All about Language: A Guide

Description

In clear, congenial style Barry Blake explains how language works. He describes the make-up of words and how they're built from sounds and signs and put together in phrases and sentences. He examines the dynamics of conversation and the relations between the sound and meaning. He shows how languages help their users connect to each other and to the world, how they vary around the world, why they never stop changing, and that no two people speak a language in the same way. He looks at how language is acquired by infant children, how it relates to thought, and its operations in the brain. He investigates current trends and issues such as the levelling of linguistic class differences and the rise of new secret or in-group languages such as argot and teenspeak. He describes the history of writing from its origins to digital diffusion, and ends by looking at how language might have originated and then evolved among our distant hominid and primate ancestors. Language is crucial to every aspect of our lives whether we're thinking, talking, or dreaming. Barry Blake reveals the wonders that lie beneath the surface of everyday communication, enriching his exposition with a unique blend of anecdote and humour. His engaging guide is for everyone curious about language or who needs to know more about it. Introduction 1 What is language? 1 Writing and signing 2 Speech sounds 3 Words and meanings 4 Variation 4 How many languages are there? 5 All languages are created equal 6 Part I Words 11 Word classes 11 Parts of speech 11 Open and closed classes 16 Lexical words and function words 17 Beyond English 17 Sources and further reading 18 Problems 18 Forming new words 21 The word and its parts 22 Compounds 24 Prefixes and suffixes 26 Back formation 27 Zero Derivation 28 Blends 29 Shortening 29 Alphabetisms and acronyms 30 Reduplication 30 Proper names to common noun 31 Taboo and euphemism 32 Other methods of dealing with new content 34 Sources and further reading 34 Problems 34 4. Meaning of words 37 Words and meanings 37 Hyponyms and hypernyms 40 Synonyms 40 Antonyms 41 Polysemy 41 Homonyms (homophones and homographs) 42 Homophony and polysemy: profit and loss 43 Deictic expressions 44 Set phrases: idioms and cliches 45 Conscious connections between morphemes 46 How do the vocabularies of languages differ? 48 Linguistic determinism: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 50 Sexist language 52 Arbitrary relationship between form and meaning 53 Dictionaries 55 Sources and further reading 57 Problems 57 Part II Syntax and Discourse 59 5. The simple sentence 61 Ideas of grammar 61 Predicate and argument 62 Phrase structure 64 Grammatical relations 67 Inflection 69 Questions 79 Negatives 80 Passives and other valency changes 80 Summary 82 Sources and further reading 83 Problems 84 6. Compound and complex sentences 87 Compound sentences 88 Complex sentences 8 Nominalization 96 ‘Correct’ grammar 97 Sources and further reading 100 Problems 100 7. Using language 105 Types of communication 105 Given and new information 106 Discourse 109 Co-operative principle 113 Speech Acts 116 Conversation 118 Sources and further reading 119 Problems 119 Part III Speech and Writing 123 8. Phonetics 125 Syllables 125 Vowels 127 Consonants 133 More speech sounds 138 Markedness 139 Sources and further reading 140 Problems 140 9. Phonology 143 The phoneme 143 Putting the sounds together 150 Connected speech 153 Stress and intonation 155 Morphophonemics 156 Underlying forms 157 Sources and further reading 159 Problems 159 10. Writing 163 The Egyptians 163 Cuneiform 168 Towards an alphabet 169 Beyond the Mediterranean and Near East 170 Writing in general 173 Spelling English 175 Sources and further reading 178 Problems 178 Part IV Variation and Change 179 11. Varieties 181 Variation 181 Languages and dialects 181 Social varieties 186 Styles 193 Identity and solidarity 201 Sources and further reading 202 Problems 202 12. Language change 205 General 205 Sound change 211 Morphological change 214 Syntactic change 217 Semantic change 219 Loan words 222 Linguistic areas 226 Motivation and direction of change 227 Sources and further reading 228 Problems 229 Part V The Brain 231 13. Language acquisition 233 Basic requirements 233 Acquiring phonology 234 Acquiring syntax 236 Acquiring function forms 241 Acquiring semantics 242 Further stages 243 Sign language and its acquisition 244 Theories of acquisition 245 Second-language acquisition 248 Sources and further reading 250 Problems 251 14. Language processing brains and computers Brains 253 Computers and language 262 Sources and further reading 268 Problems 269 15. The origin of language 271 Animal communication 271 Pidgins 274 The origin of language 276 Sources and further reading 282 Glossary 283 Glossary of terms 283 References and further reading 309 Index 313