Mattie Roh Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 I'm looking for reading suggestions for an introduction to linguistics. Unfortunately, there were no courses offered in linguistics at my MA program (closest course we had was History of the English Language) and I'm worried that if I get into a PhD program I won't get a chance to take a course. I'd like to broaden my scope a little, though. Where should I start?
ToldAgain Posted December 7, 2014 Posted December 7, 2014 I meant to leave this topic to more knowledgeable folks, but this thread seems so lonely! The linguistics professor at my undergrad was a big fan of Steven Pinker and constantly assigned his books in her classes. He is more of a popular author, along the lines of someone like Brian Greene or Malcolm Gladwell (maybe you already knew him?). I enjoyed The Stuff of Thought and The Language Instinct. I seem to remember pretty large bibliographies in both those books; perhaps this would be a good place to start?
beccamayworth Posted December 7, 2014 Posted December 7, 2014 Hi! I hadn't seen this post before - if you try the Linguistics subforum, you might get more replies! I strongly recommend Language Myths, by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill. It's a great introduction to a lot of topics in linguistics, specifically the prescriptivism vs. descriptivism debate; it's a short, fun to read, accessible book. I think the issues discussed in this book might be particularly relevant to your field. For a better introduction to language science, I think The Language Files by The Ohio State University is a great book. You'll get an intro to everything from phonology to syntax and semantics, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, etc. Hope that helps!
beccamayworth Posted December 7, 2014 Posted December 7, 2014 Also, it looks like coursera will be offering a free online intro class to linguistics next year: https://www.coursera.org/course/humanlanguage xolo 1
Mattie Roh Posted December 11, 2014 Author Posted December 11, 2014 Thank you both for these suggestions!
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