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'Christopher Hall's book is the best new introduction to linguistics that I have seen in decades. It is engagingly written without talking down to the reader and it covers all the subparts of the field in a comprehensive and even-handed manner. I plan to use it the next time that I teach an introductory course at Washington.' Professor Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington

'With apt examples from novels and newspapers, courtroom trials and telephone conversations, the lowly and the mighty, his book repeatedly startles as it casts light on language. This is a bright, humorous, and completely accessible tour of 21st-century linguistics.' Professor Edward Finegan, University of Southern California

This book introduces the fundamentals of human language from a linguistic point of view, using examples drawn from everyday life to aid comprehension, and encouraging critical thinking throughout. Besides presenting the fundamental building blocks of language and explaining how these function, the book also introduces other key elements of the discipline of linguistics, including language acquisition, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics and discourse analysis. Packed full of examples, this is the ideal introduction to language for those who are interested in studying linguistics, have already started a course, or just want to study at home. ... Read more

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The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, written by a distinguished international roster of contributors, reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline in its multifaceted pursuits. It is a convenient, hand-held repository of the essential knowledge about the study of language variation and change.

• Written by internationally recognized experts in the field.
  
• Reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline.
  
• Discusses the ideas that drive the field and is illustrated with empirical studies.
  
• Includes explanatory introductions which set out the boundaries of the field and place each of the chapters into perspective.

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The influence of cognitive processing on second language acquisition (SLA), and on the development of second language (SL) instruction, has always been a subject of major interest to both SLA researchers and those involved in SL pedagogy. Recent theoretical research into SLA and SL pedagogy has shown renewed interest in the role of cognitive variables such as attention, short, working, and long term memory, and automaticity of language processing. This volume first examines the theoretical foundations of research into the cognitive processes underlying SLA, and then describes various implications for pedagogically oriented research and for SL classroom practice. This book's blend of research from the cognitive sciences and applied linguistics make it an excellent introduction to applied linguists and language teachers interested in the psycholinguistic processes underlying SLA. ... Read more

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A great collection of articles
A great text for those who are interested in researching the field of second language acquisition and for those research-minded teachers out there. You will not find an emphasis on pedagogical techniques per se but I see this volume as crucial to the understanding of the language learner. It is a worthwhile addition to your library and a useful companion to the more recent "Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition" BUY BOTH in my opinion. ... Read more

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O'Malley and Chamot review the literature on learning strategies and present instructional models for learning strategy training that teachers can apply to their own classes.The material is based on current research in second language acquisition and cognitive theory. This book will be of interest to applied linguists, educational researchers, teacher trainers, course designers, and language teachers who wish to apply research findings to their classroom situations and help students become more effective and independent learners. ... Read more

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useful to know about but difficult to teach from
Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisitionlooks at language as acomplex cognitive skill which can be defined within the context ofcognitive theory. There is a lot of research in cognitive theory as itrelates to learning in general, but as O'Malley and Chamot point out, verylittle has been done specifically with SLA in mind. Consequently, althoughLearning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition is comprehensive in itsoverview of the techniques that learners adopt while studying a foreignlanguage, the paucity of research as to the efficacy of using suchstrategies, and whether or not they can be taught, is still inconclusive.Clearly more research is needed before one can suggest pedagogicalimplications. What I liked about this book is that it develops a taxonomyof language learning strategies that any teacher will find very useful tobe aware of. What I was not so sure of, however, was in being able to passon this new knowledge to my students by referring to this text alone. Ifyou are looking for ways in which to teach strategies either directly, orby embedding them in the materials that you use or create, then I muchprefer Rebecca Oxford's Language Learning Strategies. ... Read more

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This is a textbook for courses in language and culture for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. It starts from a theoretical viewpoint of both language and culture as conventionalized forms of situated practice and uses this as a unifying framework to cover the full range of topics normally treated under the rubric of language and culture.

An important orientating strand in the book is the tension between innatist or universalist versus relativist approaches to anthropological linguistic phenomena: various topics like kinship, color, classifiers or the effects of literacy are discussed from these contrasting viewpoints to provide a richer understanding of their implications. The book is organized so that in a modular way individual instructors may use or omit sections to fit into their overall teaching design. ... Read more

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A superb textbook within its area
A comprehensive introduction to key concepts in the area of anthropological lingusitics. It treats many of those classical questions that always arise once language as language use and its role in society andculture is discussed. The text is comprehensive and the words flowsmoothly. ... Read more

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Directed towards general introductory linguistics courses, as well as courses in language acquisition, this textbook introduces the fundamentals of syntax and semantics in generative grammar and applies them to the study of child language. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, it represents the theory of Universal Grammar and shows how the theory has proved helpful in understanding the process of language acquisition.

