Bauer L. Beginning Linguistics

Textbook. — New York, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2012. — XVIII, 334 p.In this core Textbook, Laurie Bauer's engaging style brings linguistics to life and introduces readers to the fundamentals of the subject. Each essential area of linguistics is dealt with in turn, thereby providing readers with a clear and comprehensive overview of all the core topics, including semantics, syntax, phonology and pragmatics.Alongside definitions of key terms and explanations of how various issues slot together, this text also empowers readers by teaching them how to apply their knowledge to new data. Richly illustrated with examples from multiple languages and packed with interactive activities, this user-friendly book helps readers to master the basics and sets them up for further study in the field.This is an invaluable resource for those studying linguistics for the very first time. Equally, it provides a firm reference point for those with more experience in the field.This book is an introduction to core Linguistics, with the ‘hyphenated’ varieties of Linguistics consigned to the last chapter as ways in which the materials learnt in the core can be used. This is not intended to downplay the importance of these other areas of Linguistics, but is to allow sufficient space to focus on the central parts of Linguistics.As each teacher, each programme, will have their own preferences about phonological or syntactic theory and this book is intended to deliver on the commonalities that they share, teachers may have to provide their own slant on the material provided here: they may have to select a set of distinctive features or display a commitment (or not) to binarity in syntactic trees. It is my hope that the material here is genuinely introductory enough that it will suit teachers who have very different theoretical presuppositions.The order of the chapters here is largely traditional, from the smaller units to the larger ones, except that semantics is dealt with first. This is purely to allow the notion of prototype, which is introduced in the semantics chapter, to be used in other chapters. If teachers are willing to introduce that notion as required, the order of the chapters becomes far less significant. Having said that, it does seem to me that there is some pedagogical value in starting with semantics, an area where students already know something but can be challenged, and yet are unlikely to feel that the area is too technical.Introduction
Semantics
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Pragmatics
ConclusionAppendices
Glossary
Languages mentioned
Answers to questions
Assignments and study questions