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A Concise Introduction to Linguistics
Now in its fifth edition, A Concise Introduction to Linguistics provides students with a detailed introduction to the core concepts of language as it relates to culture. The textbook includes a focus on linguistic anthropology, unpacking the main contributions of linguistics to the study of human communication and culture. Aimed at the general education student, the textbook also provides anthropology, linguistics, and English majors with the resources needed to pursue advanced courses in this area.
Written in an accessible manner that does not assume previous knowledge of linguistics, this new edition contains expanded discussions on linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics (including a section on gender and language), and pragmatics. The textbook incorporates a robust set of pedagogical features including marginal definitions, a substantial glossary, chapter summaries, and learning exercises. Brand new to this edition are suggested reading lists at the end of every chapter, and recommended websites and apps to further aid students in their study.
Written in an accessible manner that does not assume previous knowledge of linguistics, this new edition contains expanded discussions on linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics (including a section on gender and language), and pragmatics. The textbook incorporates a robust set of pedagogical features including marginal definitions, a substantial glossary, chapter summaries, and learning exercises. Brand new to this edition are suggested reading lists at the end of every chapter, and recommended websites and apps to further aid students in their study.
431 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 21, 2018
Excellent textbook! This course satisfied all my longstanding curiosities on Linguistics and in a pleasant way for a non-expert. It is very well written, with clean, clear, direct and objective writing. It is a comprehensive course that covers all interesting aspects of Linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, writing systems, sign language, language history, language acquisition, nonverbal communication, anthropology, sociolinguistics and nonhuman communication.
Excelente! O livro saciou todas as minhas curiosidades antigas em Linguística e com um estilo literário agradável. É muito bem escrito, com redação limpa, clara, direta e objetiva. É também um curso completo, que abrange todos os aspectos interessantes da Linguística: fonologia, morfologia, sintaxe, semântica, pragmática, sistemas de escrita, linguagem de sinais, história das línguas, aprendizado da linguagem, comunicação não verbal, antropologia, sociolinguística e comunicação animal.
Excelente! O livro saciou todas as minhas curiosidades antigas em Linguística e com um estilo literário agradável. É muito bem escrito, com redação limpa, clara, direta e objetiva. É também um curso completo, que abrange todos os aspectos interessantes da Linguística: fonologia, morfologia, sintaxe, semântica, pragmática, sistemas de escrita, linguagem de sinais, história das línguas, aprendizado da linguagem, comunicação não verbal, antropologia, sociolinguística e comunicação animal.
August 16, 2022
Who is proud of herself today? I am!
Why am I proud of myself? If I accomplish nothing else today, I can at least say, boldly and proudly, I finished this book today. It shall not go down in infamy, because I will promptly forget that today is the day I finished this book, it didn't impinge on my consciousness enough for me to make a mental note of the day...now I'm wondering, has there ever been a book that I liked enough to remember the actual day that I finished it?
I have a very clear memory of the first time I read The Blue Sword, that was a pivotal moment in my life, so I remember it clearly...but I have no idea as to the day. Just that it was in 8th grade.
Anyway, this book, it was a good textbook. It had some interesting parts, some crazy parts, and some downright infuriating parts. The author's worldview is quite different than my own which doesn't bother me much but should hopefully lead to some fun and exciting discussions with my students, at least if they are reading critically, which let's face it: they aren't. I need to do better in this area, how can I teach my students how to think? To engage with a text not only to criticize it, but to question their own beliefs, not only to accept wholesale what the author says but to sharpen their arguments against him?
It's harder than it sounds.
I still remember assigning a question last year of comparing this author's worldview to your own and one student said "This author believes in evolution, and evolution is wrong." ....That's not a comparison of a worldview. Or at the very least, it's an extremely basic, elementary comparison. Yes, the author believes in evolution and you don't. Now explain how that core belief effects all other beliefs. How does this author value life? How does this author value death? Morality? Philosophy? How does his belief affect his view of student work ethic? You can actually come up with answers to questions like these! Or maybe you don't want to go that route, maybe you want to engage with and figure out what this author's belief is about epistemology. What does he believe about knowledge itself? That informs how he writes this book, and probably contradicts something that you believe about knowledge. Engage with that! Struggle with it!
Sigh...that answer involved no thought at all. It was just a rote reaction. I may have beat my head against my desk several times after reading it.
Of course, the author himself stated things that involved no thought on his part. My personal favorite was found on page 217: "Culture can be transmitted from generation to generation and to any area of the world, primarily through the symbol system we call language." or "Culture is a type of behavior that is learned rather than innate; it is patterned behavior that is transmittable from person to person and through time, primarily by language."
What now?
The only way you could ever come to such a ludicrous conclusion is to have never spent a single transitory second considering what culture is. Culture is unarticulated behavior. That means that it's not explained. No one knows why we do the things we do. Why do we have a bubble of space around us in the United States? Why is there no bubble of space in Latin America? No one told you "Now when you go outside, you must always maintain between 1-3 feet of distance between you and the closest human depending on the nature of the interaction." No one told you this! You just know it! You just do it! How do you know and do this one tiny aspect of culture? By observation. It's not even conscious. You don't even know when you started observing distance between you and others. If you watch babies, they don't have that invisible bubble, when do they get it? People write hundreds of pages of research on these topics trying to figure it out and this guy just dashes it all off with "culture is transmitted by language". No. It isn't. We try to explain what happens in culture through a post-hoc rationalization. Bubbles of space in North America developed because it was a primarily agrarian culture with lots of space, that's one of the explanations I've heard. I think it's a ridiculous explanation and the best part is: we will never know the answer! It's not like the people of North America sat down in a committee hearing to decide how much space each person was assigned, it was born naturally, without conscious directing, through hundreds of thousands of unscripted interactions. That's what culture IS.
