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Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics
While continuing to keep each chapter independent to allow maximum flexibility for teaching and learning, the ninth edition of Language Files has improved the organization within each chapter by adding an introduction file at the beginning. The introduction file provides an overview of the subfield of linguistics to be studied, as well as the specific topics to be discussed.
To make the book more interesting and to help students better understand the content, this new edition is enriched with visual illustrations such as cartoons, drawings, real life pictures, and schematic representation of examples, in addition to the figures and charts in the past editions. New exercises and suggested further readings are added in many chapters. Answers to the exercises are available at the back of the book and on-line for teachers and students.
736 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
January 21, 2014
"There is a platypus in the bathtub."
October 9, 2025
I read this book for one of my classes.
It was one of the most comprehensive textbooks I've ever read, it had a lot of useful information. My only complaint is that they didn't define words very clearly, so as an introductory text to the field that was difficult and it impeded learning.
It was one of the most comprehensive textbooks I've ever read, it had a lot of useful information. My only complaint is that they didn't define words very clearly, so as an introductory text to the field that was difficult and it impeded learning.
September 3, 2024
After discussing the modern concept that a dictionary defines a word it goes on to state that: “There is simply no higher authority on word meaning than the community of native speakers of a language.” (Page 249, file 6.2.1)
“Slang responds to a need in people to be creative in their language use and to show group membership (often unconsciously). These observations liken slang to some feature in the nature of being human and of interacting with humans. For these reasons slang is found in all languages,(even in Ancient Greek of 2,500 years ago, for instance).” (Page 420)
Section 10.4.4 Gender Variation
“One pattern that has been repeatedly found , at least in studies of Western cultures, is that women tend to use more prestige (standard) variants than men, and listeners even expect female speech to be more like that of the middle class and male speech to be more like that of the working class. ... (Page 439)
5)The cop saw the man with the binoculars.
Flying planes can be dangerous, which can mean ‘Planes that are flying can be dangerous’ or ‘The action of flying a plane can be dangerous.’
Many people deny even having different speech styles, on the grounds that it would be insincere, a form of playacting, to speak differently to different people. However, “putting on airs” is not the only way to change one’s speech style. It isn’t even the most common. In reality, adapting one’s speech style to the audience is like choosing the right tool for a particular task. (Section 10.1.2)
13.1.1Synchronic vs. Diachronic Linguistics
One of the biggest successes of linguistics has been the scientific investigation and understanding of language change for what it really is: an inescapable fact about natural human languages and not the result of moral corruption or intellectual deterioration of communities of speakers, as traditionally thought by many language “authorities.” All languages change except for the ones that do not have any native speakers left (i.e., dead languages), such as Latin, Sanskrit, and Attic Greek—and when these languages did have native speakers, they changed, too. (Section 13.1.1)
13.2.2Models of Language Relatedness
According to SIL International’s publication Ethnologue, there are 141 language families (e.g., Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, Uralic, etc.) along with 137 signed languages, 88 creoles, 13 pidgins, 21 mixed languages, 75 language “isolates” that do not seem to be related to anything, and 51 unclassified languages.
However, there is a disadvantage to this model in that the structure of the family tree may lead to two misconceptions about language change: first, that each language forms a uniform speech community without internal variation and without contact with its neighbor languages, and second, that the split of a parent language into its daughter languages is a sudden or abrupt occurrence, happening without intermediate stages. (Section 13.2.2)
Of course, the effects of writing on culture have not always been viewed positively, and languages that are only spoken are not in any way inferior to ones that have a writing system. Indeed, when writing systems (and later printing) were introduced, many people worried about their potentially negative impact on the human mind (much as some people worry today about the influence of calculators, computers, and smartphones on our ability to think for ourselves). Similarly, concerns have been raised that “textspeak” is ruining the verbal abilities of young people. (Section 15.1.3)
Even in English, the written form of the language usually differs from the spoken form of the language. In fact, some consider writing to be a separate dialect. In addition, as we shall see in the following section, many cultures and societies have multiple writing systems.(Section 15.1.3)
This was the textbook for a linguistics class that I audited. I quite enjoyed the class.
