What Is This Thing Called Language?

Cover
Half-Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction to the first edition: the stuff that surrounds us
Introduction to the second edition: a personal account
1 What is this thing called language?
	Introduction and overview
	Language: a defining characteristic of humanity
	Language as a tool for communication
	Language systems
	Human and animal communication systems
	Design features of language
	The origins of language
	The structure of the rest of the book
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
2 The sound system
	Introduction and overview
	Sounds as a system
	Articulatory phonetics
	Segmental and suprasegmental phonology
	Words and sounds
	Stress timing
	The communicative functions of intonation
	Representing spoken language
	Accents
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
3 The lexical system
	Introduction and overview
	What is a word?
	Form and meaning
	Creating words
	Cataloguing words: dictionaries and corpora
	Word classes
	Closed and open class systems
	The internal structure of words: morphology
	Personal vocabularies
	Lexical patterns in text
	Collocations
	Ellipsis and substitution
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
4 The grammatical system
	Introduction and overview
	Defining grammar
	Mentalist versus functionalist approaches to grammar
	Grammar in use
	Prescriptivism versus descriptivism
	The internal workings of the sentence
	Grammar and context sensitivity
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
5 Doing things with spoken language
	Introduction and overview
	Functions of spoken language
	Key characteristics of conversation
	Topics, turns and speakers in casual conversation
	Negotiating and co-constructing meaning
	Speech acts
	Language and gender
	Linguistic connectivity in spoken discourse
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
6 Doing things with written language
	Introduction and overview
	From spoken to written language
	Cohesion and coherence
	Register
	Genre
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
7 First-language and second-language acquisition
	Introduction and overview
	The behaviourist approach to language acquisition
	A critique of the behaviourist approach
	The mentalist approach
	The functionalist approach to language acquisition
	From discourse to grammar
	Second-language acquisition
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
8 Language at play
	Introduction and overview
	Playing with language
	The lure of the limerick
	Other forms of word play
	Advertising revisited
	Figurative language
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
9 Language, culture and identity
	Introduction and overview
	Defining culture and identity
	Does language determine the way we see the world?
	Language choice and cultural context
	Intercultural communication
	Popular culture and a blurring of boundaries
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
10 Language in a global context
	Introduction and overview
	Is English the ‘world language’?
	English as a global language: winners and losers
	Language variation: pidgins and creoles
	Variation and standardization
	Language death
	Summary and conclusion
	Questions and tasks
	Further reading
	Postscript
Books to read on long plane flight
Key figures
Glossary
References
Index