Reviewed by Nikolai Penner, University of Waterloo

The eighth edition of An introduction to language is a substantially updated version of the classic textbook. The authors have preserved their humorous and entertaining, yet clear and professional writing style, which is supplemented by the witty quotations, cartoons, and illustrations that have made the previous editions so successful with both students and instructors. Each of the twelve chapters contains a summary, references for further reading, and exercises.

Part 1, ‘The nature of human language’ (3–70), consists of two chapters. Ch. 1, ‘What is human language?’ (3–34), discusses how human language is different from animal communication. This chapter also introduces linguistic universals and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Ch. 2, ‘Brain and language’ (35–70), describes the structure and functions of the human brain that make language possible and introduces theories of language and brain development.

Part 2, ‘Grammatical aspects of language’ (71–312), contains chapters on morphology (71–114), syntax (115–72), semantics (173–220), phonetics (221–54), and phonology (255–312). Introducing basic linguistic concepts such as morphemes, word classes, linguistic signs, and the principles of word formation, Ch. 3 examines how words are structured and understood. Ch. 4 explores sentences and phrases, their components, and their formal representation. Ch. 5 overviews the study of linguistic meaning, including lexical and phrasal semantics and pragmatics. Chs. 6 and 7, which deal with the sounds of language, present an excellent description of articulatory phonetics, phonological units, and the sound patterns of language.

Part 3, ‘The psychology of language’ (313–409), encompasses chapters on language acquisition (313–62) and language processing (363–409). In Ch. 8, the mechanisms and stages of first language acquisition are discussed and hypotheses of second language acquisition are presented. Ch. 9, which deals with the communication of humans and computers, introduces perception and comprehension and provides an introductory, yet comprehensive, overview of computational linguistics.

Part 4, ‘Language and society’ (408–534), explores sociolinguistics (408–60), historical linguistics (461–504), and writing (505–34). Ch.10, discusses the issues of language varieties, language contact, and societal restrictions on language use; Ch. 11, examines linguistic change; and Ch. 12, which traces the history of writing, presents several modern writing and spelling systems and discusses the skills of reading and spelling in a highly entertaining way.

This book’s comprehensive yet easy-to-read presentation, combined with an extensive glossary and a thorough index, will appeal to a wide audience and will motivate its readers to learn more about languages.