This bestselling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, Yule presents information in bite-sized sections, clearly explaining the major concepts in linguistics and all the key elements of language. This eighth edition has been revised and updated throughout, with major changes in the chapters on Origins, Phonetics, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, First and Second Language Acquisition ...

The book uses extracts from exchanges in real classrooms, authentic texts and language teaching tasks. It provides lots of practical activities so that you can immediately and easily put the ideas to work in your classroom. Also, suggests ways of creating awareness-raising tasks to help students acquire grammar.