The Cambridge encyclopedia of language

Included Index.

1. Popular ideas about language --
The prescriptive tradition --
The equality of languages --
The magic of language --
The functions of language --
Language and thought --
2. Language and identity --
Physical identity --
Psychological identity --
Geographical identity --
Ethnic and national identity --
Social identity --
Contextual identity --
Stylistic identity and literature --
3. The structure of language --
Linguistic levels --
Typology and universals --
The statistical structure of language --
Grammar --
Semantics --
Dictionaries --
Names --
Discourse and text --
Pragmatics --
4. The medium of language: speaking and listening --
The anatomy and physiology of speech --
The acoustics of speech --
The instrumental analysis of speech --
Speech reception --
Speech interaction with machines --
The sounds of speech --
The linguistic use of sound --
Suprasegmentals --
Sound symbolism --
5. The medium of language: writing and reading --
Written and spoken language --
Graphic expression --
Graphology --
The process of reading and writing 210 --
6. The medium of language: signing and seeing --
Sign language --
Sign language structure --
Types of sign language. 7. Child language acquisition --
Investigating children's language --
The first year --
Phonological development --
Grammatical development --
Semantic development --
Pragmatic development --
Language development in school --
8. Language, brain and handicap --
Language and the brain --
Language handicap --
9. The languages of the world --
How many languages? --
How many speakers? --
The origins of language --
Families of languages --
The Indo-European family --
Other families --
Languages isolates --
Language change --
Pidgins and creoles --
10. Language in the world --
The language barrier --
Translating and interpreting --
Artificial languages --
World languages --
Multilingualism --
Language planning --
Foreign language learning and teaching --
Language for special purposes --
11. Language and communication --
Language and other communication systems --
Linguistics.

This Second Edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language presents a mass of new information and introduces the subject of language to a fresh generation of students and general readers. Probably the most successful general study of language ever published, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language covers all the major themes of language study, including popular ideas about language, language and identity, the structure of language, speaking and listening, writing, reading, and signing, language acquisition, the neurological basis of language, and languages of the world. Exposing this work to a new generation of readers, the Second Edition extends the range of coverage to include advances in areas such as machine translation, speech interaction with machines, and language teaching. There is new material on acoustics, physiological concepts of language, and World English, and a complete update of the language distribution maps, language-speaking statistics, table of the world's languages, and further reading. All geopolitical material has been revised to take account of boundary changes. The book has been redesigned and is presented for the first time in full color, with new pictures and maps added.