To play with language is to break its rules, disrupt its patterns, exploit its weak points. Thus, paradoxically, puns and spoonerisms, neologisms, and slogans reveal and highlight the patterns to which discourse conforms -- patterns which reflect the linguistic competence of language speakers. Only those who have linguistics competence can play with it: thus language games and the poetic use of language are underpinned by unconscious use of linguistic analysis. Using Lewis Carroll's Alice as a starting point, Marina Yaguello takes the reader on an unconventional voyage around language, charting the major themes of linguistics on the way. She shows that we can come to an understanding of language in general and of particular languages through exploring the devices of humour, word-games, and poetry -- devices which reveal the unconscious linguist in all of us. The result is an entertaining but rigorous introduction to language and linguistics for non-specialists and students alike.

About the Author
Marina Yaguello is Professor and Chair of Linguistics in the English Department of the University of Paris &-Denis Diderot. She has been Visiting Professor in London and in Dakar and has lectured all over North America, Europe, and in many African countries. She has written nine other books about language and linguistics, including Lunatic Lovers of Language: Imaginary languages and their inventors (Athlone Press). She specializes in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and the syntax-semantics interface.


Book Information
ISBN 9780198700050
Author Marina Yaguello
Format Paperback
Page Count 182
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 11mm