I have a general question regarding type theory. I'd like to learn more about it to be able to read and understand papers like these. From what I've read, Types and Programming Languages by Benjamin C. Pierce would be a good the place to start. Is this true? I don't see any mention of linear types in it, is this something you learn by reading papers?
Linear Types are fairly new thing, you can read about them in constructivist logic (under the subset of 'linear logic', or 'resource-aware logic' or from newer type theory stuff under 'linear types').