The Study of Language [Paperback]

George Yule (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 1996 | ISBN-10: 052156851X | ISBN-13: 978-0521568517 | Edition: 2

This revised and updated edition incorporates many changes that reflect developments in language study over the past decade, including a new chapter on pragmatics, and an expansion of the chapter on semantics. There are additional sections on speech recognition systems, sign languages, women's and men's language, input in language learning, and several other topics. The Study Questions and Discussion Topics following each chapter have also been thoroughly revised, with the addition of more than 30 new tasks for students; and the Further Reading sections have been revised, updated and expanded. The new edition also has many more illustrations, examples, and quotes from a wide range of commentators, from Groucho Marx to Gary Larson. The presentation retains the clear and lively style which made the first edition a hugely popular introduction to the study of language.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a well informed....making it a well-rounded tool for students becoming acquainted with the multiple facets of linguistics." Journal of Indo-European Studies

Book Description

Including a new chapter on pragmatics, and an expansion of the chapter on semantics, this revised and updated edition incorporates many changes that reflect developments in language study over the past decade. It also has many more illustrations, examples, and quotes.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (June 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052156851X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521568517
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,010,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat informative, but entirely untrustworthy, April 9, 2004

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Study of Language (Paperback)

THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE is a basic linguistics introductory published by Cambridge University Press. Generally CUP's linguistics textbooks are the best in the field, so I acquired this book to see how its basic introduction was. Unfortunately, I was left very disappointed, and doubt that this is a trustworthy introduction to the field.

The first warning sign is that there is no biography of the author George Yule, and therefore the reader cannot see how he is qualified to prepare a textbook, where his graduate degrees are from, etc. The author then goes on to pepper his work with urban legends, such as the assertion that English spelling comes from Dutch printers, and the tired yarn that William James had a run-in with a crazy old lady who believed the world was on the back of a turtle.

However, the greatest mark against the book comes in its use of Bill Bryson as a source. Bryson produced two popular-linguistics books over ten years over, even though he had no training in linguistics. Many linguists have condemned the books for their abundance of urban legends, misunderstandings, and total lack of error-checking ("Eskimo's have 50 words for snow", "Russian has no word for "engagement ring" or "fun"). In THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE, Yule uses questionable passages from Bryson's books to illustrate points, and even seems to recommend them to students.

Concerning other aspects of the book, it does not seem usable. Yule spends very little time on phonetics and phonology, and introduces only concepts found in English, even though most students undoubtedly wish to know about more exotic languages. The insubstantial offerings on phonetics and phonology make this book entirely unsuitable for students of philology; how can you teach the comparative IE philologists of tomorrow if you don't even mention laryngeals? Yule also has an annoying tendency to speak to the reader as if he was a child. While this is an undergraduate textbook, it is written at the reading level of a high school work. The epigraphs of each chapter are amusing, but any writer who quotes "Beavis and Butthead" is certainly not teaching at an intellectual level.

In summary, I recommend against the use of THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE as a textbook. The book is clearly not trustworthy, and does not seem an effective and rigorous introduction to linguistics. I feel it would be better to teach from Cambridge University Press' individual introductions, such as Laver's PRINCIPLES OF PHONETICS, Lass' PHONOLOGY, etc.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best overall choice., January 26, 2000

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Study of Language (Paperback)

It's not the most comprehensive, analytic, graphically-appealing of the many linguistics texts out there. But for undergraduates I've found it to be the most readable and practical. Students can handle the book in a single semester, insuring that they will come away with an understanding of what linguistics is about. If the goal is to produce linguists, I'd look to other texts.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good general introduction, May 26, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Study of Language (Paperback)

This book is a good general introduction to the field of linguistics, and it can be used in a course on "linguistics lite", or as the basis of a more indepth course, if the instructor supplements it with other materials. Since the book includes so little example material, I have gotten good results when I've paired it with the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, which is a wonderful source of illustrations and specifics. (Students can buy both books and still come out cheaper than if they had bought just one of the really miserable introductory texts that are in common use.) It has some good exercises in it, but I've found that the instructions need explaining, because for some reason, even though they seem clear, my students find them confusing.
In general, I liked this book very much, as did my students, but there is one very serious defect, which the instructor must address. The typesetter chose to use a sans serif font for phonetic transcription, and the result of this is that the character for a high front lax vowel is indistinguishable from /l/. This is very confusing for the students, but I've found that making up my own vowel and consonant charts as a handout has remedied the problem. I hope this is fixed in the next edition.