Oxford Companion to the English Language

Second Edition

Edited by Tom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine

Oxford Quick Reference

Over 1,400 fascinating, readable A to Z entries on all aspects of the English language, including more than 130 new entries
Increased focus on the international perspective, with new entries including African American English, China English, English as an Additional Language (EAL), multicultural London English, superdiversity, and translanguaging, and significant expansion of other relevant entries
Heavily expanded coverage of the effect of technology on the English language, in new entries such as blog, Computer-Mediated Communication, digital literacy, online language play, social networking sites, Virtual Learning Environment, and Web 1.0 and 2.0
Expansion of the area of English language teaching, with entries such as Computer-Assisted Language Learning, ELT, English Language Arts, English Medium Instruction (EMI), and substantial revision of the entry on Language Teaching
Updated information on linguistic theory, including new entries on conversation analysis, ecolinguistics, functional grammars, and multimodality

New to this Edition:

Increased focus on the international perspective, with new entries including African American English, China English, English as an Additional Language (EAL), multicultural London English, superdiversity, and translanguaging, and significant expansion of other relevant entries
Heavily expanded coverage of the effect of technology on the English language, in new entries such as blog, Computer-Mediated Communication, digital literacy, online language play, social networking sites, Virtual Learning Environment, and Web 1.0 and 2.0
Expansion of the area of English language teaching, with entries such as Computer-Assisted Language Learning, ELT, English Language Arts, English Medium Instruction (EMI), and a substantial revision of the entry on Language Teaching
Updated information on linguistic theory, including new entries on conversation analysis, ecolinguistics, functional grammars, and multimodality

Oxford Companion to the English Language

Second Edition

Edited by Tom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine

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 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.

Oxford Companion to the English Language

Second Edition

Edited by Tom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine

Oxford Quick Reference

Oxford Companion to the English Language

Second Edition

Edited by Tom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine

Oxford Quick Reference

Author Information

Tom McArthur is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, London, 2002-, and the founder editor of the quarterly journal English Today (CUP), serving from 1984-2007. He was also Director of the Extra-Mural Centre for English Language Studies at the University of Edinburgh (1979-84), and Associate Professor of English at the Universite du Quebec, Canada, (1979-84). Since 1985 he has been an editor, writer, lecturer, and ELT consultant. He has broadcast with the BBC (UK), CBC (Canada), and ABC (Australia), and has lectured and presented papers in over twenty countries.

Jacqueline Lam-McArthur is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists; Chief Moderator for the Diploma in Translation (DipTrans) and the International Diploma in Bilingual Communications (IDBC) at the Institute of Linguists, London; and examiner, marker, and vetter for Chinese (Putonghua/Mandarin and Cantonese) for the Diplomatic Service Language Allowance Examination at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.

Lise Fontaine is a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University in the Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) where she lectures mainly on functional grammar, word meaning, corpus linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her research interests include functional grammar theory and, more specifically, the study of referring expressions as realised in the noun phrase. In addition to publishing over 20 articles and book chapters, she is the author of Analyzing English Grammar: A systemic-functional introduction (CUP, 2012). She has also co-edited Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice (CUP, 2013); Choice in Language (Equinox, 2013); Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable Theory of Language (Routledge, printing), and The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (CUP, printing).

Contributors:

Contributors to the second edition

Michelle Aldridge
Brook Bolander
Wendy L. Bowcher
Chang Chenguang
Mercedes Durham
Anne McCabe
Anne Mangen
Gerard O'Grady
Luke Rudge
Muhammad Shaban
Tereza Spilioti
Erich Steiner
Caroline Tagg
Jonathan Webster
Shigeru Yamada

Contributors to the first edition

Jean Aitchison
A. J. Aitken
John Algeo
Robert E. Allen
Jon Amastae
Tony Augarde
Richard W. Bailey
William W. Barker
Dennis E. Baron
Laurie Bauer
John Baugh
Paul Beale
David Blair
Eyamba G. Bokamba
Whitney F. Bolton
Jean Branford
William Branford
Lawrence B. Breitborde
Christopher J. Brumfit
Robert W. Burchfield
Garland Cannon
Lawrence D. Carrington
Frederic G. Cassidy
Sylvia Chalker
Raymond Chapman
Paul Christophersen
Isagani R. Cruz
David Crystal
W. D. Wimal Dissanayake
Connie C. Eble
John Edwards
Stanley Ellis
Margery Fee
Jean-Marc Gachelin
Charles Gilman
Andrew Gonzales
Sidney Greenbaum
Anjum R. Haque
Reinhard Hartmann
Mohamed H. Heliel
Geoffrey Hughes
Robert F. Ilson
Braj B. Kachru
Yamuna Kachru
Gillian S. Kay
Francis E. Knowles
Gerald Knowles
Margot Lawrence
Sangsup Lee
Michael Lesk
Peter H. Lowenberg
William D. Lutz
Iseabail C. McLeod
Rejend Mesthrie
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Walter Nash
Cecil L. Nelson
Noel E. Osselton
Frank R. Palmer
Rajeshwari Pandharipande
John Platt
Rene James Quinault
William S. Ramson
Suzanne Romaine
Adrian Room
William Shephard
Larry E. Smith
S. N. Sridhar
James Stanlaw
Sol Steinmetz
Peter Strevens
Mary Tay
Loreto Todd
Barry Tomalin
Peter Trudgill
Christopher Upward
Laurence Urdang
Katie Wales
Heidi Weber
Edmund Weiner
Lise S. Winer
Margaret E. Winters

Consultants

Richard Allwright
Jacqueline Anderson
Lourdes B. Bautista
Ben Benedikz
Roger Bowers
J. K. Chambers
Sandra Clarke
Rachel Davis
Agnes Drever
Robert A. Dunbar
Anna Dunlop
Barbara Goldsmid
David Gough
Barbara Harris
Tom Hecht
Joan Hughes
Sally Hunt
Fadilah Jasmani
S. Johansson
Damian J. Kelly
Virginia LaCastro
Leonhard Lipka
Louise McIvor
Kevin McNamee
David I. Masson
Dhun Mehta
Godfrey Meintjes
Tatsuo Miyajima
Diarmaid O hAirt
Maria-Grazia Pederzani
Mary Penrith
Frederick H. G. Percy
Peter Pitman
Arnold D. N. Pitt
Graham Pointon
Velma Pollard
Camilla Raab
F. Gordon Rohlehr
A. O. Sanved
Sybil Sarel
Donald Scragg
John Singler

Oxford Companion to the English Language

Second Edition

Edited by Tom McArthur, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine

Oxford Quick Reference

Reviews and Awards

"this is a fascinating reference tool, of value not only to professional linguists, but also to anyone with an interest in the English language and, at Â£12.99 for more than 700 pages, a bargain." --Professor T.D. Wilson, Information Research