Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory is a textbook, written for introductory courses in linguistic theory for undergraduate linguistics majors and first-year graduate students, by twelve major figures in the field, each bringing their expertise to one of the core areas of the field - morphology, syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, and language acquisition. In each section the book is concerned with discussing the underlying principles common to all languages, showing how these are revealed in language acquisition and in the specific grammars of the world's languages.

This is an account of the schism that developed in linguistics during the 1960s and 70s, between Noam Chomsky with his revolutionary ideas about mental structure and universal grammar, and his disciples who took his ideas in a direction he was unhappy with. The repercussions of this divisive and acrimonious dispute remain in the ways that linguists look at language and the mind.