An Introduction to Language

<p><i>An Introduction to Language</i> offers an engaging guide to the nature of language, focusing on how language works – its sounds, words, structures, and phrases – all investigated through wide-ranging examples from Old English to contemporary pop culture.</p> <ul> <li>Explores the idea of a scientific approach to language, inviting students to consider what qualities of language comprise everyday skills for us, be they sounds, words, phrases, or conversation</li> <li>Helps shape our understanding of what language <i>is</i>, how it <i>works</i>, and why it is both elegantly complex and essential to who we are</li> <li>Includes exercises within each chapter to help readers explore key concepts and directly observe the patterns that are part of all human language</li> <li>Examines linguistic variation and change to illustrate social nuances and language-in-use, drawing primarily on examples from English</li> <li>Avoids linguistic jargon, focusing instead on a broader and more general approach to the study of language, and making it ideal for those coming to the subject for the first time</li> <li>Supported by additional web resources – available upon publication at <a href=”http://www.wiley.com/go/hazen/introlanguage”>www.wiley.com/go/hazen/introlanguage</a> – including student study aids and testbank and notes for instructors</li> </ul>