This book provides an accessible and readable overview of linguistic research. The text uses pedagogical tools such as analogies, metaphors, and graphic organisers to clarify the meaning of complex linguistic concepts. To ensure that readers develop a firm and lasting grasp of new ideas, the book illustrates theoretical concepts with language samples (such as popular song lyrics or famous sayings) that are likely to be familiar to the reader. The use of such recognisable language material is intended to help students see the language in their own environment as worth observing and analysing.

Above all, the book is meant to help future teachers in the classroom. This goal largely determines the book's scope. The text provides an overview of those studies that have especially significant implications for classroom practice. For instance, the chapter on neurolinguistics covers research into the gestures that accompany speech, and the chapter on semantics places special emphasis on discussing the role of conceptual metaphors in cognition. Each of the book's eleven chapters concludes with a section entitled Implications for Instruction. These sections engage to reader in exploring the practical significance of linguistic research.