An Introduction to Language introduces students to the fascinating study of human language. Engagingly and clearly written, it provides an overview of the key areas of linguistics from an Australian perspective. The International Phonetic Alphabet is represented by both HCE and MD versions, allowing lecturers to use whichever IPA system they prefer.

The text is divided into four sections, and chapters take students through the nature of human language, the grammatical aspects and psychology of language, finishing with language and its relation to society. Chapters have also been reworked and revised to keep all syntax up-to-date and accurate.

Popular features have been retained for this ninth edition including learning objectives and margin definitions in each chapter, along with summary tables inside the covers, assisting readers to learn core concepts and terminology. To supplement student learning, An Introduction to Language continues to offer the strongest resources package in the market, giving students access to CourseMate Express with interactive audio phonemes, as well as offering a new Test Bank for instructors.

Part 1: The nature of human language
1. What is language?
2. Brain and language

Part 2: Grammatical aspects of language
3. Morphology: The words of language
4. Syntax: The sentence patterns of language
5. Semantics and Pragmatics: The meanings of language
6. Phonetics: The sounds of language
7. Phonology: The sound patterns of language

Part 3: The psychology of language
8. Language acquisition
9. Language processing: Humans and computers

Part 4: Language and society
10. Language in society
11. Language change: The syllables of time
12. Writing: The ABCs of language

An Introduction to Language introduces students to the fascinating study of human language. Engagingly and clearly written, it provides an overview of the key areas of linguistics from an Australian perspective. The International Phonetic Alphabet is represented by both HCE and MD versions, allowing lecturers to use whichever IPA system they prefer. The text is divided into four sections, and chapters take students through the nature of human language, the grammatical aspects and psychology of language, finishing with language and its relation to society. Chapters have also been reworked and revised to keep all syntax up-to-date and accurate. Popular features have been retained for this ninth edition including learning objectives and margin definitions in each chapter, along with summary tables inside the covers, assisting readers to learn core concepts and terminology. To supplement student learning, An Introduction to Language continues to offer the strongest resources package in the market, giving students access to CourseMate Express with interactive audio phonemes, as well as offering a new Test Bank for instructors. More research-oriented exercises have also been added for those instructors who wish their students to pursue certain topics more deeply More visual elements including diagrams and photos to further engage students Chapter 2 includes a new section on how MEG (magnetoencepholograhy) can be used to study aspects of our linguistic knowledge Chapter 4 now has an expanded section on the various syntactic categories, and ways to identify parts of speech to cover more foundational knowledge, requested by reviewers. Is also includes an updated section on sign language syntax. Chapter 5, on semantics, has been more finely structured so that the challenging topics of this complex subject can be digested in smaller pieces. Chapter 5 also includes a newly expanded and modernised section on pragmatics. Chapter 8, ‘Language acquisition’ has a thoroughly revised section on L2 teaching methods. The Chapter 9 section on psycholinguistics has been updated to conform to recent discoveries, and the section on computational linguistics reflects advances in machine translation, speech synthesis, speech recognition and language understanding. Anchoring the extensive new material in this chapter is the introduction of the Culturomic Revolution in the computer processing of language, in which computers have analysed billions (with a b) of lines of text with results that will astonish even the most blasé readers. The Chapter 10 section on Māori has been expanded. Chapter 11 now includes a detailed and more complex illustration of the application of the comparative method to two contemporary dialects to reconstruct their ancestor – often called ‘internal reconstruction’.