Linguistics: A Complete Introduction (Ty: Complete Courses)

This book is well written and the author explains the topics clearly I have no linguistic background but I am able to read and understand everything so far. I’m about halfway through the book, taking my time to understand the topics as well as I can.

I liked this textbook. The structured style made for quick reading. The examples throughout the text added variety and further enhanced my enjoyment

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.

Helped me pass my class

The first chapters are very interesting with many examples. However the second half of the book is an illustration of how to talk about simple things in a most complicated (and apparently impractical) way

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.

Good enough read to start with.

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.

Può servire da introduzione per chi vuole approcciarsi alla linguistica o il tema linguistico è di secondario interesse e non vuole leggere testi troppo approfonditi. Per chi ha studiato linguistica, troppo incentrato sull'inglese, anche se può rammentare alcuni concetti.

A very good book

Gutes Preis- Leistungsverhältnis

Initially I thought that a low price book couldn't be good. But I downloaded a sample anyway and enjoyed it so I decided to buy and I'm very glad I did. The book is great. I can't stress enough how much this book can be succint but at the same time comprehensive.

Idéal pour avoir des résumés des théories. Forme claire et pratique. Mais très biaisé sur certains points (en tant que socio-linguiste) comme dans son attaque contre la langue écrite au profit de l'oral. Très incomplet sur d'autres points, comme dans son attaque de l'anglais standard qui ne mentionne même pas le concept d'intélligibilité ou de registre. Et très paradoxal car l'auteur fait ce qu'il reproche (surtout la notion de jugement de valeur, très présente). Le premier chapitre est assez "intersectionnel" et "politico-linguistique" mais le livre se rattrape par la suite avec son côté pratique et synthétique.