Oxford Companion to the English LanguageTom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, Lise Fontaine 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 international perspective, 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 and varieties, 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. |
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The Oxford Companion to the English Language Tom McArthur,Jacqueline Lam-McArthur,Lise Fontaine,Roshan McArthur No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
accent ACROLECT adjectives African Afrikaans alphabet AMERICAN ENGLISH Anglo-Saxon associated Australian BASILECT borrowed Britain British CARIBBEAN ENGLISH classical clause Cockney common compounds consonants context contrast Creole cultural derived developed dialect Dictionary digraph distinct England English language especially European example expressions French function Gaelic German grammar Greek inflected influence Irish island Jamaican Creole language teaching Latin learners letters LEXEME lexical linguistic literary literature LOAN TRANSLATIONS loanwords Māori mark meaning MESOLECT morphemes non-rhotic nouns occur Old English origin participle PHONETICS phrasal verbs phrase PIDGIN plural preposition pronounced pronunciation prose RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION reference regional RHETORIC rhotic Roman schwa ScoE Scotland Scots semantic sentence singular slang social sometimes sound Spanish speakers speech spelling spoken STANDARD ENGLISH stress structure style suffix syllable term Tok Pisin traditional translation usage usually variation verb vernacular vocabulary vowel words writing written