1．The Nature of Language 1
1.1 What does“language”mean？ 2
1.2 What is language？ 3
1.3 Design features 4
1.3.1 Arbitrariness 4
1.3.2 Duality 6
1.3.3 Productivity 6
1.3.4 Displacement 7
1.3.6 Interchangeability 8
1.3.5 Cultural transmission 8
1.4 Functions of language 10
1.4.1 Phatic 10
1.4 2 Directive 10
1.4.3 Informative 11
1.4.4 Interrogative 11
1.4.5 Expressive 12
1.4.6 Evocative 12
1.4.7 Performative 13
1.5 The origin of language 13
1.5.1 The divine-origin theory 14
1.5.3 The evolutionary theory 15
1.5.2 The invention theory 15
1.5.4 The first language 16
2．What is Linguistics？ 20
2.1 What is linguistics 20
2.2 Some basic distinctions in linguistics 22
2.2.1 Speech and writing 23
2.2.2 Descriptive er prescriptive？ 24
2.2.3 Synchronic and diachronic studies 25
2.2.4 Langue and parole 27
2.2.5 Competence and performance 28
2.2.6 Linguistic potential and actual linguisticbehaviour 29
2.3 Major branehes of general linguisties 30
2.3.1 Phonetics 30
2.3.2 Phonology 31
2.3.3 Morphology 31
2.3.4 Syntax 31
2.3.5 Semantics 32
2.4 Uses of linguistics 32
2.4.1 Linguistics and language teaching 32
2.4.2 Linguistics and society 33
2.4.3 Linguistics and literature 34
2.4.4 Linguistics and psychology 34
2.4.5 Some other applications 35
3．Phonetics 39
3.1 Scope of phonetics 39
3.1.1 Articulatory phonetics 39
3.1.2 Auditory phonetics 39
3.1.3 Acoustic phonetics 40
3.2 The vocal organs 40
3.2.1 The initiator of the air-stream 40
3.2.2 The vocal cords 41
3.2.3 The resonating cavities 43
3.3.1 Places of articulation 46
3.3 Consonants 46
3.3.2 Manners of articulation 48
3.3.3 The classification of consonants 51
3.4 Vowels 52
3.4.1 Cardinal vowels 53
3.4.2 The classification of vowels 54
3.5 Phonetic transcription 57
3.5.1 The International Phonetic Alphabet 58
3.5.2 Narrow and Broad Transcriptions 59
4．Phonology 64
4.1 Distinctiveness in speech sounds 64
4.2.1 Minimal pairs 65
4.2 The phoneme theory 65
4.2.2 Free variation 66
4.2.3 Complementary distribution 66
4.2.4 Phonemic similarity 67
4.2.5 Pattern congruity 68
4 3 A functional approach 69
4.3.1 Neutralization and archiphoneme 69
4.3.2 Distinctive features 70
4.4 Suprasegmental phonology 71
4 4.1 The syllable 72
4.4.2 Stress 73
4.4 3 Piteh 76
4.4.4 Intonation 77
5．Morphology 83
5.1 Morphology 83
5.1.1 Inflection 83
5.1.2 Word-formation 84
5.2 Word and morpheme 87
5.2 1 Morpheme 87
5.2.2 Morpheme and phoneme 87
5.2.4 Allomorph 88
5.2.3 Morphemic structure and phonological tructu re 88
5.3.1 Free morpheme and bound morpheme 90
5.3.2 Roots 90
5.3 Types of morphemes 90
5.3.3 Affix 91
5.3.4 Root and stem 92
5.4 Morphophonology and morphophonemics 93
5.4.1 Phonologically conditioned 93
5.4.2 Morphologically conditioned 94
6.2 Word 97
6.2.1 Three senses of“word” 97
6.1 Lexicon 97
6．Lexicon 97
6.2.2 The identification of words 99
6.2.3 Subclassification of words 101
6.2.4 Lexeme 105
6.3 Idiom 106
6.3.1 Two basic requirements 106
6.3.2 Factors which account for the forma-tion of idioms 108
6.3.3 Application of idioms 109
6.4.1 Mutual expectancy 110
6.4.2 Fixed syntactic-lexical relations 110
6.4 Collocation 110
6.4.3 Inexplicability 111
7．Syntax 114
7.1 Syntactic relations 114
7.1.1 Positional relation 114
7.1.2 Relation of substitutability 115
7.1.3 Relation of co-occurrence 116
7.2 Construction and constituent 116
7.2.1 Construction 116
7.2.2 Immediate constituent 117
7 2.3 Endocentric and exocentric const ructions 118
7.2.4 Coordinate and subordinate constructions 120
7.3 Syntactic function 121
7 3.1 Subject 121
7.3.2 Predicate 123
7.3.3 Object 124
7.3.4 The relation between classes and functions 125
7.4 Category 125
