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THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE: CORE CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (2nd ed.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2008

Amy Thompson
Amy Thompson
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE: CORE CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (2nd ed.). Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Pp. iii + 266. $32.00 paper.

This 12-chapter volume is designed to introduce a student with no previous experience to the field of linguistics. The chapters are arranged to focus on the various facets of language, with each chapter building on the preceding one. Chapter 1, “Language and Linguistics,” and chapter 2, “Language and Languages,” offer an introduction to language as a concept. Chapters 3 and 4 have a word-level focus, whereas chapters 5 and 6 focus on sounds. Chapters 7 and 8 synthesize the previous chapters to discuss language on the sentence level. Chapters 10–12 use the discussion of language structure presented in the previous chapters to direct the reader's attention to the meaning of language as a whole. These last four chapters discuss language meaning, discourse, and the relationship between language and humans.

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BOOK NOTICES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 121
Copyright
© 2008 Cambridge University Press

This 12-chapter volume is designed to introduce a student with no previous experience to the field of linguistics. The chapters are arranged to focus on the various facets of language, with each chapter building on the preceding one. Chapter 1, “Language and Linguistics,” and chapter 2, “Language and Languages,” offer an introduction to language as a concept. Chapters 3 and 4 have a word-level focus, whereas chapters 5 and 6 focus on sounds. Chapters 7 and 8 synthesize the previous chapters to discuss language on the sentence level. Chapters 10–12 use the discussion of language structure presented in the previous chapters to direct the reader's attention to the meaning of language as a whole. These last four chapters discuss language meaning, discourse, and the relationship between language and humans.

Each chapter starts with a preview that makes the student aware of its theme, and the clearly labeled sections organize the information well within the chapters. For example, the sections of chapter 3, “The Grammar of Words: Words and Word-Parts,” are as follows: “Introduction,” “The Word ‘Word’,” “Distribution,” and “Morphological Units.” Within these sections, the authors provide activities to allow the student to actively engage with the information presented. The chapters end with a “Food for Thought” section, which encourages the student to think critically about the theme of the chapter. The authors have also included references so that the student can further investigate the topics.

This text offers a clear explanation of the core concepts of linguistics and would be an appropriate choice as a text for an introductory linguistics class. The volume provides a solid base on which the student can build by taking more advanced courses in linguistics. Although the text does not go into great detail on any given subject, the discussion of core linguistic concepts coupled with the clear presentation of the information and the reasonable price of the text would make it an appropriate choice for an introductory linguistics class at the undergraduate level.