Product Summery
With this volume, the second part of the linguistics textbook series is now available, following the introductory book by Stefanie Dipper, Ralf Klabunde, and Wiltrud Mihatsch (2018), Linguistics: An Introduction (Not Only) for Germanists, Romance Scholars, and Anglicists, published by Springer-Verlag (an expanded new edition of this volume will be published by J.B. Metzler in 2023).
This current volume focuses on the analysis of the languages central to German, Romance, and English studies: German, Spanish, French, Italian, and English. We believe that comparing the structural and content-related properties of these languages not only highlights their unique characteristics but also illustrates how languages encode information.
As with the first volume, this textbook is associated with various learning objectives:
A deeper insight into the phonological, syntactic, and morphological structures of the mentioned languages.
A deeper insight into the content-related aspects of these languages: how semantic categories are encoded linguistically, and how pragmatic phenomena are signaled linguistically.
An overview of the varieties of these languages, including their global usage and differentiation as a result of colonial expansion.
An overview of the historical dimension of language development: the development of German, the mentioned Romance languages, and English from a diachronic perspective.
Comparisons between the languages that clarify their similarities and differences.
Similar to the first volume, we have used several didactic elements to help readers achieve a thorough understanding of the questions and concepts:
Key terms are defined in highlight boxes.
Self-assessment questions are graphically marked with a question mark in the text. They serve to reflect on the presented content. The answers to these self-assessment questions are provided at the end of each chapter.
In-depth boxes touch on aspects that go beyond the actual content of the respective section.
Warning sections highlight potential content-related or terminological pitfalls.
We wish all readers much enjoyment on their journey of discovery through this textbook!