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THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE: CORE CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (2nd ed.), Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2007

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. Singapore: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2006. Pp. iii + 266. $32.00 paper.

This 12-chapter volume is intended to introduce the field of linguistics to a student with no previous experience. 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 9–12 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.

Information

Type
BOOK NOTICES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 638 - 639
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

This 12-chapter volume is intended to introduce the field of linguistics to a student with no previous experience. 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 9–12 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, making the student aware of its theme, and clearly labeled subsections organize the information well within the chapters. For example, the subsections of chapter 3 (“The Grammar of Words: Words and Word-Parts”) include “Introduction,” “The Word ‘Word,’” “Distribution,” and “Morphological Units.” Within these sections, the authors provide activities to allow the student to actively engage in the information presented. The chapters end with a “Food for Thought” section that 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 presented.

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 concepts of linguistics 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.