The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language

Part 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; Part 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; Part 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; Part 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; Part 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; Part VI. The Medium of Language: Signing and Seeing: 35. Sign language; 36. Sign language structure; 37. Types of sign language; Part VII. Child Language Acquisition: 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; Part VIII. Language, Brain and Handicap: 45. Language and the brain; 46. Language handicap; Part 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; Part X. Language in the World: 56. The language barrier; 57. Translating and interpreting; 58. Artificial languages; 59. World languages; 60. Multilingualism;

David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He has written or edited over 1 books and published numerous articles for scholarly, professional, and general readerships, in fields ranging from forensic linguistics and ELT to the liturgy and Shakespeare. His books include the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd edn 1997), the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2nd edn 2003), Words, Words, Words (OUP 2006), and The Fight for English (OUP 2006).