本书是一本通俗易懂的普通语言学入门书籍。内容包括语言的定义、词汇学、语义学、语音学、音位学、形态学、句法学、文字体系、社会语言学、历史语言学等，书中材料取舍得当，既介绍了普通语言学的各个领域，又没有刻意追求系统和全面。书中语言言简意赅，易于理解，此外，作者用大量实例来讲解语言学的基本概念，真正做到了深入浅出。为了加深理解、拓展知识面，每章后都配有相应的练习题。这本书可以说是语言学初学者最好的入门书之一。

Preface
1 What Is Language?
1.1 The Significance of Language
1.2 What Is Language?
1.3 The Functions of Language
1.4 What Is a Language?
1.5 The Elements of Language
Summary
Exercises
2 Lexis
2.1 What Is a Word?
2.2 Where Do Words Come From?
Summary
Exercises
3 Semantics
3.1 The Function of Lexemes
3.2 The Meaning of Meaning
3.3 Semantic Range
3.4 The Definition of Semantic Range
3.5 Collocation and Idiom
3.6 Homonymy and Polysemy
3.7 The Human Element of Meaning
3.8 Pragmatics
3.9 Discourse Analysis
Summary
Exercises
4 Phonetics
4.1 The Organs of Speech
4.2 Consonants
4.3 Phonemic Notation
4.4 Vowels
4.5 Sounds in Sequence
Summary
Exercises
5 Phonology
5.1 Sound Systems of Languages
5.2 The Phoneme
5.3 Phonological Rules
5.4 The Phonology of English
5.5 The Phonology of Other Languages
5.6 Suprasegmental Features
Summary
Exercises
6 Morphology
6.1 The Composition of Words
6.2 Morphemes
6.3 Derivation and Inflection
6.4 Productivity and Word Formation
6.5 Problems of Morphological Analysis
Summary
Exercises
7 Syntax
7.1 Syntax as Opposed to Morphology
7.2 Word Classes
7.3 Constituent Structure
7.4 Noam Chomsky
7.5 Syntactic Forms
Summary
Exercises
8 Regional Variation
8.1 Variations of Variations
8.2 Horizontal Definition of Dialect
8.3 Vertical Definition of Dialect
8.4 The Nature of Variation
Summary
Exercises
9 Social Variation
9.1 The Social Dimension
9.2 The Standard Language
9.3 The Urban Vanguard
9.4 Men and Women
9.5 Power and Solidarity
9.6 Registers and Diglossia
9.7 Taboo and Political Correctness
9.8 Slang
Summary
Exercises
10 Historical Linguistics
10.1 The Diachronic Dimension
10.2 How Language Changes
10.3 Why Language Changes
10.4 When Language Changes
10.5 Divergence
10.6 Convergence
10.7 Pidgins and Creoles
Summary
Exercises
11 The Languages of Western Europe
11.1 The Indo-European Family of Languages
11.2 The Germanic Languages
11.3 The Romance Languages
11.4 The Celtic Languages
11.5 Finnish
Summary
Texts
Exercises
12 Writing Systems
12.1 Communication across Time and Space
12.2 Morphemic and Phonetic Script
12.3 Chinese Script-A Morphemic System
12.4 Roman Script-An Alphabetic System
12.5 Allographs
Summary
Exercises
Glossary
Guide to Exercises