Product Description: Edited by language and communications expert Paul Cobley, this new Routledge Critical Dictionary is an accessible and invaluable key to the complex field of linguistics and semiotics. The first resource to combine these two closely-related areas, this new work takes full advantage of the Critical Dictionary format to open up the world of semiotics and linguistics for novices and to provide a useful ready-reference for more advanced reader. The 10 introductory essays are written by pace-setting figures in the field, and provide unique background to the 200+ A-Z entries that follow. Among the latter are entries on key individuals such as Bakhtin, Chomsky, Lacan, Saussure, William of Ockham and many others; concepts like abduction, chain of discourse, grapheme, metalanguage, philology and syntax; theories and schools including American structuralism, pragmaticism and Russian formalism; and much, much more.