7.4.1 Number 126
7.4.2 Gender 126
7.4.3 Case 127
7.4.5 Government 128
7.4.4 Concord 128
7.5 Phrase,clause and sentence 129
7.5.1 Phrase 129
7.5.2 Clause 129
7.5.3 Sentence 130
7.6 The extension of sentence 132
7.6.1 Conjoining 132
7.6.2 Embedding 132
7.6.3 Recursiveness 132
7.7 Syntax beyond the sentence 133
7.6.4 Hypotactic and paratactic 133
7.7.1 Sentential connection 134
7.7.2 Cohesion 134
8．Semantics 139
8.1 What is semantics？ 139
8.2 What is meaning？ 139
8.2.1 The realist vs the nominalist 140
8.2.2 Conceptualism or mentalism 140
8.2.3 Mechanism 141
8.2.4 Contextualism 141
8.2.6 Functionalism 142
8.2.5 Behaviourism 142
8.3 Kinds of meaning 143
8.3.1 The traditional approach 143
8.3.2 The functional approach 143
8.3.3 The pragmatic approach 144
8.4 Sense relationships 144
8.4.1 Synonymy 145
8.4.2 Antonymy 146
8.4.3 Hyponymy 148
8.4.4 Polysomy and homonymy 149
8.4.5 Sense relations between sentences 150
8.5 Semantic analysis 153
8.5.1 Componential analysis 153
8.5.2 Predication analysis 155
8.5.3 Relational components 156
8.5.4 Logical elements 157
9．Writing 162
9.1 The growth of writing 162
9.1.1 The iconic stage 162
9.1.2 Word writing 162
9.1.3 Syllabic writing 164
9.1.4 Sound writing 164
9.2.1 Word writing system 165
9.2 The writing systems 165
9.2.2 Syllabic writing system 166
9.2.3 Sound writing system 166
9.3 Graphemics 167
9.3.1 Graphemes 167
9.3.2 Reference 168
9.4 Writing and speech 168
9.4.1 The graphemic system and the phonologicalsystem 168
9.4.3 The influence of one writing system onanother 170
9.4.2 Variation in graphemic representation 170
9.4.4 The disparity between speech and writing 171
9.4.5 The importance of writing 172
10．Language Variation 175
10.1 The changing language 175
10.2 Lexical change 175
10.2.1 Invention 176
10.2.2 Compounding 176
10.2.3 Blending 177
10.2.4 Abbreviation 178
10.2.5 Acronym 178
10.2.6 Metanalysis 179
10.2.8 Analogical creation 180
10.2.7 Baek-formation 180
10.2.9 Borrowing 181
10.3 Phonological change 183
10.3.1 Loss 183
10.3.2 Addition 184
10.3.3 Metathesis 185
10.3.4 Assimilation 185
10.4 Grammatical change 186
10.4.1 Morphological change 186
10.3.5 Dissimilation 186
10.4.2 Syntactical change 187
10.5 Semantic change 188
10.5.1 Broadening 189
10.5.2 Narrowing 190
10.5.3 Meaning shift 190
10.5.4 Class shift 191
10.5.5 Folk etymology 191
10.6 Orthographic change 192
11．Varieties of Language 196
11.1 English or Englishes？ 196
11.2.1 Regional dialect 197
11.2 Dialect 197
11.2.2 Temporal dialect 198
11.2.3 Social dialect 199
11.2.4 Standard dialect 204
11.2.5 Ideolect 205
11.2.6 Categorization of dialectal varieties 206
11.3 Register 206
11.3.1 Field of discourse 207
11.3.2 Mode of discourse 208
11.3.4 Categorization of diatypic varieties 209
11.3.3 Tenor of discourse 209
11.4 Discourse 210
12．Linguistic Comparison 215
12.1 Comparative and historical linguistics 215
12.1.1 Correspondence 215
12.1.2 The reconstruction of a proto-language 219
12.1.3 Language families 222
12.2 Linguistic typology 224
12.2.1 Phonetic typology 226
12.2.2 Phonological typology 226
12.2.3 Grammatical typology 228
12.2.4 Structural typology 228
12.2.5 Semantic typology 230
13．Language,Thought and Culture 237
13.1 Language as the dress of thought 237
13.1.1 The monistic view of language and thought 237
13.1.2 Reaction to the monistic view 238
13.1.3 Language facilitates thinking 238
13.2 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 239
13.2.1 Linguistic determinism 240
13.2.2 Linguistic relativity 243
13.3 Language and culture 246
13.3.1 Cultural and linguistic universals 246
13.3.2 Cultural and linguistic peculiarities 248
