by RonaldK.S.Macaulay (Author)
This engagingly-written, highly readable volume introduces lay readers to the fascinating world of language. Replete with jokes, anecdotes, quotations, and readily intelligible examples, it offers a painless entree to the full range of linguistic knowledge. In thirty-one brief chapters, Macaulay delves into such topics as language acquisition, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, social dialects, sex differences, writing, style, register, conversation, narrative, swearing, rhetoric, second language learning, and linguistic change. The reader comes away with a new appreciation of the pleasure to be derived from the study of this complex and uniquely human phenomenon.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Published: 18 Jul 1996
ISBN 10: 0195106571
ISBN 13: 9780195106572
[Macaulay] covers...just about every aspect of language you can imagine...[with] consummate, usually amusing examples of the topic at hand....He's a good synthesizer, citing interesting research. --Los Angeles Times