Linguistics: A Complete Introduction (Teach Yourself)

This book is excellent! Looking for a textbook for my introductory linguistics course that doesn't cost students their next five year's salaries, I bought it, read and loved it. Why? Because it gets at the base of what language is, how it works and how we use in our daily lives. Only a scant few of my students go on to major in linguistics and master the methodology which is tricky, often mind-bending and challenging, so I've been using texts that either are too technically demanding or written by non-linguists who stay within the parameters of prescriptive grammars. David Hornsby little book here starts out with a clear description of how to approach the study of language, takes the reader through the development of the discipline and covers the complicated mechanics of grammatical analysis with sold explanations, clear examples and stresses the pragmatics of language use. The only challenge I see that American student might face is that being British, Hornsby uses British English examples but this issue is a very minor one. The text is witty, clear, concise and succinct in its presentation. I plan to use it as a textbook for my next class.

I only wish my linguistic intro back in college during 80's had been this good. Great job by author. 😎

A surprising amount of typos for a linguistic book, and the author certainly wants the reader to know he’s of liberal political views, but truly a well done overview on the topic - easy to understand and navigate, enjoyable to read, and I really appreciate his humor on certain topics that make learning fun.

Originally, I saw Linguistics: A complete Introduction at Barnes and Noble and thumbed through it there. My interests are in gleaning any extra knowledge and insight I can into linguistics so that I can apply that to helping teach others to write and speak English properly.This seller had the book listed for a fair amount less than B&N. The book arrived very promptly, and was everything described: right item, new condition, etc.I would definitely do business with this seller again.

The binding is a little brittle- be careful and gentle when breaking it in.

Great little book!

Just a textbook. Arrive in time and in new condition.

I had great expectations for this book, but it fell short of my expectations. It states that it is easy to use, yet I found it more complicated than most Linguistics textbooks.