本教材的使用者主要为全国各高校英语专业的本科生。在内容方面，体现本科阶段课堂教学的特点，在提供基本知识的同时，更注重教材的科学性、系统性、实用性和时代性。在编写过程中，我们力求“化难为简”，尽量做到概念清晰，既要保证知识的系统性，又要避免术语的堆砌。本教材在传授基本知识与概念的同时，通过丰富的实例提供了有关语言分析和描述的基本方法，同时强调语言学与其他学科的联系，以便适应创新型人才培养的需要。为使学生巩固所学知识并进一步学习有关知识，每一章后都有练习题。全书共有十四章，教师可以根据教学大纲的课时安排和课堂教学的需要，合理地安排教学。

《语言学基础教程》包括语言与语言学、语音学与音位学、形态学、句法学、语义学、语用学、语篇分析、历史语言学、文体学、社会语言学、跨文化交际、心理语言学、认知语言学、应用语言学等十四章。在内容方面，本书在提供基本知识的同时，更注重教材的科学性、系统性、实用性和时代性。在编写过程中，我们力求“化难为简”，尽量做到概念清晰，既要保证知识的系统性，又要避免术语的堆砌。本书在传授基本知识与概念的同时，通过丰富的实例提供了有关语言分析和描述的基本方法，并强调语言学与其他学科的联系，以便适应创新型人才培养的需要。

Chapter 1 Language and Linguistics

 1.1 What is language?

 1.2 The design features of language

 1.3 The origin of language

 1.4 What is linguistics?

 1.5 The scope of linguistics

 1.6 A brief history of linguistics

1.6.1 Saussure as the father of modern linguistics

1.6.2 American structuralism

1.6.3 Generative linguistics

1.6.4 Functional linguistics

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 2 Phonetics and Phonology: The Sounds and Sound Patterns of Language

 2.1 Introduction

 2.2 Phonetics

2.2.1 Speech organs

2.2.2 Consonants

2.2.3 Vowels

2.2.4 Transcription of speech sounds

 2.3 Phonology

2.3.1 Phoneme

2.3.2 Phone and allophone

2.3.3 Phonotacties

2.3.4 Prosodic features: stress, tone and intonation

2.3.5 Co-articulation effects

 2.4 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 3 Morphology: The Word Structure of Language

 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 The words of language

 3.3 The structure of words

 3.4 Morpheme, morph and allomorph

 3.5 Classification of morphemes

3.5.1 Free morphemes and bound morphemes

3.5.2 Roots and affixes

3.5.3 Inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes

 3.6 Word formation processes

3.6.1 Derivation

3.6.2 Compounding

3.6.3 Conversion

3.6.4 Blending

3.6.5 Backformation

3.6.6 Abbreviation or shortening

 3.7 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 4 Syntax: The Sentence Structure of Language

 4.1 Introduction

 4.2 Sentence structure

4.2.1 Definition of sentence

4.2.2 The linear structure of sentence

4.2.3 The hierarchical structure of sentence

 4.3 The traditional approach

 4.4 The structural approach

4.4.1 Immediate constituent analysis

4.4.2 Endocentric and exocentric constructions

 4.5 The transformational-generative approach

4.5.1 The TG model of grammar

4.5.2 Syntactic structure

4.5.3 Movement

 4.6 The functional approach

4.6.1 Functions of language

4.6.2 Functional analysis of syntactic structure

 4.7 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 5 Semantics: The Meaning of Language

 5.1 Introduction

 5.2 Approaches to meaning

 5.3 Sense and reference

 5.4 Word meaning

5.4.1 Grammatical meaning and lexical meaning

5.4.2 Classification of lexical meaning

5.4.3 Sense relations

5.4.4 Semantic field

 5.5 Sentence meaning

5.5.1 Definition of sentence meaning

5.5.2 Semantic relations at the sentential level

 5.6 Ambiguity

 5.7 Semantic analysis

5.7.1 Componential Analysis

5.7.2 Predication Analysis

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 6 Pragmatics: The Use of Language in Context

 6.1 Introduction

 6.2 Pragmatics as a new branch of linguistics

6.2.1 Defining pragmatics

6.2.2 Syntax, semantics and pragmatics

 6.3 Speech Act Theory

6.3.1 Constatives and performatives

6.3.2 Locution, illocution, and perlocution

6.3.3 Felicity conditions

6.3.4 Classification of speech acts

 6.4 Theory of conversational implicature

6.4.1 The notion of implicature

6.4.2 Cooperative Principle and its maxims

6.4.3 Flouting the maxims

 6.5 Politeness Principle

6.5.1 Politeness: The principle and the maxims

6.5.2 Clashes between the maxims

 6.6 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 7 Discourse Analysis: Language above the Sentence

