00000nam a2200000 a 4500 Cyrstal, David aut Verfasser/-in English language The English language A guided tour of the language by the presenter of BBC R David Cyrstal London Penguin 1990 The English language stretches around the world: from Australia to Zimbabwe, over 300 million people speakt ist as their mother tongue alone...<br/>And yet, despite its astonishingly widespread use as a medium of communication, every profession and every province - indeed, every individual person - uses a slightly different variant. In this marvellously informative and entertaining guided tour, the author describes the common structures that unify the language and outlines the major variations that separate the English of Briatin, America, Ireland, Australia, the Caribbean and other parts of the English-speaking world. He explores the dialects of chemists and the clergy, lawyers and truckers, poets and punsters, and offers an expert´s survey of how our language developed from Caedmon to computerese. Today, as the mass media create a global standard and as new forces, such as technology and feminism, exert an influence on how we speak and write, English is in a dizzying state of flux. Professor Crystal shows us exactly where we are now - and offers some provocati-<br/>ve predictions of what the 21 century holds in store for us.<br/><br/><br/> 9780140135329 9780140135329 ger 0 288 S.