Edited by two of the foremost researchers in the field, the book benefits from their insight into conceptual issues, their understanding of experimentation, and their own pioneering research. ... Read more

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We are born to talk and this book proves it.
Most parents think that teaching their kids to talk is the one thing they got right. This book springs the knowledge on us that talking is as natural as walking. The book offers proof and even defines where in the brain lies the innate talking rules.

The book is valuable for what it teaches, but it's explanations and demonstrations to prove its points are lengthy and repetitive. Unless there will be a test, feel free to skim many of the chapters. ... Read more

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Non-linguistic conflicts--economic, religious, territorial--are often projected on to language differences, and may be played out in the language policies of governments and other holders of power. Jean-Louis Calvet deals broadly, in a non-technical and introductory style, with this interaction of language issues and political process. He examines the fundamental problems arising from language contact, multilingualism, and the conflicts caused by inequalities symbolized in various patterns of language use. ... Read more

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The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics provides a timely overview of a dynamic and rapidly growing area with a widely applied methodology. Through the electronic analysis of large bodies of text, corpus linguistics demonstrates and supports linguistic statements and assumptions. In recent years it has seen an ever-widening application in a variety of fields: computational linguistics, discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, pragmatics and translation studies.

Bringing together experts in the key areas of development and change, the handbook is structured around six themes which take the reader through building and designing a corpus to using a corpus to study literature and translation. Each theme is preceded by a substantial overview of the area putting the subsequent themes into perspective.

A comprehensive introduction covers the historical development of the field and its growing influence and application in other areas. Structured around five headings for ease of reference, each contribution includes further reading sections with three to five key texts highlighted and annotated to facilitate further exploration of the topics. The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics is the ideal resource for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates.

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Forensic Linguistics is an introduction to the fascinating interface between language and the law.

• Provides an integrated and fully theorized understanding of language and law issues.
  
• Contains many helpful examples from genuine legal contexts and texts.
  
• Discusses linguistic sources of disadvantage before the law, particularly for ethnic minorities, children and abused women.

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This book looks at different attitudes to English and developments in its description, and it critically examines current proposals for the specification of course content and classroom methodology.
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Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistics Knowledge into K-12 Teaching addresses two important questions: *What aspects of linguistic knowledge are most useful for teachers to know? *What kinds of activities and projects are most effective in introducing those aspects of linguistic knowledge to K-12 students? The volume focuses on how basic linguistic knowledge can inform teachers' approaches to language issues in the multicultural, linguistically diverse classroom. The text also includes examples of practical applications of language awareness to pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum construction, which support the current goals of language arts, bilingual, and ESL education. Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistics Knowledge into K-12 Teaching contributes to the resources on linguistics and education by taking prospective teachers beyond basic linguistics to ways in which linguistics can productively inform their teaching and raise their students' awareness of language. It is intended as a text for students in teacher education programs who have a basic knowledge of linguistics. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Instructor writes excellent text
The book is easy to read, easy to understand, and has challenging exercises in Linguistics. It is well written, and if you get a chance I highly recommend taking a course in Linguistics with Justice. He is a helpful, easy to talk to instructor.

Perfect for high school teachers
Faced with the challenge of teaching a ninth grade linguistics course, I looked long and hard for books that could help me.Almost all linguistic texts are hundreds of pages long and pitched at way too complex a level.In this one, though, Paul Justice tells you exactly what you need to know, distilling but not oversimplifying the subject.The book is designed so that you can effectively teach yourself, with exercises and good examples throughout. Justice is a clear writer and explicator, revisiting important topics when appropriate, so that you see connections, and he always remembers to explain why what he's teaching you is relevant in a high school classroom.And like the best linguistics books, it's fun.My only complaint is that the on-line solutions to the exercises are only available to teachers who adopt the text for their classes.All in all, though, this book is a definite find.

Great textbook for Linguistics students
This textbook is a great source for both undergrad and grad students. No other books explain phonology, morphology, and syntax better than this one. All the chapters are carefully designed to help learners understand better. I strongly recommend this book to any students who are interested in Linguistics. ... Read more

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The German Language introduces students of German to a linguistic way of looking at the language. Written from a Chomksyan perspective, this volume covers the basic structural components of the German language: syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology, and the lexicon.

