Language: An Introduction [Sproget, translated from the Danish]

The study of the Danish linguist, representative of Copenhagen structuralism, presents in a more accessible form the author's original Résumé of a theory of language, the so-called glossematics, stored in other author's works. It is a theory that understands language as an independent structure in which each component is determined by its relationships to other components and to the whole, and which requires the creation of an adequate method of investigating this complex "system of systems". According to the author, the goal of linguistics should therefore be a method that made it possible to universally describe language, i.e. the creation of a so-called metalanguage. The study includes the following Language functions, Genetic relatedness of languages, Language structure and language use, Character formation, Language families, Basic languages, Typological relatedness of languages, Types of language structure, Types of language use, Language change, Levels of language.