Extract

The second edition, only slightly altered from the first (some updating, more American examples, and new chapters on theories of language development and the evolution of language), of this accessible, entertaining and highly intelligent book is most welcome. It is theoretically entirely serious, but it is readable with profit and enjoyment by practically everyone – one really ought to be able to say “everyone”. There are thirty-five chapters, followed by an appendix (a note on Saussure, Bloomfield and Chomsky), further reading (suggestions chapter by chapter), a glossary (one day, someone will make a study of glossaries), a set of phonetic symbols for English, References and an Index. The book itself took its idea from work on how children learn languages – it makes one think of Kornei Chukovskii's wonderful related work – and it has been built up on conversations with other scholars. This book will help any newcomer to language and linguistics; perhaps more important, a few hours spent with it by a specialist can be guaranteed to reintroduce some perspective and “reality” into the marvellous phenomenon which human language is.

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