Books like Making Sense of Language by Susan D. Blum

An Introduction to Language is a student-friendly, up-to-date guide covering the core components of linguistics—phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics—while integrating recent research on bilingualism, neurolinguistics, and sociolinguistics.

Chosen for their accessibility and diversity, the readings in Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication, Second Edition, engage students in thinking about the ability to use language - perhaps the most uniquely human of all our characteristics - and how this skill relates to both classical theories of language and contemporary life. Instead of taking an ideological stance on these issues, the text presents a range of theoretical perspectives and bolsters them with pedagogical support, including chapter introductions; critical-thinking, reading, and application questions; and a comprehensive glossary. Weaving in questions of power, gender, identity, ritual, interaction, and the nature of language throughout, the second edition of Making Sense of Language is an exemplary text for courses in language and culture and linguistic anthropology.

"In this volume Martin Heidegger confronts the philosophical problems of language and begins to unfold the meaning behind his famous and little understood phrase "Language is the House of Being." The "Dialogue on Language," between Heidegger and a Japanese friend, together with the four lectures that follow, present Heidegger's central ideas on the origin, nature, and significance of language. These essays reveal how one of the most profound philosophers of our century relates language to his earlier and continuing preoccupation with the nature of Being and human being. On the Way to Language enable readers to understand how central language became to Heidegger's analysis of the nature of Being. On the Way to Language demonstrates that an interest in the meaning of language is one of the strongest bonds between analytic philosophy and Heidegger. It is an ideal source for studying his sustained interest in the problems and possibilities of human language and brilliantly underscores the originality and range of his thinking."--Publisher description.