“Slang responds to a need in people to be creative in their language use and to show group membership (often unconsciously). These observations liken slang to some feature in the nature of being human and of interacting with humans. For these reasons slang is found in all languages,(even in Ancient Greek of 2,500 years ago, for instance).” (Page 420)
Section 10.4.4 Gender Variation
“One pattern that has been repeatedly found , at least in studies of Western cultures, is that women tend to use more prestige (standard) variants than men, and listeners even expect female speech to be more like that of the middle class and male speech to be more like that of the working class. ... (Page 439)
5)The cop saw the man with the binoculars.
Flying planes can be dangerous, which can mean ‘Planes that are flying can be dangerous’ or ‘The action of flying a plane can be dangerous.’
Many people deny even having different speech styles, on the grounds that it would be insincere, a form of playacting, to speak differently to different people. However, “putting on airs” is not the only way to change one’s speech style. It isn’t even the most common. In reality, adapting one’s speech style to the audience is like choosing the right tool for a particular task. (Section 10.1.2)
13.1.1Synchronic vs. Diachronic Linguistics
One of the biggest successes of linguistics has been the scientific investigation and understanding of language change for what it really is: an inescapable fact about natural human languages and not the result of moral corruption or intellectual deterioration of communities of speakers, as traditionally thought by many language “authorities.” All languages change except for the ones that do not have any native speakers left (i.e., dead languages), such as Latin, Sanskrit, and Attic Greek—and when these languages did have native speakers, they changed, too. (Section 13.1.1)
13.2.2Models of Language Relatedness
According to SIL International’s publication Ethnologue, there are 141 language families (e.g., Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, Uralic, etc.) along with 137 signed languages, 88 creoles, 13 pidgins, 21 mixed languages, 75 language “isolates” that do not seem to be related to anything, and 51 unclassified languages.
However, there is a disadvantage to this model in that the structure of the family tree may lead to two misconceptions about language change: first, that each language forms a uniform speech community without internal variation and without contact with its neighbor languages, and second, that the split of a parent language into its daughter languages is a sudden or abrupt occurrence, happening without intermediate stages. (Section 13.2.2)
Of course, the effects of writing on culture have not always been viewed positively, and languages that are only spoken are not in any way inferior to ones that have a writing system. Indeed, when writing systems (and later printing) were introduced, many people worried about their potentially negative impact on the human mind (much as some people worry today about the influence of calculators, computers, and smartphones on our ability to think for ourselves). Similarly, concerns have been raised that “textspeak” is ruining the verbal abilities of young people. (Section 15.1.3)
Even in English, the written form of the language usually differs from the spoken form of the language. In fact, some consider writing to be a separate dialect. In addition, as we shall see in the following section, many cultures and societies have multiple writing systems.(Section 15.1.3)
This was the textbook for a linguistics class that I audited. I quite enjoyed the class.
read-excerpt
November 4, 2024fleudian shrip
August 24, 2011
In the interest of full disclosure, I only read the introduction chapter and the short intros to each chapter since that was the assignment for my class... I may go back and read the chapter on animal communication, though. It looked pretty interesting.
August 5, 2012
It was a useful resource when I was studying about language
April 13, 2022
I liked how they simplified everything and made it clear. This really helped me through both semesters this year.
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December 12, 2023i want my money back
Read
May 2, 2021Pretty good introductory textbook! I like all the exercises that show you how things are actually figured out. Main problem was that it's out of date - mostly the computational linguistics part of course, but the tiny chapter on Sapir-Whorf seemed to be missing some studies - were those all done in the last fifteen years?
October 11, 2018
Comprehensive but also very readable. One of the better textbooks I've read on any subject.
March 20, 2020
A textbook that makes it much easier to learn linguistics. Written with the learner in mind.
