Languages: Words and Symbols for Thinking
Hardly any field of techniques for thinking is more fascinating than language. The following list of references, of course, is short; it is meant chiefly as an introduction pointing out a number of different paths into the field of language and languages. Such topics as the following are introduced by the references in this list:
The origin of languages and alphabets.
The languages of the world, and speech communities.
The comparison of words and structure from language to language.
The significance of grammar and syntax.
The problem of clear meanings.
Writing and speaking that is easy to understand.
Bloomfield, Leonard, Language, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1933, 564 pp.
Bodmer, Frederick, and Launcelot Hogben, The Loom of Language, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1944, 692 pp.
Flesch, Rudolf, The Art of Plain Talk, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946, 210 pp.
Graff, Willem L., Language and Languages: An Introduction to Linguistics, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1932, 487 pp.
Hayakawa, S. I., Language in Action, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1941, 345 pp.
Jespersen, Otto, The Philosophy of Grammar, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1929 (third printing), 359 pp.
Jespersen, Otto, Analytic Syntax,
In this book, by means of a well-contrived system of letters and signs, the great linguistic scholar Jespersen depicts all the important inter-relations of English words and parts of words in connected speech.
Ogden, C. K., The System of Basic English, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1934, 320 pp.
Schlauch, Margaret, The Gift of Tongues, New York: Modern Age Books, 1942, 342 pp.
Walpole, Hugh R., Semantics: The Nature of Words and Their Meanings, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1941, 264 pp.