How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or DieSteven Pinker meets Bill Bryson in this landmark exploration of language. In the author's own words, "How Language Works is not about music, cookery, or sex. But it is about how we talk about music, cookery, and sex-or, indeed, anything at all." Language is so fundamental to everyday life that we take it for granted. But as David Crystal makes clear in this work of unprecedented scope, language is an extremely powerful tool that defines the human species. Crystal offers general readers a personal tour of the intricate workings of language. He moves effortlessly from big subjects like the origins of languages, how children learn to speak, and how conversation works to subtle but revealing points such as how email differs from both speech and writing in important ways, how language reveals a person's social status, and how we decide whether a word is rude or polite. Broad and deep, but with a light and witty touch, How Language Works is the ultimate layman's guide to how we communicate with one another. |
Contents
How we perceive speech | |
How we describe speech sounds | |
How we describe consonants and vowels | |
How we organize the sounds of speech | |
How we use tone of voice | |
the first year | |
later years | |
How speech can go wrong | |
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ability activities analysis approach articulation become begin called century child communication complex consonants contrast conversation countries course cultural dialects dictionary difficult direction distinctive early effect English especially evidence example express factors forms functions given grammar human identify identity important influence involved kind known language learning less letters linguistic listening major mark meaning million move movement names natural organized original particular patterns person position possible present problem produce pronunciation question range reading recognized reference regional relationship result rules semantic sense sentence similar single situations social sometimes sounds speak speakers speech spelling spoken structure symbols talk teaching tongue translation types units usually varieties vary vocabulary vocal voice vowels whole widely words writing written