Linguistics: An Introduction

So it is with Linguistics: An Introduction by William B. McGregor. It covers the essential components of linguistic study: historical/comparative, morphology, phonetics/ phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax and semantics. It also has chapters on the world's languages and the kinds of structural features found in different areas of the world. It emphasizes the systematic nature of language, its paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects. Throughout these chapters, students will appreciate the attention to meaning and use of language. Instructors will appreciate the way McGregor has highlighted significant parameters of linguistic analysis such as the animacy hierarchy in syntax, the meronymic hierarchy of body parts in the lexicon and geographic directions in the expression of spatial relations.

Instructors of introductory linguistics classes will find McGregor's book pedagogically stimulating and flexible. It offers a variety of avenues for getting students involved with the concepts of each chapter. As the introduction makes clear, each chapter is anchored to a problem solving pedagogy in order to engage students in the process of understanding. There is a deliberate attempt to bring real world scenarios and commonly held assumptions to bear on the study of linguistics so that one can address perspective questions of the sort, Why should anyone be interested in the ideas of this chapter?.

Instructors will find value in this book and its organization. Since the chapters are not inextricably linked one after the other, they can be arranged in a class syllabus in various orders: word formation and morphology, with their emphasis on word level

McGregor's Introduction is a very well-balanced and informative introductory text. It is designed to give the student a sense of being able to think clearly about language, and to engage in the study of language in any of its diverse manifestations always in a perspective in which (as McGregory says) meaning and use play absolutely central roles. The book will make it clear to students what it means to say that linguistics is the science of language.--Sanford Lakoff