13.3.3 Language and culture:a dialectical relationship 250
14．Language and Society 254
14.1 Language as a social activity 254
14.1.1 Internal authority 254
14.1.2 External authority 255
14.2 Language planning 255
14.2.1 The standard language 256
14.2.2 The national language 257
14.2.3 The official language 259
14.3 The interrelation between language and society 260
14.3.1 Roles 260
14.3.2 Reputations 261
14.3.3 Domain 262
14.3.4 Communication codes 262
14.3.5 Code-switching 263
14.3.6 Language maintenance 263
14.4 The role of dictionaries and grammars as asocial force 263
14 4.1 Dictionaries 263
14.4.2 Grammars 264
15．Pragmatics 269
15.1 Introduction 269
15.2 Context and meaning 270
15.3 Speech act theory 271
15.3.1 Illocutionary acts 273
15.3.2 Types of illocutionary acts 274
15.3.3 Indirect speech acts 275
15.3.4 Difficulties in speech act theory 277
15.4 Conversational analysis 278
15.4.1 Adjacency pairs 278
15.4.2 Preferred second parts 279
15.4.3 Presequences 281
15.5 The Cooperative Principle(CP) 282
15.5.1 The cooperative principle and its Maxims 282
15.5.2 Conversational implicatures 283
15.5.3 Licensing violations of the Maxims 285
16．Linguistics and Literature 291
16.1 The function of linguistics in the study ofliterature 291
16.2 A method of linguistic analysis 293
16.2.1 Phonological features 293
16.2.2 Lexical features 295
16.2.3 Grammatical features 296
16.2.4 Semantic features 298
16.2.5 Graphological features 301
16.3.1 Deviation 303
16.3 The theory of foregrounding 303
16.3.2 Parallelism 305
16.3.3 Patterning 306
16.4 Stylistic Variants 307
Appendix Ⅰ．Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching 313
Ⅰ.1 The relation of linguistics to foreign languageteaching 313
Ⅰ.2 Various linguistic views and their significancein FL learning and teaching 315
Ⅰ.2.1 Traditional grammars 315
Ⅰ.2.2 Structuralist linguistics 316
Ⅰ.2.3 Transformational-Generative linguistics 316
Ⅰ.2.4 Functional linguistics 317
Ⅰ.2.5 The theory of communicative competence 318
Ⅰ.3 Syllabus design 319
Ⅰ.3.1 What is syllabus？ 319
Ⅰ.3.2 Major factors in syllabus design 320
Ⅰ.3.3 Types of syllabus 321
Ⅰ.4 Error analysis 329
Ⅰ.4.1 Errors,mistakes,and error analysis 329
Ⅰ.4.2 Attitudes to errors 330
Ⅰ.4.3 Procedure of error analysis 331
Ⅰ.4.4 Contrastive analysis and non-contrastiveanalysis 332
Ⅰ.5 Testing 334
Ⅰ.5.1 Two different approaches to testing 335
Ⅰ.5.2 Types of test 336
Ⅰ.5.3 Requirements of a good test 337
Ⅰ.5.4 Test content and test form 340
Ⅰ.5.5 Marking and interpretation of scores 341
Ⅰ.6 Summary 343
Appendix Ⅱ．Modern Linguistic Schools and Theories 350
Ⅱ.1 Ferdinand de Saussure 350
Ⅱ.1.1 Nature of the linguistic sign 350
Ⅱ.1.2 The relational nature of language units 352
Ⅱ.1.3 Langue and parole 354
Ⅱ.1.4 The relation between diachronic and synchronic studies 356
Ⅱ.2 The Prague School 358
Ⅱ.2.1 Introduction 358
Ⅱ.2.2 Phonological oppositions 360
Ⅱ.2.3 Functional sentence perspective(FSP) 362
Ⅱ.3 American structurahsm 365
Ⅱ.3.1 Introduction 365
Ⅱ.3.2 Structural grammar 367
Ⅱ.3.3 Behaviourist psychology in structuralism 370
Ⅱ.3.4 A comparison between traditional andstructural grammars 371
Ⅱ.4.1 Introduction 372
Ⅱ.4 Transformational-Generative grammar 372
Ⅱ.4.2 Chomsky s innateness hypothesis 374
Ⅱ.4.3 Phrase structure rules 377
Ⅱ.4.4 Transformational rules 379
Ⅱ.4.5 A comparison between structural grammarand TG grammar 383
Ⅱ.5 The London School 384
Ⅱ.5.1 Introduction 384
Ⅱ.5.2 Malinowski s theory of meaning 385
Ⅱ.5.3 Firth s theory of meaning 386
Ⅱ.5.4 Halliday s systemic grammar 388
Ⅱ.5.5 Halliday s functional grammar 393
Index (with Chinese translation) 398