February 1, 2018
I read this book for my Linguistics 200 class freshman year and found the whole subject thoroughly fascinating. The book’s still a treasured resource many years later when I want to recall the phonetic alphabet or lookup what a velar fricative is!
April 21, 2021
Is it weird that I actually loved this class at uni? Understanding how the language works and putting the phonetics together was actually interesting for me...is it just me?
June 12, 2025
It's a strong general introduction to linguistics, but I can't help but think it couldn't communicate the same information without loss of ease of reading in half the page count. Also some sections have minor issues or seem lacking in depth (e.g. syntax, historical linguistics) and while I appreciate the inclusion of sign languages, it seems like more of the phonetic and grammatical aspects of non-English languages could've been included; that is not to say there is no such discussion, but discussions tend to pull from "Standard American English" for examples to too great a degree for my liking.
January 25, 2016
So, how many times can a person read The Language Files in a year and not go crazy? Well, I'm not sure. But at least twice :)
Just read it again for exams. In talking about this text with my professors and in reading it myself (twice), I feel like it's a solid text; however, it does cover more breadth than depth. So, you get a wide range of information covering a broad spectrum of the field of linguistics, but what you sacrifice is depth in the basic (and most fundamental) areas of linguistics, like phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax.
Just read it again for exams. In talking about this text with my professors and in reading it myself (twice), I feel like it's a solid text; however, it does cover more breadth than depth. So, you get a wide range of information covering a broad spectrum of the field of linguistics, but what you sacrifice is depth in the basic (and most fundamental) areas of linguistics, like phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax.
September 1, 2008
Overall, the book offers a clear explanation of the basics of linguistics. Unfortunately, after ten editions, there are more than a few editing errors. A problem I particularly noticed is that keyword definitions in the text often don't match the keyword definitions in the glossary.
There also is no answer key available for the tenth edition. My professor repeatedly emailed the editors to request one, and she didn't receive a reply (let alone an answer key) during the 10 weeks of the course.
There also is no answer key available for the tenth edition. My professor repeatedly emailed the editors to request one, and she didn't receive a reply (let alone an answer key) during the 10 weeks of the course.
January 20, 2008
It's a textbook; what more can I say? It's a good introductory text to the field of linguistics, covering multiple disciplines in sufficien detail and quality so as to prepare the reader for headier study or to simply hold his own in a conversation on the subject. It comes recommended, and I assume newer versions are even that much more full of "win."
November 21, 2013
This was required reading for a class. It was somewhat informative but I didn't really enjoy it that much. I suppose I shouldn't be writing a review then, should I? Oh well. It was more comprehensible than another linguistics book I had to read. That's all I really have to say.
September 3, 2023
2.5+ stars.
Whew! A impressively big and thick book that cost me more than a year to finish! I actually read the 12th edition, so I'll give this newest release a bit of breathing room in terms of rating. All in all, the go-to tome for new linguists.
Whew! A impressively big and thick book that cost me more than a year to finish! I actually read the 12th edition, so I'll give this newest release a bit of breathing room in terms of rating. All in all, the go-to tome for new linguists.
February 6, 2008
I read the seventh edition in my own BA program. I also have this edition at home. It's a very useful overview of the many fields of linguistics.
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January 16, 2010my text book for this semester
December 31, 2009
I'll admit it: This textbook made me laugh.
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April 17, 2010LANGUAGE FILES 8TH EDITION by THE OHIO STATE UNIVE OSU DEPT LINGUISTICS (2001)
June 22, 2017
Great information; learned quite a bit from this.
Currently reading
December 5, 2012hjg
November 24, 2014
The content is good but the cover is gross.
never-finished-or-never-read
September 14, 2015Read sections of Language Files 11th edition for LING200: Introduction to Linguistics at UMD
Read
November 23, 2015Fabulous!
December 13, 2018
complicated and unnecessary wording. could be improved.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews