추가 적립 안내

Prefacep. xi
List of Figuresp. xiii
Acknowledgementsp. xv
What every native speaker of a language secretly understandsp. 1
The sound systemp. 2
The lexicon: the human dictionaryp. 4
Morphologyp. 7
Grammarp. 8
How the world's languages differp. 9
The boundaries of a language: language versus dialectp. 12
How does a standard develop or get chosen?p. 14
Standard and written language versus normal or non-standard speechp. 17
A linguistic approach to language diversityp. 19
Human Language versus Animal Communication Systemsp. 22
Naturally occurring animal communication systemsp. 24
Black Austrian honeybee communicationp. 24
Bird calls and songsp. 26
Dolphins and whalesp. 28
More complex animal communication systemsp. 29
Primate communicationp. 29
Artificially taught animal communication systemsp. 30
Chimpanzees and great apesp. 30
African grey parrotsp. 32
Language Acquisitionp. 36
Early theories of first language acquisitionp. 37
Challenges to behaviourism and structuralismp. 38
The innateness hypothesisp. 38
Support for the innateness hypothesisp. 39
Problems with reinforcement and imitationp. 40
What children's 'errors' tell usp. 41
Studies supporting the innateness hypothesisp. 43
Studies on the living brainp. 44
Critical age hypothesis for first language acquisitionp. 45
Stages of language acquisitionp. 46
Learning the sound systemp. 46
Sound and meaningp. 48
From single words to grammarp. 48
Second language acquisitionp. 49
SLA and behaviourismp. 50
First language interference in SLAp. 52
SLA and feedback or correctionp. 53
Individual differencesp. 55
Critical age hypothesis for second language acquisitionp. 57
Recent developments in second language acquisitionp. 58
Phoneticsp. 62
How is speech produced?p. 63
The consonantsp. 64
Voicingp. 65
Place of articulationp. 65
Manner of articulationp. 66
The International Phonetic Alphabetp. 72
The vowelsp. 73
Classification of vowelsp. 73
The vowel chartp. 73
Diphthongsp. 74
Vowel lengthp. 75
Advantages of a phonetic systemp. 76
Other features of sound: suprasegmentalsp. 78
Morphology: The Makeup of Words in a Languagep. 82
Categorizing the words of a languagep. 84
Morphemesp. 85
Inflectional and derivational morphemesp. 86
Morphology and phoneticsp. 89
A final word about morpheme structurep. 91
Our ever-expanding and changing vocabularyp. 91
Word formation processesp. 92
Linguistic borrowingp. 98
The dictionaryp. 100
New dictionary wordsp. 101
Grammarp. 105
Traditional grammarp. 108
Language word ordersp. 110
Phrase structure grammarsp. 111
Advantages of a phrase structure grammarp. 113
Determining phrase structure grammar rulesp. 113
Other aspects of syntaxp. 128
Semantics: Language and Meaningp. 132
How is meaning developed?p. 133
How is meaning encoded?p. 134
Word meaning: sense and referencep. 135
Proper nouns: the problem of namesp. 136
What native speakers understand about meaningp. 138
Ambiguityp. 138
Synonymyp. 139
Antonymyp. 140
Levels of specificityp. 140
Meaning inclusionp. 141
Compositional versus non-compositional utterancesp. 142
Phrasal verbsp. 146
Figures of speechp. 147
Irony and sarcasmp. 148
Pragmatics: Language in Usep. 152
Speech actsp. 153
Direct versus indirect speech actsp. 155
Speaking the unspeakable: indirection as a linguistic strategyp. 156
Euphemismsp. 156
Euphemisms for pregnancyp. 157
Proverbs as indirect speechp. 158
Language and advertisingp. 160
Weasel wordsp. 161
Open-ended comparisonsp. 162
Ambiguous language and modal auxiliariesp. 163
Politics as advertisingp. 164
Meaning and humourp. 167
Humour and the sound system of a languagep. 167
Humour and morphologyp. 167
Humour and semanticsp. 168
Humour and syntaxp. 169
The History of Englishp. 172
Periods of Englishp. 174
Effects of the Norman invasionp. 176
The return of Englishp. 177
The influence of Geoffrey Chaucerp. 178
The printing pressp. 179
The influence of James Ip. 181
Lexical changep. 182
English expands through military and economic expansionp. 184
Sound changep. 186
The Great Vowel Shiftp. 187
Evidence for sound change from Old Englishp. 188
Changes in grammarp. 189
The spelling 'system' of Englishp. 190
Fixing the spelling problemp. 194
Language Variation and Changep. 197
Why languages changep. 197
Lexical and semantic changep. 198
Changes in the sound systemp. 199
Changes to grammar and morphologyp. 201
Language variationp. 202
Causes of dialectal diversityp. 203
Social attitudes about language varietiesp. 206
Measuring attitudes about language varietiesp. 207
Dialects of language contactp. 208
Chicano English and codeswitchingp. 208
Codeswitchingp. 211
Pidgins and Creolesp. 215
Varieties of Englishp. 225
Appalachian Englishp. 225
African American Vernacular Englishp. 229
Cockney Englishp. 232
Language and genderp. 234
Use of titlesp. 235
Asymmetries in languagep. 236
Generic 'he' for unspecified referencep. 237
Effects of gender on languagep. 238
Common beliefs about gendered languagep. 239
Language and the workplacep. 242
Early socialization by genderp. 243
The future of English and its dialectsp. 244
Referencesp. 249
Indexp. 253
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

'Understanding Language' is an introduction to linguistics aimed at non-major undergraduate students who are new to the subject. The book is comprehensive in its coverage of the key areas of linguistics, yet explains these in an easy to understand, jargon-free way.