Books on linguistics in English?

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Takra jenai
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Books on linguistics in English?

Postby Takra jenai » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:54 pm

I read or listened to some books on learning languages that a friend of mine recommended:

SteveKaufmann - The Way of the Linguist A Language Learning Odyssey
Michael Erard - Babel No More
Benny Lewis - Fluent in 3 Months How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
Kato Lomb - Polyglot How I Learn Languages

All of them were useful to improve my English, but I didn't learn too much about learning languages.
All of them can be summerized in one sentence: 'You can do it.'

Are there any simple books on linguistics, with audio if possible, so that I can learn what it actually means to know a language?
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aokoye
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby aokoye » Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:02 pm

You're talking about a few of broad things, "what it means to know a language" and "books on learning languages" and I'm not totally clear what exactly you want. Are you looking for [first] language acquisition, second language acquisition, language development (which shouldn't be confused with historical linguistics), an overview of linguistics...?

Either way the books that you listed are not ones that I would suggest for learning about things like first and second language acquisition or linguistics in general. Routledge and Cambridge have published a number of good books including a number of introductions.

Language in the Real World: An Introduction to Linguistics - Susan J. Behrens and Judith A. Parker
Applied Linguistics - Guy Cook
Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics - Vedrana Mihalicek and Christin Wilson

Introducing Second Language Acquisition - Muriel Saville-Troike
Understanding Second Language Acquisition - Lourdes Ortega

How Languages are Learned - Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada
Cambridge Handbook of Child Language - Edith L. Bavin
First and Second Language Acquisition: Parallels and Differences - Jürgen M. Meisel
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby galaxyrocker » Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:18 pm

Personally, my favorite introductory linguistics book is the late Dr. Fromkin's: An Introduction to Language.

However, I don't think that's what you're looking for. I feel you're looking for the books on the study of languages, which is something different than linguistics, which is the study of language, as a system. While I believe certain parts of linguistics can help you learn foreign languages better (IPA being a nice perk), the two aren't considered the same in most contexts.
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Takra jenai
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby Takra jenai » Thu Jul 30, 2015 6:27 am

aokoye wrote:You're talking about a few of broad things, "what it means to know a language" and "books on learning languages"

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough.
I was asking about boooks on introductory linguistics, as I'd like to find out what it means to know languages.

As to 'how to learn languages', it's up to you how you to it, I've already figuered that out. The methods various people discribe are usually incomplete, contradictory, and limited to pep talk.
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Takra jenai
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby Takra jenai » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:54 pm

I had a look at a dozen introductory books and chose these two:

Geofrey Finch - How to study linguistics
Published by Palgrave Macmillian

An Introduction to Language,
Tenth Edition
Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams
© 2014, 2011, 2007 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

My criteria were
How much English in them I understand
How thorough they are

I seem good enough for them.
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby daegga » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:56 pm

It sounds like "Psycholinguistics" is what you want to look for to answer the question "what it means to know languages". That's still a pretty broad field.

You might want to check out this PDF with screenshots of the table of contents of various introductory books in that area. One can infer the content and style of presentation to a certain degree from the headings.
But beware the publishing dates (you see them on the last pages).
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Takra jenai
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby Takra jenai » Thu Jul 30, 2015 7:45 pm

Thanks for the pdf.
I've already listened to 'The Language Instinct' by Steven Pinker before.

I wasn't clear enough what I wanted. Sorry. Doesn't matter any longer. I've already found everything I needed for the time being.
Thank you.
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Re: Books on linguistics in English?

Postby AlexTG » Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:36 am

Since you were also interested in audio, you might want to check out Foundations of Language Study which is a free audio course (annoyingly, you'll need to use itunes to download it ).
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