The English Language

Paperback, 312 pages

English language

Published Sept. 1, 2004 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-100396-2

(1 review)

This new edition of David Crystal's classic book is the definitive survey of English in all its global variations. Despite the astonishingly widespread use of English, each speaker makes it his own. Whenever we write or speak we give away a great deal about ourselves by our choices in pronunciation, dialect, vocabulary and grammar. This fascinating books explores the way the language has developed, and examines the factors that unify it and the variations that divide it both nationwide and worldwide.

Now completely revised, The English Language takes into account the phenomenal influence of the Internet as well as social and political changes, recent neologisms, developments in the media and shifting preferences in accent and dialect. There is also a new chapter on the effect of technology on English and a final discussion of the future of the language

1 edition

Rupert Owen reviewed The English Language by David Crystal

Language including English

3 stars

David writes concisely about the English language and its global impact. For me, part three was the most interesting, but was fairly truncated in its overview, while other sections of the book felt a little frivolous. Some of the earlier sections, such as poetry and wordplay, are apropos to most languages, and it felt like surplus filler material to bulk out the book. Sometimes, there are tables included like the trucker CB-10 codes that take up a fair whack of page space, and feel completely unnecessary to the subject matter at hand. However, David has formatted this book to be approached as periodical minutiae without the need to read in sequence. In this way, it felt like a Sunday morning read, along with the crossword.