Why Study Linguistics

Why Study Linguistics PDF Author: Kristin Denham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429815638
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Why Study Linguistics is designed to help anyone with an interest in studying language understand what linguistics is, and what linguists do. Exploring how the scientific study of language differs from other ways of investigating this uniquely human behavior, Why Study Linguistics:? explores the various topics that students of linguistics study, including sound systems of language, the structure of words and sentences and their meanings, and the wider social context of language change and language variation;? explains what you might do with a degree in linguistics and the kinds of jobs and careers that studying linguistics prepares you for; is supported by a list of links to additional resources available online.? This book is the first of its kind and will be essential reading for anyone considering a course of study in this fascinating subject, as well as teachers, advisors, student mentors, and anyone who wants to know more about the scientific study of language.

Why Study Linguistics

Why Study Linguistics PDF Author: Kristin Denham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429815638
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Get Book

Book Description
Why Study Linguistics is designed to help anyone with an interest in studying language understand what linguistics is, and what linguists do. Exploring how the scientific study of language differs from other ways of investigating this uniquely human behavior, Why Study Linguistics:? explores the various topics that students of linguistics study, including sound systems of language, the structure of words and sentences and their meanings, and the wider social context of language change and language variation;? explains what you might do with a degree in linguistics and the kinds of jobs and careers that studying linguistics prepares you for; is supported by a list of links to additional resources available online.? This book is the first of its kind and will be essential reading for anyone considering a course of study in this fascinating subject, as well as teachers, advisors, student mentors, and anyone who wants to know more about the scientific study of language.

All About Language

All About Language PDF Author: Barry J. Blake
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191622834
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
In clear, congenial style Barry Blake explains how language works. He describes the make-up of words and how they're built from sounds and signs and put together in phrases and sentences. He examines the dynamics of conversation and the relations between the sound and meaning. He shows how languages help their users connect to each other and to the world, how they vary around the world, why they never stop changing, and that no two people speak a language in the same way. He looks at how language is acquired by infant children, how it relates to thought, and its operations in the brain. He investigates current trends and issues such as the levelling of linguistic class differences and the rise of new secret or in-group languages such as argot and teenspeak. He describes the history of writing from its origins to digital diffusion, and ends by looking at how language might have originated and then evolved among our distant hominid and primate ancestors. Language is crucial to every aspect of our lives whether we're thinking, talking, or dreaming. Barry Blake reveals the wonders that lie beneath the surface of everyday communication, enriching his exposition with a unique blend of anecdote and humour. His engaging guide is for everyone curious about language or who needs to know more about it.

The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism PDF Author: François Grosjean
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444332783
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism presents a comprehensive introduction to the foundations of bilingualism, covering language processing, language acquisition, cognition and the bilingual brain. This thorough introduction to the psycholinguistics of bilingualism is accessible to non-specialists with little previous exposure to the field Introduces students to the methodological approaches currently employed in the field, including observation, experimentation, verbal and computational modelling, and brain imaging Examines spoken and written language processing, simultaneous and successive language acquisition, bilingual memory and cognitive effects, and neurolinguistic and neuro-computational models of the bilingual brain Written in an accessible style by two of the field’s leading researchers, together with contributions from internationally-renowned scholars Featuring chapter-by-chapter research questions, this is an essential resource for those seeking insights into the bilingual mind and our current knowledge of the cognitive basis of bilingualism

Learning about Linguistics

Learning about Linguistics PDF Author: F.C. Stork
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134741677
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
This book offers a workbook approach to linguistics and provides guidelines for the study of language. It aims to give basic information and to indicate something of the background and development of the more important trends in the subject. Each chapter includes exercises which lead the reader outwards from the information given in the text. A list of suggested further reading and references follows each chapter so that each aspect of the subject may be followed up in greater depth if so desired. The book will be of particular use to first-year university students and to students in polytechnics, technical colleges, colleges of education and further education, and, the authors also hope, to many sixth-formers in secondary schools. It will also be of interest to the general reader who wishes to learn about linguistics.

The Virtual Linguistics Campus

The Virtual Linguistics Campus PDF Author: Jürgen Handke, Peter Franke
Publisher: Waxmann Verlag
ISBN: 383096689X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Study Skills for Linguistics

Study Skills for Linguistics PDF Author: Jeanette Sakel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317530101
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Study Skills for Linguistics is the essential companion for students embarking on a degree in linguistics. Covering all the core skills that students of linguistics will require during the early part of their degree, this book gives the reader a basic understanding of the field, as well as confidence in how to find out more and how to prepare for their future career. The key features covered include: subject-specific skills including basic linguistic tools and terminology, such as word classes and grammatical terminology; essential study skills, such as how to perform well in the degree, how to search for and reference literature and how to write an essay; guides for a future with a linguistics degree, including how to write a CV and prepare for a range of graduate destinations. An accessible guide to essential skills in the field of linguistics, Study Skills for Linguistics is a must-read for students contemplating studying this topic, and provides a guide that will take them through their degree and beyond.

The Linguistics Wars

The Linguistics Wars PDF Author: Randy Allen Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839069
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
When it was first published in 1957, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structure seemed to be just a logical expansion of the reigning approach to linguistics. Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades. Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out. In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties. The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself. The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.

An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies

An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies PDF Author: Anne McCabe
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781794333
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This introductory textbook provides readers with a foundation in methods for analysing and understanding language from various theoretical perspectives within linguistics and language studies. Its novel approach introduces systemic functional linguistics, text and discourse analysis, and formal approaches to linguistics. It demonstrates applications of these approaches to reveal how we use language in society, how our brains process language, and how we learn language. Topics include phonetics, phonology, conversation analysis, morphology, semantics, functional and formal syntax, text linguistics, genre analysis, evaluative lexis in text, multimodal representations of meaning, language change and variation, animals and language, the brain and language, and first and second language development/acquisition. The main language focused on is English, while other languages are also drawn on to illustrate the principles, models and theories. Learning outcomes, exercises (with answer key), ideas for project work, and questions for reflection are provided throughout. A final chapter gathers explanations of various fields of practice within linguistics, written by linguists from around the world, including David Crystal (Clinical Linguistics), Frances Christie (Educational Linguistics), and Malcolm Coulthard (Forensic Linguistics). An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies offers an array of analytical tools for undergraduate students of language, communication, and education, and provides an overview of the field for those interested in further study in linguistics and applied language studies. Readers will come away with a heightened sensitivity to and appreciation of their own and other's use of language for creating meaning and for interaction.

The Loom of Language

The Loom of Language PDF Author: Frederick Bodmer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393300345
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 724

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Book Description
Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples. It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages -- Teutonic, Romance, Greek -- helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a language as it is actually used in everyday life.

The Way of the Linguist

The Way of the Linguist PDF Author: Steve Kaufmann
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1420873296
Category : Linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.