Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Language - 2nd edition

''... a celebration of language in all its oddity, beauty, fun, astonishing complexity and limitless variety.''

-- London Review of Books

Submitted by Publisher, March, 2001

I. POPULAR IDEAS ABOUT LANGUAGE

1. The prescriptive tradition
2. The equality of languages
3. The magic of language
4. The functions of language
5. Language and thought

II. LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY

6. Physical identity
7. Psychological identity
8. Geographical identity
9. Ethnic and national identity
10. Social identity
11. Contextual identity
12. Stylistic identity and literature

III. THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE

13. Linguistic levels
14. Typology and universals
15. The statistical structure of language
16. Grammar
17. Semantics
18. Dictionaries
19. Names
20. Discourses and text
21. Pragmatics

IV. THE MEDIUM OF LANGUAGE: SPEAKING AND LISTENING

22. The anatomy and physiology of speech
23. The acoustics of speech
24. The instrumental
25. Speech reception
26. Speech interaction with machines
27. The sounds of speech
28. The linguistic use of sound
29. Suprasegmentals
30. Sound symbolism

V. THE MEDIUM OF LANGUAGE: WRITING AND READING

31. Written and spoken language
32. Graphic expression
33. Graphology
34. The process of reading and writing

VI. THE MEDIUM OF LANGUAGE: SIGNING AND SEEING

35. Sign language
36. Sign language structure
37. Types of sign language

VII. CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISTION

38. Investigating children's language
39. The first year
40. Phonological development
41. Grammatical development
42. Semantic development
43. Pragmatic development
44. Language development in school

VIII. LANGUAGE, BRAIN, AND HANDICAP

45. Language and the brain
46. Language handicap

IX. THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD

47. How many languages?
48. How many speakers?
49. The origins of language
50. Families of languages
51. The Indo-European family
52. Other families
53. Language isolates
54. Language change
55. Pidgins and creoles

X. LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD

56. The language barrier
57. Translating and interpreting
58. Artificial languages
59. World languages
60. Multilingualism
61. Language planning
62. Foreign language learning and teaching
63. Language for special purposes

XI. LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

64. Language and other communication systems
65. Linguistics

APPENDICES

I. Glossary;
II. Special symbols and abbreviations used in the encyclopedia;
III. Table of the world's languages;
IV. Further reading;
V. References;
VI. Index of languages, families, dialects, and scripts;
VII. Index of authors and personalities;
VIII. Index of topics.