Geoffrey Leech

Jan Svartvik

This readable textbook tells the fascinating story of the English language in three ways. It begins by tracing the history of the language from its obscure beginnings over 1500 years ago and follows up by showing the geographical spread of the language and its increasing diversity. Finally, it looks at the present state of English as a global language and problems and uncertainties of its future. Students interested in the history of the English language will be well-served by this valuable introduction.

English - One Tongue, Many Voices

Douglas Biber

Susan Conrad

Simplified and reorganized, while avoiding much of the technical detail of Longman grammar of spoken and written English (LGSWE).

Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English

Nicholas Smith

Christian Mair

Marianne Hundt

Based on the systematic analysis of large amounts of computer-readable text, this book shows how the English language has been changing in the recent past, and discusses the linguistic and social factors that are contributing to this process.

A Grammatical Study

Change in Contemporary English

Paul Rayson

Andrew (All Of Lancaster University) Wilson

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English is a landmark volume in the development of vocabulary frequency studies. Whereas previous books have in general given frequency information about the written language only, this book provides information on both speech and writing. It not only gives information about the language as a whole, but also about the differences between spoken and written English, and between different spoken and written varieties of the language. The frequencies are derived from a wide ranging and up-to-date corpus of English: the British National Corpus, which was compiled from over 4,000 written texts and spoken transcriptions representing the present day language in the UK. The book is based on a new version of the corpus (available from 2001) providing more accurate grammatical information, which is essential (for example) for distinguishing words like leaves (noun) and leaves (verb) with different meanings. The book begins with a general introduction, explaining why such information is important and highlighting interesting linguistic findings that emerge from the statistical analysis of the British National Corpus vocabulary. It also contains twenty four 'interest boxes' which highlight and comment on different aspects of frequency - for example, the most common colour words in English in order of frequency, and a comparison of male words (e.g. man) and female words (e.g. woman) in terms of their frequency.

based on the British National Corpus

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English

A Communicative Grammar of English

Over a period of over forty years, Geoffrey Leech has made notable contributions to the field of literary stylistics, using the interplay between linguistic form and literary function as a key to the ‘mystery’ of how a text comes to be invested with artistic potential. In this book, seven earlier papers and articles, read previously only by a restricted audience, have been brought together with four new chapters, the whole volume showing a continuity of approach across a period when all too often literary and linguistic studies have appeared to drift further apart. Leech sets the concept of ‘foregrounding’ (also known as defamiliarization) at the heart of the interplay between form and interpretation. Through practical and insightful examination of how poems, plays and prose works produce special meaning, he counteracts the ‘flight from the text’ that has characterized thinking about language and literature in the last thirty years, when the response of the reader, rather than the characteristics and meaning potential of the text itself, have been given undue prominence. The book provides an enlightening analysis of well-known (as well as less well-known) texts of great writers of the past, including Keats, Shelley, Samuel Johnson, Shaw, Dylan Thomas, and Virginia Woolf.

Style and Foregrounding

Language in Literature

A Glossary of English Grammar presents a wide range of terms used to describe the way the English language is structured. Grammatical terms can be a problem for students, especially when there are alternative names for the same thing (for example, 'past tense' and 'preterite'). This book therefore provides a basic and accessible guide, focusing on the English language. Definitions of grammatical terms are given in simple language, with clear examples, many from authentic texts and spoken sources, showing how they are used. The terms used in the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language are widely seen as standard, and form the basis of grammatical terminology in this book. At the same time, this glossary does not neglect other variants of English grammar, such as that of Huddleston and Pullum's influential Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, whose most important terms are also covered here. This book is indispensable for anyone wishing to understand present-day terminology of English grammar more fully.

Glossary of English Grammar

Bas Aarts

Sean Wallis

Joanne Close

The chapters in this volume feature new and groundbreaking research carried out by leading scholars and promising young researchers from around the world on recent changes in the English verb phrase. Drawing on authentic corpus data, the papers consider both spoken and written English in several genres. Each contribution pays particular attention to the methodologies used for investigating short-term patterns of change in English, with detailed discussions of controversies in this area. This cutting-edge collection is essential reading for historians of the English language, syntacticians and corpus linguists.

Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora

The Verb Phrase in English

A Communicative Grammar of English has long been established as a grammar innovative in approach, reliable in coverage, and clear in its explanations. This fully revised and redesigned third edition provides up-to-date and accessible help to teachers, advanced learners and undergraduate students of English. Part One looks at the way English grammar varies in different types of English, such as ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘spoken’ and ‘written’; Part Two focuses on the uses of grammar rather than on grammatical structure and Part Three provides a handy alphabetically arranged guide to English grammar. A new workbook, The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook also accompanies this edition.

Greg Myers

Jenny Thomas

This book has evolved from a Workshop on Computerized Speech Corpora, held at Lancaster University in 1993. It brings together the findings presented in a clear and coherent manner, focussing on the advantages and disadvantages of particular transcription or mark-up practice.

Transcription, Mark-Up and Application

Spoken English on Computer

Margaret Deuchar

Robert Hoogenraad

Written by a team led by a world authority in English grammar, English Grammar for Today has established itself as a rich educational experience for both native- and non-native-speaking students. This engaging and stimulating coursebook enables students to learn grammar not just for its own sake, but also for the pleasure of exploring, appreciating and understanding the way language communicates in written text and spoken discourse. Throughout, the emphasis is on using grammar in present-day English. After an introduction placing grammar in its educational and cultural context, the authors present a 'toolkit' for analysing sentences. The second part of the book demonstrates how to apply this toolkit to spoken and written language, using a wide range of real textual materials. Each chapter ends with a set of carefully-designed exercises and tasks to aid understanding, with answers provided at the end of the volume. Now thoroughly revised and updated to meet the needs of today's students, this new edition features: - a new Foreword by the English Association - an additional introductory chapter, 'Getting Started with Grammar', which introduces the subject for those with no prior knowledge - improved and extended diagrams, exercises and answers - up-to-date textual passages and examples Lively and approachable, this indispensable guide is ideal for both students and teachers who are looking for their first serious engagement with - or wishing to rediscover- English grammar.

A New Introduction

English Grammar for Today

This is the fully revised and expanded second edition of English - One Tongue, Many Voices, a book by three internationally distinguished English language scholars who tell the fascinating, improbable saga of English in time and space. Chapters trace the history of the language from its obscure beginnings over 1500 years ago as a collection of dialects spoken by marauding, illiterate tribes. They show how the geographical spread of the language in its increasing diversity has made English into an international language of unprecedented range and variety. The authors examine the present state of English as a global language and the problems, pressures and uncertainties of its future, online and offline. They argue that, in spite of the amazing variety and plurality of English, it remains a single language.

English – One Tongue, Many Voices

Sylviane Granger

The first book of its kind, Learner English on Computer is intended to provide linguists, students of linguistics and modern languages, and ELT professionals with a highly accessible and comprehensive introduction to the new and rapidly-expanding field of corpus-based research into learner language. Edited by the founder and co-ordinator of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), the book contains articles on all aspects of corpus compilation, design and analysis. The book is divided into three main sections; in Part I, the first chapter provides the reader with an overview of the field, explaining links with corpus and applied linguistics, second language acquisition and ELT. The second chapter reviews the software tools which are currently available for analysing learner language and contains useful examples of how they can be used. Part 2 contains eight case studies in which computer learner corpora are analysed for various lexical, discourse and grammatical features. The articles contain a wide range of methodologies with broad general application. The chapters in Part 3 look at how Computer Learner Corpus (CLC) based studies can help improve pedagogical tools: EFL grammars, dictionaries, writing textbooks and electronic tools. Implications for classroom methodology are also discussed. The comprehensive scope of this volume should be invaluable to applied linguists and corpus linguists as well as to would-be learner corpus builders and analysts who wish to discover more about a new, exciting and fast-growing field of research.

Geoffrey Leech

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