Citation Information
Article Title: Language
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 10 January 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/language
Access Date: August 27, 2019
Additional Reading
A bibliography for language is likely to overlap at least partially with a bibliography for linguistics. This bibliography draws attention to some books that may usefully be consulted without prior specialist knowledge and that develop in further detail the major topics introduced in the article.
Classical accounts include Edward Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921, reissued 2014); Leonard Bloomfield, Language (1933, reprinted 1984); and Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin (1921, reissued 2007). Noteworthy encyclopaedic treatments are David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 3rd ed. (2010); N.E. Collinge (ed.), An Encyclopaedia of Language (1990); William J. Frawley (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2nd ed., 4 vol. (2003); Kirsten Malmkjaer (ed.), The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia, 3rd ed. (2010); Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, 2nd ed., 14 vol. (2006); and Frederick J. Newmeyer (ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey, 4 vol. (1988).
Introductory textbooks from different eras include John Lyons, Language and Linguistics (1981); Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams, An Introduction to Language, 10th ed. (2014); and Dwight Bolinger and Donald A. Sears, Aspects of Language, 3rd ed. (1981). Introductions aimed at a popular audience are Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (1995, reissued 2007); John H. McWhorter, The Power of Babeclass="underline" A Natural History of Language (2001); Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (2007); and Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill (eds.), Language Myths (1998).
Works on special topics within the field include Peter Trudgill, Sociolinguistics: An Introduction, 4th ed. (2000); John Edwards, Language, Society, and Identity (1985); Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay?, 3rd ed. (2001); David Crystal, Language Death (2000, reissued 2014); Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman (eds.), Language Acquisition: Studies in First Language Development, 2nd ed. (1986, reissued 1997); Ronald Wardhaugh, Investigating Language: Central Problems in Linguistics (1993); Rebecca S. Wheeler (ed.), The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives (1999); W. Tecumseh Fitch, The Evolution of Language (2010); and Roy Harris (ed.), The Origin of Language (1996).
The world’s languages are reviewed in Bernard Comrie (ed.), The World’s Major Languages, 2nd ed. (2009); and George L. Campbell and Gareth King, Compendium of the World’s Languages, 2 vol., 3rd ed. (2013). David Crystal The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica