"This innovative introduction to linguistics connects language structure to everyday use, culture, and context, making the technicalities of language structure accessible, vivid and engaging. The first text to take a socially realistic linguistics approach, this exciting new textbook situates discussions about the building blocks of language like phonetics, syntax and pragmatics within a social justice framework that recognizes that all language is shaped by sociocultural forces and reveals and reinforces ideologies. Uniquely, this text also introduces eco-linguistics, a new field that examines the relationship between language and its environment, again demonstrating how widely held views about language can have real-world consequences"--