Linguistics: An Introduction

Citation

Radford, A., Atkinson, M., Britain, D., Clahsen, H., & Spencer, A. (2009). Linguistics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The publisher lists the second edition at 447 pages in paperback, with 27 chapters grouped into three parts: Sounds, Words and Sentences. Front matter includes a preface to the second edition and a note for course organisers and class teachers; the back matter holds three appendices (the International Phonetic Alphabet, phonological distinctive features, and a distinctive feature matrix for English consonant phonemes), a bibliography and an index. Each part opens with a chapter titled "Introduction", and the chapter titles show a recurring pattern: after the descriptive chapters on a level of language come chapters on child acquisition, processing and, in the later parts, disorders and variation.

Part I, Sounds: Chapters 1–7

Chapter 1 is the introduction to the part. Chapter 2, "Sounds and suprasegmentals", and Chapter 5, "Phonemes, syllables and phonological processes", cover the descriptive core of phonetics and phonology, and the appendices on phonetic symbols and distinctive features belong with this material. Chapter 3, "Sound variation", and Chapter 4, "Sound change", take up how sounds vary and change. The part closes with "Child phonology" (Chapter 6) and "Processing sounds" (Chapter 7), which turn to the acquisition of the sound system and to how sounds are processed.

Part II, Words: Chapters 8–16

Chapter 8 introduces the part. "Word classes" (Chapter 9), "Building words" (Chapter 10) and "Morphology across languages" (Chapter 11) deal with categories and word structure, and Chapter 12, "Word meaning", with lexical semantics. The rest of the part follows the lexicon outward: "Children and words" (Chapter 13), "Lexical processing and the mental lexicon" (Chapter 14), "Lexical disorders" (Chapter 15) and "Lexical variation and change" (Chapter 16).

Part III, Sentences: Chapters 17–27

After the part introduction (Chapter 17), the syntax chapters run from "Basic terminology" (Chapter 18) through "Sentence structure" (Chapter 19), "Empty categories" (Chapter 20), "Movement" (Chapter 21) and "Syntactic variation" (Chapter 22) to "Sentence meanings and Logical Form" (Chapter 23). Chapters 24–26, "Children's sentences", "Sentence processing" and "Syntactic disorders", repeat the acquisition, processing and disorder themes at sentence level. The last numbered chapter, "Using sentences" (Chapter 27), appears to carry the edition's new material on sentence use, which the publisher describes as covering core areas of pragmatics and conversation analysis. A "Conclusion" follows.

Key Concepts

Part I: Sounds

• Suprasegmentals: features of speech that extend over more than a single sound segment, treated in Chapter 2 alongside the sounds themselves.
• Phonemes, syllables and phonological processes: the units and rules of the sound system covered in Chapter 5, supported by the appendix on phonological distinctive features.
• Sound variation and sound change: the topics of Chapters 3 and 4.

Part II: Words

• Word classes and word building: the categories of words and the way complex words are formed (Chapters 9–10), extended to other languages in Chapter 11.
• The mental lexicon: the speaker's store of words, studied through processing in Chapter 14 and through its disorders in Chapter 15.

Part III: Sentences

• Empty categories and movement: the abstract elements and operations that the generative approach uses to describe sentence structure (Chapters 20–21).
• Logical Form: the level at which sentence meaning is represented (Chapter 23).
• Pragmatics and conversation analysis: the study of language in use introduced in Chapter 27.
• Communities of practice and optimality theory: named by the publisher as new sociolinguistic and theoretical coverage in this edition.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A distinctive organisation. Instead of one chapter per sub-discipline, the book works through sounds, words and sentences and returns in each part to acquisition and processing, and in the later parts to disorders and variation. Readers see each level of language from several angles, and the publisher presents this structure as one that helps students engage with the subject.
• Exercises with help. The publisher states that the book contains a large number of exercises, with hints and model answers where appropriate, and that the second edition adds new exercise material and updated further reading.
• Interdisciplinary reach in one volume. The chapter titles on child language, processing and disorders mean that psycholinguistic and clinical material is built in rather than left to a later course.
• A teaching-oriented design. The "note for course organisers and class teachers" in the front matter suggests the book was planned for use in courses, and the three-part layout lends itself to selecting parts.

Limitations

• Topics are spread across the book. Because acquisition and processing recur in all three parts, a course organised by topic (for example, only language acquisition) has to collect chapters from several places.
• A generative bias in the syntax chapters. Chapter titles such as "Empty categories", "Movement" and "Sentence meanings and Logical Form" indicate a generative framework for the sentence part; students who want a survey of other approaches will need another source.
• No separate chapters on some areas. The table of contents contains no chapters devoted to, for instance, language typology, writing systems or applied language teaching, which some introductory courses include.
• Date. The book is from 2009; the publisher lists it as the current edition, and later research is not reflected in it.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the introductory linguistics course list, this is one of several general textbooks and the most clearly organised by level of language rather than by sub-discipline. Fromkin and colleagues' An Introduction to Language, O'Grady and colleagues' Contemporary Linguistics, Yule's The Study of Language and the Ohio State Language Files are the other general introductions; the site describes them as broad textbooks for students new to the field, the Ohio State volume being modular. Radford and colleagues is a reasonable second textbook after one of these, or a first one for students who prefer the sounds-words-sentences structure and are ready for acquisition and processing material early.

For readers who want more theory, the Fromkin-edited Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory is a theory-driven survey with problem sets, and Jackendoff's Foundations of Language is a synthesis that proposes for a parallel architecture of phonology, syntax and semantics. After this book, the specialised courses on this site continue each part: Carnie's Syntax: A Generative Introduction for Part III, Lieber's Introducing Morphology for Part II, and the phonetics and phonology texts for Part I.

How to Use This Book

The publisher presents the book as an undergraduate textbook in which each part introduces its foundational concepts before applying them, and its page states no prerequisites, so it can serve as a first course in linguistics.

A practical plan:

• Core: read one part at a time in order, starting with its introductory chapter. Within each part the descriptive chapters (Chapters 2 and 5; 9–12; 18–23) are the foundation.
• Optional by interest: the chapters on children, processing and disorders (6–7, 13–16, 24–26) can be read as a unit by students interested in psycholinguistics or speech and language therapy, or skipped in a purely descriptive course.
• Late in the book: Chapter 27 on using sentences works well after the syntax chapters, but can also be read on its own for an introduction to pragmatics.
• Exercises: use the hints and model answers to check each worked problem, and keep the IPA and distinctive-feature appendices open when reading Part I.
• Alongside: pair Part III with a syntax workbook for more drawing practice, and Part I with a phonetics course that includes ear training.