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  • Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication by Adrian Akmajian et al.
  • Laura Daniliuc and Radu Daniliuc
Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. 5th edn. By Adrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. Pp. 604. ISBN 0262511231. $40.

This fifth edition of the authors’ well-known introductory textbook is made up of two parts. The first part contains eight chapters and deals with the structure of human language. Ch. 1 is very brief and provides a tentative answer to the question ‘What is linguistics?’. Ch. 2 deals with morphology in terms of morphemes, word formation processes, inflection, derivation, neologisms, compounds, and morphological analysis. Ch. 3 focuses on phonetics and phonemic transcription, dealing with the physiology of speech and the representation of speech sounds, sound clusters, and contractions, while Ch. 4 describes phonology—the internal and external structure of speech sounds. Ch. 5 is dedicated to syntax—sentence structure, structural ambiguity, grammatical relations, anaphora, and X-bar theory. Semantics is discussed in Ch. 6, including issues such as kinds of meaning, meaning relations and properties, the status of deictics, and proper names. Ch. 7 talks about language variation, social and regional variation, standard and nonstandard language, and codeswitching. The final chapter investigates language change in diachrony, including the biological, functional evolution of the language.

The second part contains four chapters on communication and cognitive science. The first chapter of this part (Ch. 9) deals with pragmatics and analyzes topics such as the message and inferential models of communication, the nature of discourse, speech acts, pragmatic presupposition, and speaker reference. Ch. 10 focuses on the psychology of language and presents theories of speech production and language comprehension. Ch. 11 deals with child language acquisition and the stages of language development. Ch. 12 investigates the relation between language and the brain, including the way in which aphasia syndromes affect linguistic functions and the role of PET (positron emission tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) in measuring brain activity related to language.

The book ends with a short essay on the written representation of language with many examples of various writing systems. The volume also includes a glossary of terms and a comprehensive index.

Except for the first, all of the chapters have extensive exercises, and six chapters also have study questions. The chapters also include suggestions for further reading, providing numerous bibliographic references in some cases. The chapters follow a concentric structure, with fundamental concepts presented in the beginning, followed by discussions that involve these concepts.

The book is full of valuable information and offers a clear perspective of the field. The only objection that can be raised concerns the format of the book in relation to its undergraduate audience. The volume lacks the ‘bells and whistles’ that would make it a fashionable textbook with undergraduates, more resembling a heavy book for graduates. As the book is quite a popular choice with many teachers, one [End Page 333] can hope that the next edition will improve on the visual elements and the appeal of its general format.

Laura Daniliuc and Radu Daniliuc
Australian National University
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