Newly updated with a wealth of material for practice and discussion, it will continue to inspire new generations of students.” Stephen Matthews, University of Hong Kong ‘Its strength is in providing a general survey of mainstream linguistics in palatable, easily manageable and logically organised chunks. Yule’s crisp and thought-provoking presentation of key issues works well for a wide range of students.” Elise Morse-Gagne, Tougaloo College “The Study of Language is one of the most accessible and entertaining introductions to linguistics available. “A genuinely introductory linguistics text, well suited for undergraduates who have little prior experience thinking descriptively about language.

He is the author of a number of books, including Discourse Analysis (with Gillian Brown, 1983) and Pragmatics (1996). George Yule has taught Linguistics at the Universities of Edinburgh, Hawai’i, Louisiana State and Minnesota. This is the most fundamental and easy-to-use introduction to the study of language. The online study guide offers students further resources when working on the tasks, while encouraging lively and proactive learning. To increase student engagement with the text, Yule has also included more than fifty new tasks, including thirty involving data analysis, enabling students to apply what they have learned. This fourth edition has been revised and updated with twenty new sections, covering new accounts of language origins, the key properties of language, text messaging, kinship terms and more than twenty new word etymologies. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, Yule presents information in short, bite-sized sections, introducing the major concepts in language study – from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently, through all the key elements of language. The Study of Language This best-selling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language.

The Study of Language by George Yule