How Languages Work: An Introduction to Language and Linguistics

by Carol Genetti (Editor)

A new and exciting introduction to linguistics, this textbook presents language in all its amazing complexity, while guiding students gently through the basics. Students emerge with an appreciation of the diversity of the world's languages, as well as a deeper understanding of the structure of human language, the ways it is used, and its broader social and cultural context. Chapters introducing the nuts and bolts of language study (phonology, syntax, meaning) are combined with those on the 'functions' of language (discourse, prosody, pragmatics, and language contact), helping students gain a better grasp of how language works in the real world. A rich set of language 'profiles' help students explore the world's linguistic diversity, identify similarities and differences between languages, and encourages them to apply concepts from earlier chapter material. A range of carefully designed pedagogical features encourage student engagement, adopting a step-by-step approach and using study questions and case studies.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction, Grad School, Textbooks

674 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2014

Reviews

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tome tells you that language is not one story but a thousand micro-stories stitched across geography, history, and community. The book reads like an ethnographic road trip: it moves from sound systems to morphology to discourse, but always with examples that feel lived-in rather than abstract.

There’s no linguistic imperialism here. Every language is a guest of honour, and the reader is invited to sit at the long global table and listen. If Bloomfield is stone and Pinker is chrome, Genetti is stained glass—light passing through difference.

What makes the book shimmer is its refusal to flatten diversity. You don’t just learn that languages vary; you know why variation is the universe’s favourite hobby. Carol Genetti introduces tone languages that rise like music.

These polysynthetic languages stack meaning into skyscrapers, sign languages that explode the myth of speech-centred linguistics, and discourse systems that teach you that sentence boundaries are a Western invention. But instead of overwhelming you, Genetti’s voice feels like someone saying, “Hey, chill, this is cool—watch this.” And you do watch.

And it is cool. The postmodern flavour emerges in the fragmentation: she does not pretend language is one object but many shifting phenomena that resist convergence. Meaning is co-created between structure, context, identity, and interaction. Even grammar feels alive here.

Reading Genetti today is refreshing because she quietly dismantles the big-theory bravado that once dominated linguistics. Instead of universals, she seeks tendencies; instead of hard boundaries, she traces gradients.

The text becomes an invitation to reconsider what we think we know when we say we “know” a language. And within that humility lies a radical stance: language is human creativity in distributed form. Every community is a laboratory; every speaker is a theorist; every utterance is a new attempt at shaping reality.

In the end, the book doesn’t just tell you how languages work—it tells you how humans work when they use language. And that feels like an insight worth carrying into any generation.

A classic book of linguistics. Most recommended.

[Casper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good starter on Linguistics. Though the 2nd half just looks at some languages and wasn't that nice to read through.

[Chris Butler · Rating 2 out of 5]

The score is mostly based on the class, I don't know how this book holds up to other linguistics textbooks.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linguistics is great, however this text book can be complicated to understand even when you have 3 hours of classes a week explaining it's content!