《缤纷的语言学》的最大优点是深入浅出，将一些非常复杂深奥的理论和观点娓娓道来，引人入胜。对一些概念和事实能根据不同情况，用地图、表格、图像、肖像照等多种方式加以介绍。其另一优点是在作者饶有趣味的叙述中，不时提出一些让我们思考的问题。

《语言兴衰论》提出一个新的关于语言变化的裂变一聚变模式。过去语言学家认为语言演变只是分化裂变，因而建立了一个谱系树模型来刻画。而《未名译库·语言兴衰论》提出一个新的不但包括裂变，而且包括聚变的语言演变模型。这是因为我们现在认识到，在人类自有语言以来的十多万年中，语言不但会裂变，还会聚变。在聚变期，语言特征在某个地区扩散，结果当地的语言会聚变为一个共同的原型。随着民族以及语言的扩张和分裂，聚变稳态时不时地被打断。近几个世纪来，由于欧洲的殖民扩张和全球的信息交流，很多语言都面临灭绝。

《论意义:符号学论文集(上下)》分四部分，包括了关于语言的思考、语义结构、结构与历史、叙述语法的成分、叙事的行动元机构、结构语言学与诗学等。《论意义:符号学论文集(上下)》由A.J.格雷马斯(Algirdas Julien Greimas)所著。

People use metaphors every time they speak. Some of those metaphors are literary - devices for making thoughts more vivid or entertaining. But most are much more basic than that - they're "metaphors we live by", metaphors we use without even realizing we're using them. In this book, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggest that these basic metaphors not only affect the way we communicate ideas, but actually structure our perceptions and understandings from the beginning. Bringing together the perspectives of linguistics and philosophy, Lakoff and Johnson offer an intriguing and surprising guide to some of the most common metaphors and what they can tell us about the human mind. And for this new edition, they supply an afterword both extending their arguments and offering a fascinating overview of the current state of thinking on the subject of the metaphor.

John L. Austin" was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century. The William James Lectures presented Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts on a wide variety of philosophical problems. These talks became the classic "How to Do Things with Words." For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary. Students will find the new text clearer, and, at the same time, more faithful to the actual lectures. An appendix contains literal transcriptions of a number of marginal notes made by Austin but not included in the text. Comparison of the text with these annotations provides new dimensions to the study of Austin's work.

The late J.L.Austin's influence on contemporary philosophy,which ranked with that of Wittgenstein,was substantial during his lifetime and has grown greatly since his death.He was descrbed as'one of the most acute and original minds that England has producde'. His 1955 William James Lectures,delivered at Harvard University,were first published in 1962.For this second edition the editors returned to Austin's lecture notes and their revisions make this a clearer and more faithful record of Austin's works. The lectures set out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life.Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well-known distinction of performative utterances from statements.Austin here finally abandons that distinction,replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances,which has important bearings of a wide variety of philosophical problems.