Linguistic Universe: An Introduction to Linguistics

Linguistic Universe: An Introduction to Linguistics provides an innovative introduction to Linguistics for undergraduate university and college students who come from a variety of diverse disciplines and for those who consider majoring in Linguistics. The textbook originated in the North American university classroom experience and has been successfully tested in the classroom for five years. The book can also assist individuals outside of the university contexts to understand some fundamental facts about language origins, structure, and functions.

The book is reader-friendly. It presents major linguistic concepts in a captivating and insightful way. It is aimed at motivating learners to engage into further studies of language. Exercises after each chapter assist the readers in developing their critical thinking skills and in monitoring their progress. The exercises can also help the instructors with ideas for additional activities in the classroom. Each chapter has a list of references that can be employed as secondary reading sources.

The book is comprised of two parts: chapters 1-5 cover an overview of the nature of human language and the subject matter of linguistics, as well as the major sub-disciplines of linguistics: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicology and semantics. The second part (chapters 6-10) covers some selected topics in applied linguistics and other language-related disciplines, such as language classifications and language history, sociolinguistics, language acquisition by children, acquisition of additional languages, and a comparison of animal communication with human languages. The book chapters content is quantified for an easy fit into a one-term or two-term course schedule, and can be used as needed for one introductory course, or for two introductory courses – in linguistics and in applied linguistics (or language structures and language dynamics).

The linguistic material and examples come primarily from English, but also involve a wide variety of languages with different origins and typologies.