• Play:
• Song Name: Language Death: a Problem for All
• Artist: David Crystal
• Album: The 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference
• Year: 2009

Professor Crystal will be giving his keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death’ on Tuesday 20th October

David Crystal works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster, and is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor. He read English at University College London, specialised in English language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk, then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading, where he was professor linguistics from 1975 to 1984. His research has been mainly in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational, clinical, and electronic contexts. His authored works include the subject of his keynote talk, Language Death, as well as several introductory texts, notably his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. An autobiography, Just a Phrase I’m Going Through: My Life in Language, appeared in 2009.