Designed for introductory students, this collection of key readings in language and linguistics will take readers beyond their introductory textbook and introduce them to the thoughts and writings of many esteemed authorities. The reader includes seminal papers, new or controversial pieces to stimulate discussion and reports on applied work.

Language in Use:

• is split into four parts – ‘Language and Interaction’, ‘Language Systems’, ‘Language and Society’ and ‘Language and Mind’


• covers all the topics of language study including conversation analysis, pragmatics, power and politeness, semantics, grammar, phonetics, multilingualism, child language acquisition and psycholinguistics


• has readings from authorities including Pinker, Fairclough, Crystal, Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt, Halliday, Sacks, Mills, Obler and Gjerlow


• provides comprehensive editorial support for each reading with introductions, activities or discussion points to follow and further reading


• Is supported by a companion website, offering extra resources for students including additional activities, useful weblinks and advice from the authors

Designed for use as a companion to Introducing Language in Use (Routledge, 2005), but also highly usable as a stand-alone text, this Reader will introduce readers to the wide world of linguistics and applied linguistics.