"Linguistics Textbook" (Nguyen Thien Giap)

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thien Giap is one of the leading experts in Linguistics and Vietnamese Linguistics. He is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Linguistics (University of Social Sciences and Humanities - VNU Hanoi). As a result of more than 40 years of research and teaching by the author,Linguistics Textbook(Hanoi National University Publishing House, August 2008) "can not only serve the teaching of the subjectIntroduction to Linguistics, but also as a reference for lectures onGeneral Linguisticsand other linguistic topics".

Introduction by Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khang

Like all basic sciences, Linguistics includes two major knowledge contents: basic linguistic knowledge that has been shaped as the foundation for the existence of this science and modern linguistic knowledge thanks to discovery and research that makes linguistics develop in the direction of both focusing on a single discipline and expanding interdisciplinary, both specialized as a real science and highly applicable, serving human life. The Linguistics Textbook by Professor Dr. Nguyen Thien Giap was written in that spirit.

As a leading expert in Linguistics and Vietnamese Linguistics with knowledge and experience of more than 40 years of teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the oldest and leading linguistics training institution in the country, and with a series of research works including articles, textbooks, monographs, the author has built this textbook in accordance with the general goals of university training as prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training. It can be seen that in a vast forest of linguistics knowledge with many issues that do not have a unified viewpoint, with many open contents requiring further research, the author ofLinguistics Textbookhas chosen to include in this book appropriate knowledge, helping users first of all understand and grasp basic concepts and contents, thereby directing their thinking to the contents that need to be discussed. Therefore, it is not difficult to realize that the scientific content in this book is a lot but not confusing, thanks to the clear presentation; The knowledge in this book is general, abstract and difficult, but does not cause a feeling of being overwhelmed, discouraging the reader, but on the contrary, is seamlessly strung together, creating excitement for learners; The examples cited in the book all come from the reality of linguistic life in Vietnam, demonstrating and supplementing the theory, enlivening the knowledge and making the theory not far from reality; The discussion questions after each section always include a number of questions to consolidate the knowledge learned and a number of questions to apply to the reality of Vietnamese linguistics in particular, and the problems of Vietnamese linguistics in general. All of these have made this book an undeniable success in both its scientific content and pedagogical methods.

The book consists of 12 chapters, each chapter is a major content of linguistic science, which is: 1/ The nature and function of language; 2/ The origin and development of language; 3/ Language with thinking and culture; 4/ Languages ​​in the world; 5. Writing; 6/ Linguistics; 7/ Phonetics; 8/ Lexicology; 9/ Grammar; 10/ Semantics; 11/ Pragmatics; 12/ Applied linguistics. Overall, the book has covered all the basic content of linguistics. Each part includes specific content and each specific content is divided into small issues. Thanks to that, it is possible to recognize basic knowledge and modern knowledge, general knowledge and practical knowledge.

Chapter 1:The nature and function of language, the book has gone from the initial concept of object identification, which is "identifying and defining language", thereby clarifying the social nature and the nature of signals as well as the communicative function and the function as a means of thinking (and other functions) of language.

Chapter 2:Origin and development of linguistics, systematically presents the origin of human language and the development of language. In order to clarify the conditions for the emergence of language and the precursors of language, the book introduces different viewpoints on the origin of language to analyze and clearly indicate the origin of language. At the same time, it clearly indicates the development process of language with a series of concepts such as tribal language, regional language, ethnic language, cultural language... and variations related to each of these concepts; analyzes objective and subjective factors that make language change and develop. Notably, the formation and development of Vietnamese is cited as an illustration for the theoretical content.

Chapter 3:Language with thought and culture, presents the relationship between language and thinking and the relationship between language and culture. Pointing out the two previous concepts of either identifying language with thinking or separating language and thinking, the author analyzed, proved and affirmed that language and thinking are unified but not identical. Regarding the relationship between language and culture, the author pointed out the dialectical relationship between them and pointed out different concepts of language and culture such as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the argument that language determines culture, culture determines language.

Chapter 4:Languages ​​of the world, is not a list of languages ​​existing in the world and introducing them according to two classification theories of linguistics: classification by origin with the historical comparison method to divide into language families and classification of languages ​​by typology to divide languages ​​belonging to different language types. Based on this classification with the characteristics of each subtype, it is possible to identify the characteristics of Vietnamese as well as the languages ​​of ethnic minorities in Vietnam.

Chapter 5:Writing, presents the world's writing styles, the relationship between speech and writing, and spelling. Each type of writing points out its characteristics and has specific illustrations. Notably, Chinese characters - a type of writing related to Vietnamese (once used as a type of writing of Vietnamese) as well as different languages ​​such as Vietnamese and Korean in Asia have been cited as illustrations and analyzed thoroughly.

Chapter 6:Linguistics, presents a general overview of the formation, development, objects, tasks, and research content of linguistics, whose object is language. At the same time, as a basic science, linguistics is related to other basic sciences to form interdisciplinary or bordering linguistic sub-disciplines.

Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10 present four research contents aimed at the structural aspects of language:phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and semantics. All four parts are presented in a unified framework. A series of basic concepts have been clarified by definition, explanation and especially, the reality of the phonetic, lexical, grammatical and semantic planes in Vietnamese have been given as examples to supplement the theory. Specifically:

Chapter 7:Phonetics, presents the objects and tasks of phonetics, the physiological and physical basis of phonetics, phonemes, prosodic and phonological phenomena.

Chapter 8:Vocabulary, presents eight contents: vocabulary and lexicology, vocabulary in the language's lexical system, lexical units equivalent to words, lexical classes, vocabulary transformation and the problem of systematizing vocabulary in dictionaries.

Chapter 9:Grammar, presents contents including grammar and grammatical studies, grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, word parts, grammatical categories, grammatical relations, syntactic relations, syntactic structures and syntactic elements, grammatical functions, phrases, sub-phrases and sentences.

Chapter 10:Semantics, presents 10 contents: semantics, meaning and significance of language units, meaning changes of words, types of word meaning, meaning of sentences, semantic relations, semantic fields.

Chapter 11:Pragmatics, as a new research direction of linguistics in the post-structuralist era, is presented systematically in the direction of identifying concepts and how to exploit and develop each specific issue, including 8 contents: pragmatics, manner and meaning, speech act theory, conversation analysis, politeness and communication, cooperative principles and conversational implicature, information structure, discourse analysis and conversation analysis.

Chapter 12:Applied linguistics, presents the main applications of linguistics in a number of fields such as linguistics and language teaching, linguistics and translation, linguistics and literature. Through that, it can be seen that the theory of linguistics is not just “gray”, as well as linguistic research is not just “for language, because of language” but has useful contributions to human life.

With over 500 pages, the Linguistics Textbook provides both basic and modern, up-to-date knowledge of the field of linguistic science.

As a researcher and lecturer of linguistics belonging to the student generation, I respect the talent and efforts of Professor Nguyen Thien Giap. Although he has "excelled in the world", he is still passionate about his profession to have this book. I would like to respectfully introduce it to readers.

Hanoi, March 2008
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khang
Senior Researcher, Institute of Linguistics
President of Hanoi Linguistics Association