TY - BOOK AU - Crystal 1941-, David TI - How language works SN - 9780141015521 PY - 2007/// CY - PB - Penguin Books KW - CLASS P - LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE KW - Linguistics KW - Language and languages N1 - how babies babble, words change meaning, and languages live or die; Introducing language; Spoken language--; Written language--; Sign language--; Language structure--; Discourse--; Dialects--; Languages--; Multilingualism--; Looking after language.-- N2 - In this fascinating survey of everything from how sounds become speech to how names work, David Crystal answers every question you might ever have had about the nuts and bolts of language in his usual highly illuminating way. Along the way we find out about eyebrow flashes, whistling languages, how parents teach their children to speak, how politeness travels across languages and how the way we talk show not just how old we are but where we're from and even who we want to be ER -