●Chapter 1 Properties of Language
1 Introduction-Nature or Nurture?
2 The Nature of Language
2.1 Creativity
2.2 Arbitrariness of linguistic signs
2.3 Duality
2.4 Displacement
2.5 Structure-dependence
3 Linguistic Competence and Linguistic Performance
4 Descriptive Grammar and Prescriptive Grammar
5 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 2 The Structures of Language
1 Introduction
1.1 Levels of linguistic organization
1.2 How many levels are there?
1.3 Evidence of structures
2 Patterns of Speech Sounds:Phonology
3 The Words of Language:Morphology
3.1 What is a morpheme?
3.2 Derivational morphology
3.3 Inflectional morphology
4 Sentence Structures:Syntax
4.1 Word order
4.2 Grammaticality judgment
4.3 Ambiguity
4.4 Recursiveness
5 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 3 Meaning of Language
1 Meaning in the Objective World
1.1 Arbitrariness and iconicity
1.2 Linguistic relativity and determinism
1.3 The logical approach to language meaning
2 Meaning in the Language System
2.1 The many meanings of a word
2.2 Some well-known word relations
2.3 Componential analysis
2.4 Meaning beyond words
3 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 4 Origins of Language
1 Introduction
2 Defining the Topic
2.1 The origin,the origins or origins of language?
2.2 Speech or written language?
2.3 Origins of language in general or origins of specific languages?
2.4 The meanings of the word origin
2.5 Where do we look for evidence?
……
Chapter 5 Language in Use:The Pragmatic Perspective
Chapter 6 Language and Power
Chapter 7 Language and Gender
Chapter 8 First Language Acquisition
Chapter 9 Second Language Acquisition
Chapter 10 Language and the Brain
Chapter 11 Language,Metaphor and Thought

本書是供英語專業學生使用的語言學初級教材。全書共分11章，繫統介紹語言學的基礎知識。本書的語言淺顯易懂，生動有趣，將語言學的知識如講故事般娓娓道來。教材在傳輸知識的同時注重啟發學生思維，促進學生思考，激發學生進一步進行深入學習。教材釋例豐富，而中英文兼顧，充分體現出理論與實踐相結合的編寫理念。本教材經過多年試用，在此基礎上精雕細作，日臻完善。