O’Grady William, Archibald John, Aronoff Mark (eds.). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction

7th Edition. — Bedford/St. Martin's, 2017. — 674 p.Contemporary Linguistics is one of the most comprehensive introductions to the fundamentals of linguistics, balancing engaging aspects of language study with solid coverage of the basics. Up-to-date scholarship, a direct approach, and a lucid writing style makes it appealing to instructors and beginning students alike. It is a resource that many students continue to use beyond the classroom. LaunchPad Solo for Contemporary Linguistics includes four additional chapters, interactive activities, exercises, and problems, and more. The text explores all the core areas of linguistics as well as numerous interdisciplinary and related areas. Core topics covered include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, the genetic and typological classification of the languages of the world, and historical linguistics. Interdisciplinary areas discussed include language and the brain, psycholinguistics - the study of language processing, first and second language acquisition, language in social contexts and the fast-growing area of computational linguistics. Related areas explored include writing systems and animal communication. A modular arrangement of the material facilitates the use of the book in courses at varying levels, and with differing emphasis. Each chapter contains basic information - so prior knowledge of the subject is not a prerequisite. However, many chapters include additional material which is flagged as 'advanced', to provide scope and challenge for those readers who wish to take the study further. Each chapter also contains clearly defined headings, a summary and an up-to-date bibliography. Hints which provide a valuable aid for solving analytical problems are included in the appendices, together with end-of-chapter exercises which allow the reader to learn by actually 'doing linguistics'. A detailed glossary of terms enables readers to check definitions and a language index (as well as a standard subject index) are provided at the back of the book.