Peter Trudgill

Laurie Bauer

The field of language is one full of misconceptions about the way in which language works, or is used. This collection of essays tackles beliefs, correcting a catalogue of errors such as: aborigines speak a primitive language, French people speak faster and German is ugly.

Language Myths

A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining English; Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Anymore; America is Ruining the English Language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury andThe Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.

I. S. P. Nation

This highly accessible book presents an overview of English morphology for all those involved in the English-language teaching industry. For non-native learners, the ability to recognize and produce new words in appropriate circumstances is a challenging task, and knowledge of the word-building system of English is essential to effective language learning. This book clearly explains the morphology of English from the point of view of the non-native learner and shows how teachers and professors can instruct EFL students successfully with effective materials. Covering the scope of the task of teaching English morphology specifically to non-native learners of English, bestselling authors Bauer and Nation provide a range of strategies and tactics for straightforward instruction, and demonstrate how teachers of English as a foreign language can easily integrate learning of the morphological system into their language courses. This book helps teachers and learners make sensible decisions about where to focus deliberate attention, what to be careful about, and what not to be concerned about. It offers a range of shortcuts, tips, and tricks for teaching, and gives detailed practical information on topics including: Sound and spelling Possessives Comparative and superlative Past tense and past participle Making nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and words with prefixes Learned word-formation. This book is essential and practical reading for graduate students on English-language teaching courses, preservice teachers, consultants, practitioners, researchers, and scholars in ELT.

English Morphology for the Language Teaching Profession

Andreea S. Calude

Questions about Language sets out to answer, in a readable yet insightful format, a series of vital questions about language, some of which language specialists are regularly asked, and some of which are so surprising that only the specialists think about them. With an introduction by the editors, in this handy guide, sixteen experts in the field answer some challenging questions about language from, What makes a language a language? to Do people swear because they don't know enough words? Illustrating the complexity of human language, and the way in which we use it, the twelve chapters each end with a section on further reading for anyone interested in following up on the topic. Covering core questions about language, this is essential reading for both students new to language and linguistics and the interested general reader.

What Everyone Should Know about Language in the 21st Century

Questions about Language

The Grammar of Nominal Compounding with Special Reference to Danish, English, and French

Salvador Valera Hernández

This thematic publication contains papers presented by invited speakers at a symposium of Conversion / Zero-Derivation held in conjunction with the 10th International Morphology Conference in Szentendre, Hungary, in May 2002, and papers from scholars who could not attend that symposium but indicated their interest in contributing to this volume. Conversion became an issue again in the nineties, probably as a result of the widespread renewed interest in morphology that is in full swing today. The papers contained in this book approach conversion from various perspectives and with different purposes in mind. They cover topics such as what it means to change category, how one can discover the directionality of conversion and the very vexed question of whether an analysis in terms of conversion is or is not to be preferred over one in terms of zero-derivation. All of these questions were canvassed at the symposium, but so were others: questions of typology, conversion in languages other than English, and the question of how far the meaning of conversion is predictable. The participants in the symposium were interested to find that with so many people discussing conversion there was remarkably little overlap in the areas addressed.

Approaches to Conversion / Zero-Derivation

Examines the ways language has changed in the twentieth century. It concentrates on standard English and takes a historical rather than sociolinguistic view of the changes which have occurred.

An Introduction to the Study of Linguistic Change in Standard Englishes in the 20th Century

Watching English Change

This introduction to linguistics for the absolute beginner focuses on the core topics of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Theoretically-neutral, each essential topic is covered in depth and the author's engaging style encourages interaction from students by using regular short questions to check comprehension.

Beginning Linguistics

This controversial new book addresses the linguistic problems around compounds: words which sit on the borderline of syntax and morphology.

Compounds and Compounding

Professor Laurie Bauer

Bauer Laurie

Although the illustrative material is drawn principally from English, general points are illustrated with a variety of languages to provide a new perspective on a confused and often controversial field of study.

English Word-Formation

Rochelle Lieber

Ingo Plag

The first comprehensive description of English word formation covers inflection and derivation, compounding, conversion, and minor processes such as subtractive morphology. It combines theory-neutral presentation of data with theoretically informed analysis. Winner of the 2015 Bloomfield Book Award and written by three outstanding scholars, this is a vital reference for all linguists.

The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology

Questions About Language sets out to answer, in a readable yet insightful format, a series of vital questions about language, some of which language specialists are regularly asked, and some of which are so surprising that only the specialists think about them. In this handy guide, sixteen language experts answer challenging questions about language, from What makes a language a language? to Do people swear because they don’t know enough words? Illustrating the complexity of human language, and the way in which we use it, the twelve chapters each end with a section on further reading for anyone interested in following up on the topic. Covering core questions about language, this is essential reading for both students new to language and linguistics and the interested general reader.

What Everyone Should Know About Language in the 21st Century

Questions About Language

Despite a history of hundreds of years of research analysing aspects of English grammar, there are still open problems which continue to baffle language researchers today. Such ‘grammar mysteries’ arise for a number of reasons: because the language is changing; because different speakers of the language adhere to distinct norms and thus introduce and maintain variation in the system; because there are differences between the grammar of spoken and written English. This book illuminates some of the complexities of the subject, the areas where new discoveries await and why it matters. Through a series of accessible and engaging case studies on various aspects of grammar, from multiple negation to possession, the authors present grammar as an intellectual challenge. This book brings out into the open questions about language usage to which we still do not have good answers in a bid to make variation overt and to revel in the mystery of the English language. Both aimed at the interested general reader and the beginning student of English language and linguistics, this is a fresh take on grammar.

Laurie Bauer

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