Best Book for Linguistics Starters

Today, I'm gonna share my experience about the best on linguistics for beginners in my opinion. The book I always recommend first is The Study of Language by George Yule. This book is published by Cambridge University Press. You can understand the popularity of this book is by the number of editions which has been published yet. In 2020, seventh edition of this book was published. I have met students from every continent studying linguistics and this book has been the common choice of all universities. So, what is the reason that this book1s stands out from others as the beginning guide. These are the following features which I've deducted after reading this book twice or thrice.

Features of this Book

  • Easy language which can be understood by people with an intermediate level of English
  • Diverse topics (This book introduces you to 20 different fields of linguistics)
  • No extra information or debate (Yule does not debate but talk about everything in a concise way)
  • Interactive exercises (At the end of each chapter it encourages the reader to explore more by first introducing Study Questions, then tasks and finally the projects)
  • Recommendations at the end of each chapter (This is one of the best parts of this book I like, at the end of each chapter we get some recommended readings list for that particular field)
  • Glossary (All important terms are kept bold throughout the books which you can learn in a form of alphabetic list at the end of the book)
  • Starting theme in each chapter (At the start of each chapter, Yule brings a quotation of a person or an expert to engage the readers to that chapter)
  • Interactive pictures and maps (Wherever it is needed an interactive picture or map has been designed to make the examples clear).


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