitive science, psychology, anthropology, English, or teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE, 11th Edition, offers the information you need in a clear and descriptive manner that assumes no prior knowledge of linguistics. This edition retains the blend of humor and broad coverage that have made the text a perennial best seller, while adding up-to-date information and new research that render each topic fresh, engaging, and current.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781337559577
Publisher:	Cengage Learning
Publication date:	01/01/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Victoria Fromkin was Professor of Linguistics and a member of the faculty of the University of California, Department of Linguistics from 1966 until her death in 2000. She served as its chair from 1972-1976. Dr Fromkin published more than one hundred books, monographs and papers on topics concerned with phonetics, phonology, tone languages, African languages, speech errors, processing models, aphasia and the brain/mind/language interface.

Robert Rodman was a Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science at North Carolina State University. His research interests included computational forensic linguistics, speech processing, and in particular, lip synchronisation and voice recognition.

Nina Hyams received her bachelor's degree in journalism from Boston University in 1973 and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in linguistics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1981 and 1983, respectively. She joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1983, where she is a professor of linguistics. Her main areas of research are childhood language development and syntax. She is author of the book LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND THE THEORY OF PARAMETERS (D. Reidel Publishers, 1986), a milestone in language acquisition research. She has also published numerous articles on the development of syntax, morphology, and semantics in children. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Utrecht and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and has given lectures throughout Europe and Japan.

Table of Contents

1. WHAT IS LANGUAGE? Linguistic Knowledge. What Is Grammar? Universal Grammar. What Is Not (Human) Language. Language and Thought. 2. MORPHOLOGY: THE WORDS OF LANGUAGE. Content Words and Function Words. Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning. Rules of Word Formation. Sign Language Morphology. Morphological Analysis: Identifying Morphemes. 3. SYNTAX: THE SENTENCE PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE. What the Syntax Rules Do. Sentence Structure. Phrase Structure Trees. The Internal Structure of Phrases. Grammatical Dependencies. UG Principles and Parameters. Sign Language Syntax. 4. THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE. What Speakers Know about Sentence Meaning. Compositional Semantics. When Compositionality Goes Awry. Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings). Pragmatics. 5. PHONETICS: THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE. Sound Segments. Articulatory Phonetics. Major Phonetic Classes. Syllabic Sounds. 6. PHONOLOGY: THE SOUND OF LANGUAGE. The Pronunciation of Morphemes. Phonemes: The Phonological Units of Language. Distinctive Features of Phonemes. The Rules of Phonology. Prosodic Phonology. Sequential Constraints of Phonemes. Why Do Phonological Rules Exist? Phonological Analysis. 7. LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY. Dialects. Social Dialects. Languages in Contact. Language and Education. Language in Use. 8. LANGUAGE CHANGE: THE SYLLABLES OF TIME. The Regularity of Sound Change. Phonological Change. Morphological Change. Syntactic Change. Lexical Change. Reconstructing "Dead" Languages. Extinct and Endangered Languages. The Genetic Classification of Languages. Types of Languages. Why Do Languages Change? The History of Writing. 9. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. The Linguistic Capacity of Children. The Role of the Linguistic Environment: Adult Input. Knowing More Than One Language. 10. LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND THE HUMAN BRAIN. The Human Mind at Work. Brain and Language. Language and Brain Development. The Modular Mind: Dissociations of Language and Cognition. Glossary. Index.