The Social Art

The Social Art is an engagingly written highly accessible tour through the world of languages. Macaulay uses jokes anecdotes quotations and examples to introduce readers to the full range of current linguistic knowledge covering in 35 chapters topics like language acquisition phonology morphology syntax semantics dialects conversation narrative swearing and many others. In this revised and expanded second edition Macaulay brings the book up to date with the last decade of progress in linguistics adding more American examples and updating bibliographies. Two new chapters have been added on theories of language development and on the evolution of language. The Social Art is perfect for general readers and students who want to learn about what it is that linguists do.