3. English as a Global Language
Multilingual Matters eBooks · 2016
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English as a Global Language
David Crystal, world authority on the English language, presents a lively and factual account of the rise of English as a global language and explores the whys and wherefores of the history, current status and future potential of English as the international language of communication. English has been lauded as the most 'successful' language ever, with 1,500 million speakers worldwide; but Crystal avoids taking sides and tells the story in a measured but engaging way, backed by facts and figures. This new edition of his classic book includes new material (on the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation of New Englishes), footnotes, new tables, and a full bibliography. There are updates throughout. This is a book for anyone of any nationality concerned with English: teachers, students, language professionals, politicians, general readers and anyone with a love of the language.
Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English
Introduction Since its publication in 1985, the outstanding 1,800-page Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik, has been the definitive description of the grammar of English and an in-. dispensable reference for any research in the analysis or generation of English that attempts serious coverage of the syntactic phenomena of the language. The new Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, by Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan, is an important complement to the earlier work, extending and sometimes revising the descriptions of Quirk et al., by means of an extensive corpus analysis by the five authors and their research assistants. Now, the bookshelf of any researcher in English linguistics is incomplete without both volumes. Like Quirk et al. (hereafter CGEL), Biber and his colleagues attempt a detailed description of all the syntactic phenomena of English. But
Digest of Education Statistics
is the 34th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. (The Digest has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977–78, 1983– 84, and 1985–86.) Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from kindergarten through graduate school. The Digest includes a selection of data from many sources, both government and private, and draws especially on the results of surveys and activities carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The publication contains information on a variety of subjects in the field of education statistics, including the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to educational attainment, finances, federal funds for education, employment and income of graduates, libraries, and international education. Supplemental information on population trends, attitudes on education comparisons, education characteristics of the labor force, government finances, and economic trends provides background for evaluating education data. Although the Digest contains important information on federal education funding, more detailed information on federal activities is available from federal education program offices. For example, the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs supports the National Clearinghouse on Bilingual Education, which compiles information on students and teachers involved in bilingual education.