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MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 7–MORE COMMENTS WELCOME
Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts in philosophy of language. As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable. Although you don't have to sign your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.
I quite like the following two: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language by Michael Morris and Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction by William Lycan. The former takes a bit more of a historical approach so you can see how the field advanced generally; the latter is more "topical" and I feel it handles the more technical sides of things very well for an introduction (while also making the necessary historical moves). Both provide bibliographies at the end of each section and the Lycan book has some nice discussion questions at the end of each section (I can't remember if the Morris does as well since I don't have it in front of me at the moment).
I might as well add in Philosophy of Language edited by A.P. Martinich and David Sosa as the standard collection of essays in the philosophy of language if there are any readers that are interested in a single sourcebook for (most of) the important works from the last century (organized by topic).
Alexander Miller's _Philosophy of Language_ is decent, primarily because it provides not only coverage but also depth and criticism. Miller clearly finds some areas more interesting than others, and gives them more treatment, but I think that can be a good thing: readers coming to the sub-field for the first time can get a sense of where one might press or explore.
I will say, as a philosophy PhD student who specialized in other sub-fields, that introductory texts in philosophy of language are especially in need of improvement. For some reason, specialists in this area just are not able to internalize the fact that we're not going to grasp the significance of terms and concepts they find simple and intuitive. Even basic notions like "content" or "intension" (let alone "function from possible worlds to truth-values") need to be laid out simply, not assumed as a basic building block before jumping into the meat of the various theories of these notions. In this field more so than others, those tasked with introduction and simplification aren't able to communicate effectively. I'm not sure if that's because philosophy of language is more complex than, say, political philosophy, but this is something I found striking when I first needed to really get into philosophy of language.
+1 for Morris.
I found it invaluable when I was starting to teach in this area. It does a really good job of saying what's going on in some of the classic but difficult papers (Davidson, for example).
+1 for Miller, for the reasons given.
But I still have affection for Blackburn, Spreading the Word, though its coverage is not quite as good. He's a brilliant writer, and, even in a post-literate age, some students can appreciate that.
I don't think there is one particular text. As Grad student 2 already said, they usually fail to fully explain complicated notions. Moreover, interpretations of what the philosopher in question really meant, tends to be more disputed in this area of philosophy as compared to others, especially when it comes to the classics like Russell and Frege. I remember my lecturer saying that Kripke's characterisation of Russell and Frege was fundamentally flawed, so if even Kripke get things wrong, how can there be a consensus upon which one can build an objective introduction?
That being said, The Game of the Name by Gregory McCulloch is quite good. And for Russell the first 150 pages of Sainsbury's "Russell" are recommended.
Slightly off topic, or meta, or something…
Philosophy of language, perhaps because it is a comparatively new subdiscipline, seems to have led the pack in textbook style. Leonard Linsky's "Semantics and the Philosophy of Language" (published 1952) is the earliest instance I know of a now common genre: the collection of important papers. I would be interested to know when such collections started to be published for student use in other areas of philosophy.
An excellent introduction to the contemporary landscape in philosophy of language, with emphasis on connections between philosophy and linguistics, is Szabo and Thomason's "Philosophy of Language" (Cambridge): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/philosophy-of-language/5DDAE77AB68E5F9FEA06E1C867B43958
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