This is a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change. It discusses where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how languages begin and end. It considers both changes which occurred long ago, and those currently in progress. It does this within the framework of one central question - is language change a symptom of progress or decay...(展开全部)

萧沆（Emil Cioran, 1911—1995，也译作齐奥朗），罗马尼亚裔旅法哲人，20世紀著名怀疑论、虚无主义哲学家，以文辞新奇、思想深邃、激烈见称。他深受叔本华、尼采、舍斯托夫、陀思妥耶夫斯基影响。萧沆在欧美思想界享有盛名，作品曾被译成多种文字，苏珊•桑塔格、卡尔维诺、米兰•昆德拉等都深受其影响。

萧沆（Emil Cioran, 1911—1995，也译作齐奥朗），罗马尼亚裔旅法哲人，20世紀著名怀疑论、虚无主义哲学家，以文辞新奇、思想深邃、激烈见称。他深受叔本华、尼采、舍斯托夫、陀思妥耶夫斯基影响。萧沆在欧美思想界享有盛名，作品曾被译成多种文字，苏珊•桑塔格、卡尔维诺、米兰•昆德拉等都深受其影响。

奥托·叶斯柏森（Otto Jespersen，1860—1943）是享誉国际的丹麦语言学家，一生著述颇丰，研究涵盖普通语言学、语法学、语音学、语言史、符号系统、语言哲学、外语教学、国际辅助语等多个领域，对普通语言学和语法学的贡献尤为显著，影响了包括布龙菲尔德（L.Bloomfield）、乔姆斯基（N. Chomsky）、韩礼德（M. Halliday）等语言学泰斗在内的大批学者。 中国语言学界和外语教学界对叶斯柏森的名字十分熟悉。20世纪40年代，他的语言学理论思想曾深刻影响过吕叔湘、王力等汉语语法界大师。

Perhaps the single most influential work of general linguistics published in this century, Leonard Bloomfield’s Language is both a masterpiece of textbook writing and a classic of scholarship. Intended as an introduction to the field of linguistics, it revolutionized the field when it appeared in 1933 and became the major text of the American descriptivist school.

A pioneer in the field, Christian Metz applies insights of structural linguistics to the language of film. "The semiology of film . . . can be held to date from the publication in 1964 of the famous essay by Christian Metz, 'Le cinema: langue ou langage?'"--Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, "Times Literary Supplement" "Modern film theory begins with Metz."--Constance Penley, coeditor of...(展开全部)

How and why do languages change? This new introduction offers a guide to the types of change at all levels of linguistic structure, as well as the mechanisms behind each type. Based on data from a variety of methods and a huge array of language families, it examines general patterns of change, bringing together recent findings on sound change, analogical change, grammaticalizat...(展开全部)