David Crystal
Encyclopedia
David Crystal OBE
FLSW FBA (born July 6, 1941) is a linguist
, academic and author
.
, Northern Ireland
. He grew up in Holyhead
, North
Wales
, and Liverpool
, England
where he attended St Mary's College
from 1951.
Crystal studied English at University College London
between 1959 and 1962. He was a researcher under Randolph Quirk between 1962 and 1963, working on the Survey of English Usage
. Since then he has lectured at Bangor University
and the University of Reading
. He is currently an honorary professor
of linguistics
at Bangor. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching
, clinical linguistics
, forensic linguistics
, language death
, "ludic linguistics" (Crystal's neologism for the study of language play), English style
, Shakespeare, indexing
, and lexicography
. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
(IATEFL) and honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders
(SfEP). He has also served as an important editor for Cambridge University Press
.
David Crystal lives in Holyhead with his wife. He has four grown-up children. His son Ben Crystal
is also an author and co-authored two books with his father. Retired from full-time academia, he works as a writer, editor and consultant. Crystal was awarded the OBE
in 1995 and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales
and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists
.
and the English language, which use varied graphics and short essays to communicate technical material in an accessible manner.
Crystal hypothesises that globally English will both split and converge, with local variants becoming less mutually comprehensible and therefore necessitating the rise of what he terms World Standard Spoken English (see also International English
). In his 2004 book The Stories of English
, a general history of the English language, he describes the value he sees in linguistic diversity and the according of respect to varieties of English generally considered "non-standard". He is a proponent of a new field of study, Internet linguistics
.
His non-linguistic writing includes poems, plays and biography. A Roman Catholic by conviction, he has also written devotional poetry and articles.
From 2001 to 2006, Crystal served as the Chairman of Crystal Reference Systems Limited, a provider of reference content and Internet search and advertising technology. The company's iSense and Sitescreen products are based upon the patented Global Data Model, a complex semantic network
that Crystal devised in the early 1980s and was adapted for use on the Internet in the mid 1990s. The iSense technology is the subject of patents in the United Kingdom and the United States. After the company's acquisition by Ad Pepper Media N.V., he remained on the board as its R&D director until 2009, and continues to act as a consultant for Ad Pepper.
Crystal was influential in a campaign to save Holyhead's convent
from demolition, leading to the creation of the Ucheldre Centre
. Crystal continues to write as well as contribute to television and radio broadcasts. His association with the BBC
ranges from, formerly, a BBC Radio 4
series on language issues to, currently, podcasts on the BBC World Service
website for people learning English.
His book Txtng: The Gr8 Db8
(published in 2008) focused on text language and its impact on society. In 2009 Routledge published his autobiographical memoir Just a Phrase I'm Going Through: My Life in Language, which was released simultaneously with a DVD of three of his lectures.
Furthermore David Crystal was a co-founder of Crystal Semantics Limited. He is the inventor of the patented classification scheme which forms the basis of the Crystal Semantics technology upon which certain products for the online advertising sector have been developed. These include semantic targeting
technology (marketed as iSense
by ad pepper media) and brand protection technology (marketed as SiteScreen
by Emediate
ApS).
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
FLSW FBA (born July 6, 1941) is a linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, academic and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Background and career
Crystal was born in LisburnLisburn
DemographicsLisburn Urban Area is within Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area and is classified as a Large Town by the . On census day there were 71,465 people living in Lisburn...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. He grew up in Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....
, North
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where he attended St Mary's College
St Mary's College, Sefton
St Mary's College is an independent Roman Catholic day school for boys and girls in North West England, comprising an early years department , preparatory school and secondary school...
from 1951.
Crystal studied English at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
between 1959 and 1962. He was a researcher under Randolph Quirk between 1962 and 1963, working on the Survey of English Usage
Survey of English Usage
The Survey of English Usage was the first research centre in Europe to carry out research with corpora. The Survey is based in the Department of English Language and Literature at University College London.- History :...
. Since then he has lectured at Bangor University
Bangor University
Bangor University is a university based in the city of Bangor in the county of Gwynedd in North Wales-United Kingdom.It was officially known for most of its history as the University College of North Wales...
and the University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
. He is currently an honorary professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
at Bangor. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching
English language learning and teaching
English as a second language , English for speakers of other languages and English as a foreign language all refer to the use or study of English by speakers with different native languages. The precise usage, including the different use of the terms ESL and ESOL in different countries, is...
, clinical linguistics
Clinical linguistics
Clinical Linguistics is a sub-discipline of linguistics which involves the application of linguistic theory to the field of Speech-Language Pathology. Clinical linguistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the use of linguistics to describe, analyze, and treat language disabilities...
, forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics...
, language death
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
, "ludic linguistics" (Crystal's neologism for the study of language play), English style
Literary genre
A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused...
, Shakespeare, indexing
Index (publishing)
An index is a list of words or phrases and associated pointers to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document...
, and lexicography
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language is an organisation in the field of English language learning and teaching. It is based in Britain and was founded in 1967....
(IATEFL) and honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders
Society for Editors and Proofreaders
The Society for Editors and Proofreaders was formed in 1988. It has 1,500 members, most of them in the UK, and its headquarters are in London.The SfEP is a professional association for editors and proofreaders...
