The Social Art

Download or read book The Social Art written by Ronald Macaulay and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Art is an engagingly written, highly accessible tour through the world of languages. Macaulay uses jokes, anecdotes, quotations, and examples to introduce readers to the full range of current linguistic knowledge, covering in 35 chapters, topics like language acquisition, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, dialects, conversation, narrative, swearing, and many others. In this revised and expanded second edition, Macaulay brings the book up to date with the last decade of progress in linguistics, adding more American examples, and updating bibliographies. Two new chapters have been added, on theories of language development and on the evolution of language. The Social Art is perfect for general readers and students who want to learn about what it is that linguists do.