The Study of Language Review

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The Study of Language ReviewTHE STUDY OF LANGUAGE is a basic linguistics introductory published by Cambridge University Press. Generally CUP's linguistics textbooks are the best in the field, so I acquired this book to see how its basic introduction was. Unfortunately, I was left very disappointed, and doubt that this is a trustworthy introduction to the field.
The first warning sign is that there is no biography of the author George Yule, and therefore the reader cannot see how he is qualified to prepare a textbook, where his graduate degrees are from, etc. The author then goes on to pepper his work with urban legends, such as the assertion that English spelling comes from Dutch printers, and the tired yarn that William James had a run-in with a crazy old lady who believed the world was on the back of a turtle.
However, the greatest mark against the book comes in its use of Bill Bryson as a source. Bryson produced two popular-linguistics books over ten years over, even though he had no training in linguistics. Many linguists have condemned the books for their abundance of urban legends, misunderstandings, and total lack of error-checking ("Eskimo's have 50 words for snow", "Russian has no word for "engagement ring" or "fun"). In THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE, Yule uses questionable passages from Bryson's books to illustrate points, and even seems to recommend them to students.
Concerning other aspects of the book, it does not seem usable. Yule spends very little time on phonetics and phonology, and introduces only concepts found in English, even though most students undoubtedly wish to know about more exotic languages. The insubstantial offerings on phonetics and phonology make this book entirely unsuitable for students of philology; how can you teach the comparative IE philologists of tomorrow if you don't even mention laryngeals? Yule also has an annoying tendency to speak to the reader as if he was a child. While this is an undergraduate textbook, it is written at the reading level of a high school work. The epigraphs of each chapter are amusing, but any writer who quotes "Beavis and Butthead" is certainly not teaching at an intellectual level.
In summary, I recommend against the use of THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE as a textbook. The book is clearly not trustworthy, and does not seem an effective and rigorous introduction to linguistics. I feel it would be better to teach from Cambridge University Press' individual introductions, such as Laver's PRINCIPLES OF PHONETICS, Lass' PHONOLOGY, etc.The Study of Language OverviewThis best-selling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language. Assuming no prior knowledge in the subject, Yule presents information in short, bite-sized sections, introducing the major concepts in language study - from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently, through all the key elements of language. This fourth edition has been revised and updated with twenty new sections, covering new accounts of language origins, the key properties of language, text messaging, kinship terms and more than twenty new word etymologies. To increase student engagement with the text, Yule has also included more than fifty new tasks, including thirty involving data analysis, enabling students to apply what they have learned. The online study guide offers students further resources when working on the tasks, while encouraging lively and proactive learning. This is the most fundamental and easy-to-use introduction to the study of language.

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