雖然英語語言學對學生學習使用英語有著理論指導意義和實踐意義，但是由於種種原因，很多學生認為語言學課程內容抽像、枯燥，對學習英語語言學的興趣不大，甚至有抵觸情緒。要改變這種尷尬的局面，教材的改革十分必要。編者在總結前人英語語言學教材編寫經驗的基礎上，將歸納法引入教材的編寫之中，學生通過分析語言事例，去探索、發現、總結語言使用規律，發展理性思維。教材編寫強調基礎性、實用性、啟發性、自足性和時代性；強調理論性與實踐性相結合，學術性與趣味性相結合；同時，注重把啟發式、討論式、發現式和研究式的教學理念運用於教材編寫之中。

前言
Chapter 1 Introduction
1. What is linguistics?
1.1 Definition of linguistics
1.2 Main branches of linguistics
1.3 Why study language?
2. What is language?
2.1 Definition of language
2.2 Design features of language
3. Important distinctions in linguistics
3.1 Prescriptive vs. descriptive
3.2 Synchronic vs. diachronic
3.3 Speech vs. writing
3.4 Langue vs. parole
3.5 Competence vs. performance
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 2 Phonetics
1. The phonic medium of language
2. Phonetics
2.1 What is phonetics?
2.2 Organs of speech
2.3 Classification of English speech sounds
Exerc i ses
Further Readings
Chapter 3 Phonology
1. General introduction to phonology
2. Basic concepts of phonology
2.1 Phone, phoneme and allophone
2.2 Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution and minimal pair
2.3 Broad transcription and narrow transcription
3. Some phonological rules
3.1 Sequential rules
3.2 Assimilation rules
4. Suprasegmental features: stress, tone and intonation
4.1 Stress
4.2 Tone
4.3 Intonation
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 4 Morphology
1. Morphology
2. Morphemes
3. Types of morphemes
3.1 Free morphemes
3.2 Bound morphemes
4. Allomorph
5. Word formation rules
5.1 Compounding
5.2 Derivation
5.3 Conversion
5.4 Clipping
5.5 Initialism
5.6 Acronym
5.7 Blending
5.8 Back-formation
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 5 Syntax
1. Syntactic categories
2. Combinational rules
3. Sentence structure
3.1 The structural approach and IC analysis
3.2 Advantages and problems of IC analysis
3.3 Transformational-generative grammar
4. Universal grammar
4.1 The observational basis of UG
4.2 General principles of UG
4.3 General parameters of UG
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 6 Semantics
1. General introduction
2. Approaches to semantics
2.1 The naming theory
2.2 The conceptualist theory
2.3 Contextualism
2.4 Behaviorism
3. Lexical meaning
3.1 Sense and reference
3.2 Major semantic relationships between words
4. Sentence meaning
5. Analysis of meaning
5.1 Componential analysis--a way to analyze lexical meaning
5.2 Predication analysis--a way to analyze sentence meaning
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 7 Pragmatics
1. What is pragmatics?
2. Context
3. Entailment
4. Presupposition
5. Speech acts
6. Conversational implicatures
7. The cooperative principle
8. Deixis
9. Politeness principle
Exercises
Further Recld ings
Chapter 8 Language and Society
1. Speech community
2. Relationships between language and society
3. Language varieties
3.1 Dialects
3.2 Register
3.3 Mixture of varieties
Exercises
Further Reedings
Chapter 9 Language and Culture
1. General introduction
1.1 The relationship between language and culture
1.2 The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
2. Cross-cultural communication
2.1 Meaning as sign
2.2 Cultural clash
2.3 Stereotype
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 10 Language and Acquisition
1. Behaviorism
2. Innatism:how languages are learned
3. Interactionist theory: how languages are learned
4. Interlanguage: how languages are learned
5. Acquisition vs. learning
6. Competence vs. performance
7. Universal grammar
8. Language transfer
9. Comprehensible input
10. Critical period hypothesis
Exercises
Further Readings
Chapter 11 Language and Methodology
1. Approaches to language teaching
2. Contribution of linguistics to language teaching
3. Language testing
3.1 Basic considerations of language testing
3.2 Main types of language tests
Exercises
Further Read ings
References