Language Through the Looking Glass

To play with language is to break its rules, disrupt its patterns, exploit its weak points. Thus, paradoxically, puns and spoonerisms, neologisms, and slogans reveal and highlight the patterns to which discourse conforms - patterns which reflect the linguistic competence of language speakers. Only those who have linguistics competence can play with it: thus language games and the poetic use of language are underpinned by unconscious use of linguistic analysis. Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Marina Yaguello takes the reader on an unconventional voyage around language, charting the major themes of linguistics on the way. She shows that we can come to an understanding of language in general and of particular languages through exploring the devices of humour, word-games, and poetry devices which reveal the unconscious linguist in all of us. The result is a rigorous introduction to language and linguistics for non-specialists and students alike.

ISBN 0198700067   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9780198700067 (What's this?)   Pages 182 Publisher Oxford University Press   Volumes 001 Imprint Oxford University Press   Weight (grammes) 345 Format Hardback   Published in Oxford Publication date 08 Oct 1998   Height (mm) 210 Non-book description viii, 174 p. ;   Width (mm) 130 Translator T.A. Le V.Harris, Trevor A.Le V. Harris   Spine width (mm) 15 Library of Congress P106.Y34 1   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, General DEWEY 410

		Introduction: So, you are a linguist ...		1
1		What Language is For		6
2		The Tower of Babel: Universal characteristics of language		22
3		Pink Elephants: Redundancy at work		24
4		The Canny Canner: The speech chain and its components		28
5		Anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism: Words and morphemes		35
6		Did You Say Pig or Fig? The sound systems of languages		44
7		Words as Signs		70
8		A Rose by Any Other Name: Are signs arbitrary or motivated?		80
9		The Incredible Lightness of Meaning: Sense and nonsense		87
10		The House that Jack Built: Competence and performance		99
11		Green Ideas: The boundaries of syntax and semantics		113
12		Murdering Time: Figures of speech		130
13		The Miser and the Prodigal Son: Lexical meaning		137
14		Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The tricks and traps of syntax		152
		Conclusion		161
		References		162
		Index		168

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