The Oxford Companion to the English Language

by Tom McArthur (Editor)

Hardcover, 1992

Status

Available

Publication

Oxford University Press (1992), 1184 pages

Description

The Oxford Companion to the English Language provides an authoritative single-volume source of information about the English language. It is intended both for reference and for browsing. The first edition of this landmark Companion, published in 1998, adopted a strong internationalperspective, covering topics from Cockney to Creole, Aboriginal English to Caribbean English and a historical range from Chaucer to Chomsky, Latin to the World Wide Web. It succinctly described and discussed the English language at the end of the twentieth century, including its distribution andvarieties, its cultural, political, and educational impact worldwide, its nature, origins, and prospects, and its pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, word-formation, and usage.This new edition notably focuses on World Englishes, English language teaching, English as an international language, and the effect of technological advances on the English language. More than 130 new entries include African American English, British Sign Language, China English, digital literacy,multimodality, social networking, superdiversity, and text messaging, among many others. It also includes new biographical entries on key individuals who have had an impact on the English language in recent decades, including Beryl (Sue) Atkins, Adam Kilgariff, and John Sinclair.It is an invaluable reference for English Language students, and fascinating reading for any general reader with an interest in language.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member anneofia
This is a fun book to browse! The entries are arranged alphabetically from "A" to "Zummerzet," with some of the words having just a sentence or two, and some having their own full essay. The introduction tells how the words were chosen. A World Map shows the areas where English is the main
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language, and in the back there is an index of every single person mentioned in the contents. It's fascinating!
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LibraryThing member aulsmith
We got this book for its linguistic content, but there was so much more literary information that we had in other sources and it took up so much room that we passed it on.

Awards

Dartmouth Medal (Honorable Mention — 1993)

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

11907
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