• Explores the linguistic structure of German from current theoretical perspectives.
  
• Written from a Chomksyan perspective, this volume covers the basic structural components of the German language: syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology, and the lexicon.
  
• Serves as a valuable resource for students of German language and literature and for linguists with little or no background in the language.
  
• Includes exercises, definitions of key terms, and suggestions for further reading.

Customer Reviews (2)

Fundamental Linguistics
I have been to libraries looking for a book that allows me to learn the German language linguistically; instead I ended up finding "Easy-How-To" books. This way of learning the language is acceptable for a tourist, but I required a book with more in depth scientific understanding of how the language works. This book, although it might be overwhelming with vast amounts of explanations, is one of the top material I have found. It may be Chomskyan, but it provides what I needed for an advanced level of learning.

Too Advanced for Beginning Linguistics Student
I am an advanced student of German and my class used this textbook as an introduction to a linguistic approach to the language.It's quite complex and far more advanced for a beginning student in linguistics.The text rambles and strings together example after example which I thought at first would be helpful, but in the end turned out to be too many, making the point of the examples unclear and confusing.The sentences are very long and change subject mid-paragraph.Doesn't clearly define new vocabulary. ... Read more

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Case studies of individual language learners are a valuable means of illustrating issues connected with learning, using, and in some cases, losing another language. Yet, even though increasing numbers of graduate students and scholars conduct research using case studies or mix quantitative and qualitative methods, there are no dedicated applied linguistics research methods texts that guide one through the case study process. This book fills that gap.

The volume provides an overview of case study methodology and examples of published case studies in applied linguistics, without attempting to be a comprehensive survey of the innumerable case studies that exist. The case studies presented here involve teachers and learners of English and various other languages in North America and other parts of the world. Advice is also given about how to conduct and publish case studies.

Case Study Research in Applied Linguistics is designed for students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as other scholars seeking to understand case study methods and their applications in research on language learners and language users in a variety of contexts. Applied linguists working in other subfields will find the volume useful in their own research and in their supervision and evaluation of others' case studies.

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Ottenheimer's authoritative yet approachable introduction to the field's methodology, skills, techniques, tools, and applications emphasizes the kinds of questions that anthropologists ask about language ? and the kinds of questions that intrigue students. The text brings together the key areas of linguistic anthropology, addressing issues of power, race, gender, and class throughout. Further stressing the everyday relevance of the text material, Ottenheimer includes "In the Field" vignettes that draw you in to the chapter material via stories culled from her own and others' experiences, as well as "Doing Linguistic Anthropology" and "Cross- Language Miscommunication" features that describe real-life applications of text concepts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Highly recommended
The content is substantial, well organized, and visually appealing. The author does an outstanding job in connecting the material to real-life issues.

For use as a textbook, ideally it should have more exercises and questions for students. The "student activities" section at the end of each chapter merely points the reader to the companion workbook, which admittedly has some great stuff, but too often the exercises in it are just "go to these websites and write an essay about them".

hello, anyone there?
I needed to get in touch with the vendor who sold me this because the edition they sent was not the correct one, so now i have a book that is useless and no one to respond to me email. ... Read more

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This book discusses the need for foreign language programs to teach literacy. It suggests approaches to curriculum development using a wide range of modern media texts such as newspapers, music videos, and film as a basis for cultural analysis.
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Customer Reviews (1)

Not easily accessible
My Methods of Foreign Language Teaching professor highly recommends this book.Unfortunately, I did not find it as useful as she does because it was not accessible.Theory dominates the book so it is hard to easily extract practical suggestions.If you enjoy theory and are interested in the theory behind current methods used in a foreign language classroom, this would be a very useful book.If you are interested in clearly presented activities that you can quickly modify to fit your classroom, you may want to look somewhere else. ... Read more

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Terence Odlin reconsiders a question that many language teachers and educational researchers have addressed: how much influence can a learner's native language have in making the acquisition of a new language easy or difficult? Transfer has long been a controversial issue, but many recent studies support the view that cross-linguistic influences can have an important impact on second language acquisition. Odlin analyzes and interprets research showing many ways in which similarities and differences between languages can influence the acquisition of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.In addition he provides a detailed look at work on other areas important for the study of transfer including discourse, individual variation, and sociolinguistic factors. Language teachers, applied linguists, and educational researchers will find this volume highly accessible and extremely valuable to their work. ... Read more