本书主要是为英语专业本科生高年级普通语言学课程编写的教材。本教材主要具有以下特点: 1) 内容取舍恰当，水平深浅适中；2）语言表述尽量浅显，对不得不用的术语做出容易理解的解释或说明；3）尽可能使用生动的语言材料和示例，避免过于抽象、艰涩；4）以相对成熟的理论为主，同时适当介绍新的流派或观点；5）要配有适当的练习和思考题目。本书不仅可以作为教材使用，同时也是一本普及型的语言学读。

本书主要是为英语专业本科高年级“普通语言学导论”课程编写的。为了更适合该课程教学中的特点和学生的实际水平，本书要点突出，文字简洁，在内容、篇幅、举例等方面都具有鲜明的特点。本书为本科生普通语言学课程提供了新的可选择的教材，同时由于其较强的可读性，也完全可以作为一本普通语言学的普及读物，为那些喜欢语言学知识或初学语言学的一般读者使用。

Chapter 1 An Overview of Language and Linguistics

 1.1 What Is General Linguistics？

1.1.1 Defining Linguistics

1.1.2 Principles of Linguistic Science

1.1.3 A Natural Science or a Social Science？

1.1.4 What Is Meant by "General"？

1.1.5 Some Basic Distinctions in Linguistics

1.1.6 What Is the Use of Linguistics？

 1.2 What Is Language？

1.2.1 Defining Language

1.2.2 Design Features of Language

1.2.3 Functions of Language

Chapter 2 Phonetics

 2.1 Aim of Phonetics

 2.2 Different Types of Phonetics

 2.3 Vocal Organs

 2.4 Two Major Types of Speech Sounds

2.4.1 Consonants

2.4.2 Vowels

2.4.3 Cardinal Vowel System

Chapter 3 Phonology

 3.1 Aim of Phonology

 3.2 Phonemes and Allophones

 3.3 Minimal Pair

 3.4 Three Criteria for Grouping Phones into Phonemes

3.4.1 Free Variation

3.4.2 Complementary Distribution

3.4.3 Phonetic Similarity

 3.5 Distinctive Features and Natural Classes

 3.6 Phonological Processes

3.6.1 Co-articulation Effects

3.6.2 Elision

3.6.3 Assimilation

 3.7 Phonological Rules of English

3.7.1 Nasalization

3.7.2 Nasal Assimilation

3.7.3 Aspiration Rule

3.7.4 Rule Ordering

 3.8 Syllable and Stress

Chapter 4 Morphology

 4.1 Aim of Morphology

 4.2 Word and Morpheme

4.2.1 What Is a Word？

4.2.2 Classifications of Words

4.2.3 What Is a Morpheme？

 4.3 Morpheme and Allomorph

4.3.1 Phonetically Conditioned Allomorphs

4.3.2 Lexically or Grammatically Conditioned Allomorphs

 4.4 Relation between Morpheme and Phoneme

 4.5 Word Formation

4.5.1 Compound

4.5.2 Derivation

Chapter 5 Syntax

 5.1 What Is Syntax？

 5.2 The Traditional Grammar

5.2.1 The History of the Traditional Grammar

5.2.2 Syntactic Elements and Their Defining Properties

5.2.3 Syntactic Relations Between Words

5.2.4 The Ways Words are Organized Into Sentences

 5.3 The Structural Grammar

5.3.1 Saussure and His Linguistic Theory

5.3.2 American Structuralist Linguistics

 5.4 The Generative Linguistics

5.4.1 Chomsky and Generative Linguistics:What "Generative" Means

5.4.2 Five Stages of Generative Linguistics

5.4.3 The Classical Theory (1957——1965)

5.4.4 The Standard Theory (1965——1972)

5.4.5 The Extended Standard Theory Model(1972——1981)

5.4. 6 The Government and Binding Theory Model(1981——1993)

5.4.7 The Minimalist Program Model(1993——)

Chapter 6 Semantics

 6.1 An Overview of Semantics

6.1.1 Aim of Semantics

6.1.2 Semantics at Different Levels

6.1.3 Difficulty of Semantics

 6.2 Some Semantic Theories

6.2.1 Referential Theory

6.2.2 Mentalist Theory

6.2.3 "Use" Theory

 6.3 Classification of Meaning

6.3.1 Seven Types of Meaning Proposed by Leech

6.3.2 Sense, Reference, and Denotation

 6.4 Sense Relations

6.4.1 Synonymy

6.4.2 Antonymy

6.4.3 Hyponymy

 6.5 Simple Logic and Semantics

6.5.1 Simplified Form of Predicate Calculi

6.5.2 Simple Propositional Logic

 6.6 Ambiguity

Chapter 7 Pragmaties

 7.1 Defining Pragmatics

 7.2 Pragmatics. Past and Present

7.2.1 Focus on Change: Three Stages of Development

7.2.2 Tasks in Hand: Two Components of Pragmatics

 7.3 Critical Concepts and Theories in Pragmatics

7.3.1 Between Semantics and Pragmatics

7.3.2 Beyond Semantics

 7.4 Pragmatics in Development

7.4.1 Relevance Theory

7.4.2 Horn's Bipartite System and Levinson's Tripartite System

Chapter 8 Language and Society

 8.1 The Relatedness between Language and Society

8.1.1 Possible Relations between Language and Society

8.1.2 Socioliuguistics

 8.2 Variable, Variant and Variation

 8.3 Regional Dialect and Its Semantic Extension

 8.4 Language Use and Social Factors

8.4.1 Sociolect

8.4.2 Genderleet

8.4.3 Agelect

8.4.4 Ethnic Dialect

 8.5 Language Change

8.5.1 Language Change in Progress

8.5.2 Forms of Language Change

Chapter 9 Language, Culture and Thought

 9.1 The Relations between Language, Culture and Thought

9.1.1 Language and Culture

9.1.2 Language and Thought

9.1.3 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

 9.2 Some Cultural Items

9.2.1 Politeness and Cross-cultural Communication

9.2.2 Greetings

9.2.3 Taboo and Euphemism

9.2.4 Address Terms

Chapter 10 Language Acquisition

 10.1 First Language Acquisition

10.1.1 Three Views on First Language Acquisition

10.1.2 Characteristics of First Language Acquisition

10.1.3 Stages of First Language Acquisition

 10.2 Second Language Learning

10.2.1 First Language Acquisition versus Second Language Learning

10.2.2 Contrasts between First Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning

10.2.3 Stages of Second Language Learning

Appendix

Index