 7.1 Introduction

 7.2 What is discourse analysis?

 7.3 Cohesion

7.3.1 Reference

7.3.2 Substitution

7.3.3 Ellipsis

7.3.4 Conjunction

7.3.5 Lexical cohesion

 7.4 Coherence

 7.5 The structure of discourse

7.5.1 Thematic structure and information structure

7.5.2 The structure of conversations

7.5.3 Patterns in written discourse

 7.6 Connections

Questions and Exercises

Chapter 8 Historical Linguistics: Language through Time

 8.1 Introduction

 8.2 When language changes

 8.3 How language changes

8.3.1 Phonological change

8.3.2 Lexical change

8.3.3 Grammatical change

 8.4 Why language changes

8.4.1 External causes

8.4.2 Internal causes

 8.5 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 9 Stylistics: Language and Literature

 9.1 Introduction

 9.2 Important views on style

9.2.1 Style as deviation

9.2.2 Style as choice

9.2.3 Style as foregrounding

 9.3 Stylistic analysis

9.3.1 Phonological analysis

9.3.2 Graphological analysis

9.3.3 Lexical analysis

9.3.4 Syntactic analysis

9.3.5 Semantic analysis

9.3.6 Pragmatic analysis

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 10 Sociolinguistics: Language and Society

 10.1 Introduction

 10.2 The relations between language and society

 10.3 Speech community and speech variety

 10.4 Dialect

10.4.1 Regional dialect

10.4.2 Social dialect

10.4.3 Standard dialect

 10.5 Register

 10.6 Language contact and contact languages

10.6.1 Lingua franca

10.6.2 Pidgin

10.6.3 Creole

 10.7 Choosing a code

10.7.1 Diglossia

10.7.2 Bilingualism

10.7.3 Code-switching

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 11 Intercultural Communication: Language and Culture

 11.1 Introduction

 11.2 Definitions of culture

 11.3 The relationship between language and culture

 11.4 Naming the world through language

11.4.1 Color terms

11.4.2 Kinship terms

11.4.3 Culture-loaded words

 11.5 Communicative patterns across cultures

11.5.1 Address forms

11.5.2 Greetings

11.5.3 Giving and accepting compliments

11.5.4 High context versus low context

 11.6 Language and thought: Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

 11.7 Intercultural communication

11.7.1 Intercultural communication as a field of research

11.7.2 Conquering obstacles in intercultural communication

11.7.3 Value dimensions

 11.8 Summary

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 12 Psycholinguistics: Language and Psychology

 12.1 Introduction

 12.2 Language and the brain: The biological foundations of language

12.2.1 Cerebral lateralization and language functions

12.2.2 Evidence of lateralization

 12.3 Language comprehension

12.3.1 Human information processing system

12.3.2 The mental lexicon

12.3.3 Sentence comprehension

12.3.4 Discourse comprehension

 12.4 Language production

 12.5 Language acquisition

12.5.1 First language, second language and foreign language

12.5.2 First language acquisition

12.5.3 Second language acquisition

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 13 Cognitive Linguistics: Language and Cognition

 13.1 Introduction

 13.2 Categories and categorization

 13.3 Conceptual metaphors

 13.4 Conceptual metonymies

 13.5 Image schemas

 13.6 Iconicity

13.6.1 Iconicity of order

13.6.2 Iconicity of distance

13.6.3 Iconicity of complexity

 Questions and Exercises

Chapter 14 Applied Linguistics: Language Teaching and Learning

 14.1 Introduction

 14.2 How is language learned?

14.2.1 Behaviorism

14.2.2 The innateness hypothesis: universal grammar

14.2.3 Interlanguage theory

14.2.4 The input hypothesis

14.2.5 The output hypothesis

 14.3 Individual differences in language learning

14.3.1 Language aptitude

14.3.2 Learning style

14.3.3 Motivation

14.3.4 Anxiety

14.3.5 Learning strategies

 14.4 Approaches and methods in foreign language teaching

14.4.1 The Grammar-Translation Method

14.4.2 The Direct Method

14.4.3 The Audiolingual Method

14.4.4 The Communicative Approach

14.4.5 The Task-based Approach

 14.5 Language Testing

14.5.1 Types of test

14.5.2 Qualities of a good test

 Questions and Exercises

References

Glossary