本书共分八章。章引言部分，主要论述语言的本质、特征及其功能，介绍语言学研究中的一些主要概念，以及部分交叉学科。第二章语音部分，主要介绍语音学和音系学的区别，元音和辅音的不同特点，音段音系学和超音段音系学中的一些基本理论。第三章针对语素和词汇方面，主要涉及语素的理论，与句法有关的屈折形态学和与构词法有关的派生形态学。第四章句法，给出了句子的定义，解析了句子结构，分别介绍传统语法、结构主义语法、转换生成语法和系统功能语法。第五章语义部分，解析词汇意义和句子意义，并介绍语义研究中的语用和认知等方法。第六章关于语言的使用，涉及到语用学和社会语言学的一些基本知识，包括言语行为理论、会话结构与会话原则、语言的社会变体，以及语言与文化的关系等。第七章论述了语言的变化，主要是历史语言学的部分内容，包括语音、形态、词汇、句法、语义的变化，对变化的原因做出探讨，并比较详细地介绍了语言谱系。第八章探讨了语言，特别是外语的教与学，简介了外语教学的各个流派，教学大纲的设计，教材的编撰，教学的方法和手段，课堂活动，语言测试等。

Chapter 1 Language and Linguistics
1.1 Language and the Nature of Language 2
1.2 Functions of Language 5
1.3 Linguistics by Definition 8
1.4 Some Important Distinctions in Linguistic Analysis 10
1.5 The Interdisciplinary Studies of Linguistics 15
1.6 Recent Development 18
Chapter 2 The Sounds of Language
2.1 Phonetics 24
2.2 Segmental Phonology 34
2.3 Suprasegmental Phonology 45
2.4 The Application 55
Chapter 3 The Words of Language
3.1 Morphology and Lexicology 58
3.2 Morpheme and AIIomorph 61
3.3 Types of Morphemes 64
3.4 Inflectional Morphology 68
3.5 Derivational Morphology 70
3.6 Word and Lexeme 91
Chapter 4 The Sentences of Language
4.1 Sentence by Definition 98
4.2 Sentence Structure 102
4.3 The Traditional Grammar 104
4.4 The Structural Grammar 107
4.5 The Transformational-Generative Grammar 117
4.6 The Systemic-Functional Grammar 135
Chapter 5 The Meaning of Language
5.1 Lexical Meaning and Lexical Relations 142
5.2 Sentence Meaning and Sentence Relations 152
5.3 The Multi-Dimensional Aspects of Semantic Studies 163
Chapter 6 The Use of Language
6.1 Deixis and Reference 178
6.2 Speech ActTheory 185
6.3 The Structure of Conversation 193
6.4 The Principles in Conversation 198
6.5 Varieties of Language 204
6.6 Language and Culture 218
Chapter 7 The Change of Language
7.1 Phonological Change 224
7.2 Morphological Change 230
7.3 Syntactic Change 236
7.4 Lexical and Semantic Changes 240
7.5 The Causes of Change 250
7.6 Language Families 252
Chapter 8 The Study of Language and the Teaching and Learning of Foreign Languages
8.1 Major Views of Language and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning 267
8.2 Approaches and Methods of Foreign Language Teaching 270
8.3 Syllabus Design 276
8.4 Materials Development 283
8.5 Teacher Roles and Learner Roles 287
8.6 Techniques, Activities and Tasks 290
8.7 Treatment of Errors 293
8.8 Assessment and Testing 298
8.9 Language Learning 303
References