Everyday Linguistics
An Introduction to the Study of Language
- Available for pre-order on June 20, 2023. Item will ship after July 11, 2023
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Book Description
This innovative introduction to linguistics connects language structure to everyday use, culture, and context, making the technicalities of language structure accessible, vivid and engaging.
The first text to take a socially realistic linguistics approach, this exciting new textbook situates discussions about the building blocks of language like phonetics, syntax and pragmatics within a social justice framework that recognizes that all language is shaped by sociocultural forces and reveals and reinforces ideologies. Uniquely, this text also introduces eco-linguistics, a new field that examines the relationship between language and its environment, again demonstrating how widely held views about language can have real-world consequences. Key features include:
- "Linguistics in Your World" sections to connect concepts discussed with specific social issues
- "L1 Acquisition in Focus" sections to relate key concepts to first language acquisition
- "Explorations" sections at the end of each chapter to encourage students to test their knowledge, discuss in groups, and apply what they have learned to their own experiences
- End-of-chapter summaries and key term lists to conclude the main lessons and highlights of each chapter
- Recommendations for further reading
Everyday Linguistics: An Introduction to the Study of Language is an ideal starting point for students that are new to the study of language, and those not majoring in language study.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 INTRODUCTION
Diverse language experiences
Why study linguistics—and what is it anyway?
How we’ll study language
A socially realistic linguistics
Prescriptive and descriptive perspectives on language
Navigating your way through this book
References
2 A LANGUAGE IS A LANGUAGE, RIGHT?
Introduction
What is language?
Dialects, varieties, and languages
Design features of human language
Semanticity
Arbitrariness
Linguistics in your world: But that’s wrong, isn’t it?
What is grammar?
Cultural transmission and innateness
Displacement
Discreteness and duality
Productivity
Do animals have language?
Other characteristics of human language
Linguistic modes of communication
All languages change
When children learn language
All languages are structured and rule governed
Variation is a natural part of all languages
It ain’t necessarily so
Other so-called grammatical errors
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
3 MORPHOLOGY: WORD HISTORIES AND STRUCTURE
Introduction
Lexical categories
Words and their histories
Word formation processes
Borrowing or theft?
Modifying existing words
Glamour words?
Words and their structure
Types of morphemes
Free and bound morphemes
Roots, affixes, and stems
Derivational and inflectional morphemes
Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
Grammatical meaning
Linguistics in your world: he, she and/or they
Morphology in languages other than English
Hierarchical structure in words
L1 acquisition in focus: She comed, those mouses
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
4 PHONETICS: THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH
Introduction
International Phonetic Alphabet
Classifying language sounds
Consonants and vowels
Voice
Consonants
Places of articulation
Manner of articulation
Nasal sounds
Oral sounds
Vowels
Natural classes
Accents
Prosody
Phonetics in your world: What’s in a name?
Phonetics in your world: Local acts of identity
Sign language phonetics
Phonetics in other languages
L1 acquisition in focus: Acquiring language sounds and signs
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
5 PHONOLOGY: WHY DO WE SAY IT LIKE THAT?
Introduction
Systematic structuring of sounds
Phonemes and allophones
Allophonic variation: Complementary distribution and free variation
Articulatory processes: Changing sounds
Assimilation
Dissimilation
Deletion
Epenthesis
Metathesis
Phonology in your world: ask vs aks revisited
Morphophonology
L1 acquisition in focus: Learning phonemes and more
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
A note about "correct" pronunciation
References
6 SYNTAX: ORDERING WORDS, MAKING SENTENCES
Introduction
Syntax and grammar
Constituents of a sentence
Phrase Structure Rules
Noun Phrases
Prepositional Phrases
Verb Phrases
Tree Diagrams
Recursion
Structural ambiguity
Structural relationships among sentences
Syntactic operations
Structural synonymity
Movement operations
Embedded sentences
Using syntax in writing
Universal Grammar
L1 acquisition in focus: Acquiring syntax
Syntax in your (natural) world: Do birds have syntax?
Syntax in other languages
A note about theory
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
7 SEMANTICS: RELATIONSHIPS AMONG WORDS
Introduction
Meaning and meanings
Semantic relations: Is salt the opposite of pepper?
Synonyms
Semantics in your world: Slurs and euphemisms
Antonyms
Semantics in your world: Complementarity
Semantics in your world: Markedness
Hyponymy and part/whole relationships
Homonymy and polysemy
Figurative language
Metaphors
Metonymy
Idioms
Semantic fields
Semantic roles and sentence meaning
Corpus linguistics
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
8 LANGUAGE IN EVERYDAY INTERACTION
Introduction
Discourse
Conversation patterns and organization
Opening and closing sequences
Linguistics in your world: Just saying hello
Turn-taking
Linguistics in your world: Stop interrupting me!
Silence
Pragmatics
Speech acts
Cooperative principle and maxims of conversation
Indirectness
Continuum of indirectness
Functions of indirectness
Language and social meaning: Context and identity
Register
Identity work
Politeness
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
9 LANGUAGE VARIATION AND SOCIETY
Introduction
A note about terminology
Structured variation
Regional variation
British English and North American English
Regional variation in the United States
Social variation: Sociolects
Social variation: Ethnolects
Hispanic English
Code switching/translanguaging
Sociolinguistics in your world: Mock Spanish
Native American Englishes
Variation in sign languages
Standards and standardization
Policing standards
Standard language ideology
Competing ideologies about language
Critical sociolinguistics
Language and local identity
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
10 AFRICAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE
Introduction
Overview
History of AAL
Structure of AAL
Morphological structure
{s} morphemes
Be verb
Phonological structure
Consonant cluster reduction
Other features
Variation within AAL
AAL in the courtroom
Micro-aggressions
Language, race, and identity
AAL and education
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
11 GENDERS, IDENTITIES, AND LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE
Introduction
Early studies of language and gender
Do women and men speak differently?
Deficit, dominance or difference?
Sugar and spice or puppy dog tails?
How do languages encode gender?
Multiple identities: Black Masculine Language
Gender as performance
Linguistics in your world: The heterosexual marketplace
The gender binary revisited
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
12 MULTILINGUALISM
Introduction
What is multilingualism?
Social meaning
Deciding which language to use
Language planning
Language contact
New languages: pidgins and creoles
Language shift
Superdiversity
Hip Hop as a multilingual phenomenon
Linguistic relativity
Learning to be multilingual
Linguistic factors in L2 acquisition
Affective factors in L2 acquisition
Social factors in L2 acquisition
Multilingualism in education
Monolingual mindset
Bilingual education in the United States
Spanish in the United States
Sign language education
Multilingualism on Martha’s Vineyard
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
13 LANGUAGE BIRTH AND DEATH
Introduction
Origins of language
Language spread and language families
Indo-European language family
Language families around the world
A very brief history of English
Old English
Middle English
Great Vowel Shift
How do you spell that again?
Modern English
Continued change and global spread
Origins of American Sign Language
Language loss and endangerment
Why should we care?
Causes of language loss
Stemming the loss
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
14 ECOLINGUISTICS: LANGUAGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Introduction
Language and its natural environment
Metaphors for the natural world
Eco-critical linguistics
Anthropocentrism
Chapter summary
Key terms
Explorations
References
Index
Author(s)
Biography
Joanne Cavallaro is a professor emerita of English at St. Catherine University, Minnesota, U.S.A., where she has taught linguistics for 30 years.