(SfEP). He has also served as an important editor for Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
.
David Crystal lives in Holyhead with his wife. He has four grown-up children. His son Ben Crystal
Ben Crystal
Ben Crystal is a British actor, author, and producer, best known for his work on making William Shakespeare more accessible. He has been referred to as "the Jamie Oliver of Shakespeare" by BBC Radio 5 for trying to make the plays accessible to all....
is also an author and co-authored two books with his father. Retired from full-time academia, he works as a writer, editor and consultant. Crystal was awarded the OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1995 and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales
Learned Society of Wales
The Learned Society of Wales is a society that exists to “celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines”.The society was launched on 25 May 2010 at the National Museum of Wales...
and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists
Chartered Institute of Linguists
The Chartered Institute of Linguists, also known as the Institute of Linguists, IOL and IoL , is a British professional and learned society for education that was founded in 1910. It serves to promote proficiency in modern languages worldwide...
.
Work
Crystal is the author, co-author, or editor of over 120 books on a wide variety of subjects, specialising among other things in editing reference works, including (as author) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987, 1997, 2010) and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (1995, 2003), and (as editor) the Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, the Cambridge Factfinder, the Cambridge Encyclopedia, and the New Penguin Encyclopedia (2003). He has also edited literary works, and is Patron of the UK National Literacy Association. He has also published several books for the general reader about linguisticsLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and the English language, which use varied graphics and short essays to communicate technical material in an accessible manner.
Crystal hypothesises that globally English will both split and converge, with local variants becoming less mutually comprehensible and therefore necessitating the rise of what he terms World Standard Spoken English (see also International English
International English
International English is the concept of the English language as a global means of communication in numerous dialects, and also the movement towards an international standard for the language...
). In his 2004 book The Stories of English
The Stories of English
The Stories of English is a 2004 book by British linguist David Crystal; it traces the history of the English language from the invasion of Great Britain by the Angles and Saxons in the 5th Century to the modern splintering of the language into its modern British, American, Indian, Australian, and...
, a general history of the English language, he describes the value he sees in linguistic diversity and the according of respect to varieties of English generally considered "non-standard". He is a proponent of a new field of study, Internet linguistics
Internet linguistics
Internet linguistics is a sub-domain of linguistics advocated by David Crystal. It studies new language styles and forms that have arisen under the influence of the Internet and other New Media, such as Short Message Service text messaging...
.
His non-linguistic writing includes poems, plays and biography. A Roman Catholic by conviction, he has also written devotional poetry and articles.
From 2001 to 2006, Crystal served as the Chairman of Crystal Reference Systems Limited, a provider of reference content and Internet search and advertising technology. The company's iSense and Sitescreen products are based upon the patented Global Data Model, a complex semantic network
Semantic network
A semantic network is a network which represents semantic relations among concepts. This is often used as a form of knowledge representation. It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices, which represent concepts, and edges.- History :...
that Crystal devised in the early 1980s and was adapted for use on the Internet in the mid 1990s. The iSense technology is the subject of patents in the United Kingdom and the United States. After the company's acquisition by Ad Pepper Media N.V., he remained on the board as its R&D director until 2009, and continues to act as a consultant for Ad Pepper.
Crystal was influential in a campaign to save Holyhead's convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
from demolition, leading to the creation of the Ucheldre Centre
Ucheldre Centre
The Ucheldre Centre is an arts centre located in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales.-Architecture:Formerly, it was the chapel building of Holyhead's Bon Sauveur order of nuns convent. The main hall of the Centre, with its imposing height and arched roof, was designed by Professor R M Butler, of Dublin, a...
. Crystal continues to write as well as contribute to television and radio broadcasts. His association with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
ranges from, formerly, a BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
series on language issues to, currently, podcasts on the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
website for people learning English.
His book Txtng: The Gr8 Db8
Txtng: the Gr8 Db8
Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is a book written by linguist David Crystal.The title is a logogram which stands for Texting: The Great Debate. In his book, Crystal examines the use of text messaging and its effect on language and literacy...
(published in 2008) focused on text language and its impact on society. In 2009 Routledge published his autobiographical memoir Just a Phrase I'm Going Through: My Life in Language, which was released simultaneously with a DVD of three of his lectures.
Furthermore David Crystal was a co-founder of Crystal Semantics Limited. He is the inventor of the patented classification scheme which forms the basis of the Crystal Semantics technology upon which certain products for the online advertising sector have been developed. These include semantic targeting
Semantic targeting
Semantic targeting is a technique enabling the delivery of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing on websites and is used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns...
technology (marketed as iSense
Isense
iSense is an online semantic advertising technology which applies the principles of semantics to online advertising.iSense was developed by Crystal Semantics Ltd. in London with research and development facilities in Copenhagen & Holyhead...
by ad pepper media) and brand protection technology (marketed as SiteScreen
SiteScreen
SiteScreen is an online semantic advertising technology, developed by , an UK-based developer of semantic technology for use by online media companies. The company was founded in 2001 by Ian Saunders and Professor David Crystal O.B.E, a world authority on language and the author of over 150 books...
by Emediate
Emediate
Emediate ApS is a Danish based software company providing their Ad Serving Solution, EmediateAd, to publishers and websites.Emediate is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and has an office in Stockholm, Sweden...
ApS).