The authors begin this introductory text by posing four major questions for the study oflanguage: what is the nature of language, how do we acquire it, how do we use it in speechproduction and comprehension, and how is it represented in the brain? These questions also definethe orientation of the book, which aims to introduce the reader to the study of linguistics throughfour interrelated subfields: linguistics proper, developmental linguistics, psycholinguistics, andneurolinguistics. Conspicuously absent from the list, of course, is a fifth fundamental questionabout language: what is the relationship between language use and social structure?Sociolinguistics is only briefly defined and introduced, and discussion of sociolinguisticsthroughout the text is limited to the relationship between social structure and language variationand change.