Intended as a text to help teachers introduce college freshmen and sophomores to language through writing or to writing through introduction to language, this book emphasizes the relationship of linguistics to composition, literature, and the human condition. The nine chapters discuss the following topics: (1) three approaches to language, (2) where words come from, (3) language study based on phonology, (4) learning parts of speech, (5) syntax, (6) semantics, (7) writing beyond the sentence level, (8) dialects, and (9) the standardization of English. Chapters two through eight are self-contained, and can be presented to students in any order. (HTH)