So anyway, this guy is probably a linguist and has way too elevated of a view on what language is and the role it plays. Language does not solely or primarily transmit culture, I would say it does so tangentially, but that's about it. Language does not shape the way we interact with our world, it again, affects it tangentially. Don't put the chicken before the egg. Yes language plays a role in how we perceive and interact with the world, but how we perceive and interact with the world affects language. They are two sides of the same coin, and can exist in parallel with each other, he just desperately wants to put them on a hierarchy and sometimes there are two parallel hierarchies.
Why am I proud of myself? If I accomplish nothing else today, I can at least say, boldly and proudly, I finished this book today. It shall not go down in infamy, because I will promptly forget that today is the day I finished this book, it didn't impinge on my consciousness enough for me to make a mental note of the day...now I'm wondering, has there ever been a book that I liked enough to remember the actual day that I finished it?
I have a very clear memory of the first time I read The Blue Sword, that was a pivotal moment in my life, so I remember it clearly...but I have no idea as to the day. Just that it was in 8th grade.
Anyway, this book, it was a good textbook. It had some interesting parts, some crazy parts, and some downright infuriating parts. The author's worldview is quite different than my own which doesn't bother me much but should hopefully lead to some fun and exciting discussions with my students, at least if they are reading critically, which let's face it: they aren't. I need to do better in this area, how can I teach my students how to think? To engage with a text not only to criticize it, but to question their own beliefs, not only to accept wholesale what the author says but to sharpen their arguments against him?
It's harder than it sounds.
I still remember assigning a question last year of comparing this author's worldview to your own and one student said "This author believes in evolution, and evolution is wrong." ....That's not a comparison of a worldview. Or at the very least, it's an extremely basic, elementary comparison. Yes, the author believes in evolution and you don't. Now explain how that core belief effects all other beliefs. How does this author value life? How does this author value death? Morality? Philosophy? How does his belief affect his view of student work ethic? You can actually come up with answers to questions like these! Or maybe you don't want to go that route, maybe you want to engage with and figure out what this author's belief is about epistemology. What does he believe about knowledge itself? That informs how he writes this book, and probably contradicts something that you believe about knowledge. Engage with that! Struggle with it!
Sigh...that answer involved no thought at all. It was just a rote reaction. I may have beat my head against my desk several times after reading it.
Of course, the author himself stated things that involved no thought on his part. My personal favorite was found on page 217: "Culture can be transmitted from generation to generation and to any area of the world, primarily through the symbol system we call language." or "Culture is a type of behavior that is learned rather than innate; it is patterned behavior that is transmittable from person to person and through time, primarily by language."
What now?
The only way you could ever come to such a ludicrous conclusion is to have never spent a single transitory second considering what culture is. Culture is unarticulated behavior. That means that it's not explained. No one knows why we do the things we do. Why do we have a bubble of space around us in the United States? Why is there no bubble of space in Latin America? No one told you "Now when you go outside, you must always maintain between 1-3 feet of distance between you and the closest human depending on the nature of the interaction." No one told you this! You just know it! You just do it! How do you know and do this one tiny aspect of culture? By observation. It's not even conscious. You don't even know when you started observing distance between you and others. If you watch babies, they don't have that invisible bubble, when do they get it? People write hundreds of pages of research on these topics trying to figure it out and this guy just dashes it all off with "culture is transmitted by language". No. It isn't. We try to explain what happens in culture through a post-hoc rationalization. Bubbles of space in North America developed because it was a primarily agrarian culture with lots of space, that's one of the explanations I've heard. I think it's a ridiculous explanation and the best part is: we will never know the answer! It's not like the people of North America sat down in a committee hearing to decide how much space each person was assigned, it was born naturally, without conscious directing, through hundreds of thousands of unscripted interactions. That's what culture IS.
So anyway, this guy is probably a linguist and has way too elevated of a view on what language is and the role it plays. Language does not solely or primarily transmit culture, I would say it does so tangentially, but that's about it. Language does not shape the way we interact with our world, it again, affects it tangentially. Don't put the chicken before the egg. Yes language plays a role in how we perceive and interact with the world, but how we perceive and interact with the world affects language. They are two sides of the same coin, and can exist in parallel with each other, he just desperately wants to put them on a hierarchy and sometimes there are two parallel hierarchies.
May 22, 2015
Not bad for a textbook. It's a good basic work to serve as the foundation for a class.
November 3, 2019
A bit US-centric but overall a good introduction.
June 6, 2021
This Concise introduction to Linguistics is an excellent study in linguistics. This book is well written and in simple terms so that even if you are not familiar with Linguistics you will learn a lot. This is a very complex topic but the authors have presented the materials in very simple and easy to understand language. If you want to know more about linguistics I would highly recommend this book for you to read.
September 23, 2024
Read it for my course this fall. Do I understand linguistics? More than I did before. Liked the additional stories to enrich the chapters.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews