The Future of Language

David Crystal - Future of Language

For the first time, The Routledge David Crystal Lectures brings together three of Professor David Crystal's most popular lectures on the future of language exploring key contemporary language issues.

The Future of Englishes explores the reason why English has emerged as the first truly global language — with an estimated 500 million speakers worldwide — and considers what clues the history of the language might give us about its future.

Language Death follows with a sombre look at the crisis facing the huge number of the languages under the threat of extinction. With over half the world's 7000 languages likely to disappear by the year 2100, David Crystal takes a look at why languages die and what we lose when they do.

Language and the Internet is a lively and entertaining look at how computer mediated communication, in the form of texting, email and instant messaging, is dramatically changing the way we are using language and what the implications are for this period of linguistic evolution.

You can watch clips from each of these lectures on this website and use our teaching tips as a guide to setting activities in the classroom.

The accompanying paperback supplements the lectures with a short overview of the main themes discussed, followed by a more detailed introduction to each topic and a synopsis of all the main points made in each lecture. The book finishes with Crystal's reflections on how the three interrelated topics covered here will continue to interact and contribute to the evolution of language.

Special features:

  • English subtitles
  • a cultural and usage commentary with timecodes so users can easily access points of interest
  • further reading and activities for the classroom – easy-to-follow tasks to get students engaging with language straight away
  • an index both for the DVD and the book so users can search for topics of interest.

This is an ideal resource for all university and A-level English Language and Linguistics departments and will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of language, especially those involved with teaching or learning English as a second language.

“These three lectures are all fascinating, and brilliantly delivered. In fact, the biggest problem with this disk is that there are only three; I found myself wanting more. These lectures bristle with jumping-off points for discussion and thinking about practically any linguistic, historical, or social issue.”
John Lawler, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
“David Crystal's performance lectures are to linguistics as the Beatles are to rock — an entertaining mix of classic and innovation, a delight to watch and listen to.”
Susan Gayle Strauss, Penn State University

Trailers

David Crystal - Lecture 1

David Crystal - Lecture 2

David Crystal - Lecture 3

Book Contents

  1. The lectures
  2. The topics
  3. The future of Englishes
    • Introduction
    • Synopsis
    • Cultural and usage commentary
    • Further reading
    • Activities in the classroom
  4. Language death
    • Introduction
    • Synopsis
    • Cultural and usage commentary
    • Further reading
    • Activities in the classroom
  5. Internet linguistics
    • Introduction
    • Synopsis
    • Cultural and usage commentary
    • Further reading
    • Activities in the classroom
  6. Reflection
  7. Glossary
  8. Audio Index
  9. Book Index

Bibliographic Detail

The Future of Language: The Routledge David Crystal Lectures
David Crystal
May 2009
Pack (DVD & Pb): 978-0-415-48490-9: £110
(DVD approxiately 180 minutes run time, Multiregion DVD format, features English Subtitles)

Teaching Tips

Susan Strauss, Assistant Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Applied Linguistics at Penn State University has put together the following notes for teachers providing some ideas as to how the Future of Language might be used as a teaching resource. 

The materials in this lecture/book series can be applied to virtually any course or any discipline in which language plays a role:  linguistics, communications, marketing, education, science/health literacy, new technologies, foreign language pedagogy, diaspora studies.

Introduction to linguistics: Morphemes

  1. Analyze creative uses of morphological strings in current advertising campaigns.  For example, Kia has coined a new term ‘giddyupidness’.  What other types of morpheme play do you note in advertising (for all types of products?).   What is the meaning of the morphemes that figure so creatively in these ads?
  2. Analyze the morphemes in Victor Borge's Youtube performance on ‘inflationary language.’ Describe the linguistic phenomenon(a) that Borge is playing with in his analysis of ‘inflationary language.’  Here is one link to Borge's ‘inflationary language‘ routine.  It's really ‘twoderful.’.

    3. World Englishes

    Notice the varieties of English that you see on T-shirts.  Do this as you navigate your way through large urban districts in the United States and also as you travel through Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.   You can look at T-shirts sold in shops and T-shirts worn by the public. What kinds of trends do you note in ‘T-shirt English?’  Pay special attention to how English is used on T-shirts in non-English speaking countries.  Who is wearing the T-shirts?  What are the literal and non-literal messages of the English words.  What do you feel this might be reflecting with respect to the ‘globalization of English.?’

    Sociolinguistics course

    Standard vs. non-standard English.  Listen to a selection of 5 rock songs, 5 hip hop songs, and 5 country western songs.  Do you notice any use of so-called ‘non-standard English.?’  In what contexts? What types of expressions?

    Now, listen for instances of ‘non-standard English’ on television — particularly reality shows, e.g., American Idol, The Apprentice, America's/Britain's Got Talent, The Biggest Loser. Who uses such instances of non-standard English? In what contexts? What kind of effect does each instance of ‘non-standard English’ seem to create?

    Marketing/communications

    Analyze the following kinds of linguistic features in tabloid news:

    1. adjectives
    2. relative clauses
    3. quoted discourse — direct quotations and indirect quotations

    What do you notice in each case? That is, what types of adjectives appear to be the most frequent? Why?

    How are relative clauses used in tabloid news to describe persons, animals, events?

    How are quotations represented in tabloid news? Who, specifically, is being quoted and in what types of stories? What type of effect does this create? Is the quotation represented as a verbatim quote (i.e., a direct quote) or is it paraphrased (i.e., an indirect quote)? Again, does the use of quotations (either direct or indirect) create a particular type of tone?

    Marketing/communications/health literacy 1

    Analyze the advertisements in magazines that are focused on women's health.  Analyze ads in magazines that address men's health.  What types of linguistic features do you note?  Are there any differences with respect to the gender of the target audience?

    Marketing/communications/health literacy 2

    First, stroll through the various sections of over-the-counter medications in your local drug store.  How many different types of paid medications do you find?  How many different types of cold and allergy medications?  Select the top 5 sellers in pain medication and the top 5 sellers in cold/allergy medication.  Read the labels on all of the medications.  What types of similarities/differences do you find within the pain type?  What types of similarities/differences do you find in comparing cold medications with pain medications?  How would you characterize the kind of language used on these labels?  Is there one style or multiple styles of discourse?  Why do you think this is the case?

    New technologies

    Investigate the fanfiction website (www.fanfiction.net).  Browse the categories and note what seems to be the most popular entry in each category.  Why do you think there is such a disparity between the MOST popular entry in each and all of the rest?  Also, read the reviews of the recent entries.  Identify the symbolic characteristics of each review (e.g., language choice [pronouns, adjectives, adverbs], images, emoticons).  Make a list of the positive adjectives used in the reviews and a list of negative adjectives.   Does one type seem to be more common than the other?  Why do you think this is so?  Describe the sort of ‘community‘ that the fanfiction site creates.  Who participates and how? 

    Working from the DVD

    Example Activity

    Chapter 5:  Internet Language

    David Crystal mentions the following examples of social networking forums:  Facebook, MySpace, Hi 5, Bebo.  Crystal indicates each has “different communicative perspectives, properties, strategies and expectations.”  Think about the purposes of each type of forum and identify the symbolic characteristics  (e.g., language [lexicon, style, font], graphics, color, photographic, emoticons) that appear in each type.  Why those in that forum?

    Now, consider the fanfiction (www.fanfiction.net) website.  If you haven't visited the website, enter it and browse around the categories.  You'll find topics such as books, movies, TV shows, games, cartoons, anime, and so forth.  Within each category, you'll find long lists of names of cartoons, movies, and TV shows — some with many entries and some with very few.  Among the most popular are:  House M.D. and One Tree Hill (TV Shows), X-Men The Movie and Pirates of the Caribbean (movies), Kim Possible (cartoon), and Zelda (video games). 

    Within this forum, we observe the creation of a ‘community of imaginers.’ Here, amateur writers re-write fiction and create new and imaginary worlds based on familiar characters in familiar settings. Readers of fanfiction also write reviews and respond to the writing.  This kind of widespread fiction-based creativity and the dialogic reader response feature is only possible in an EMC environment.

    Let's think about this more deeply:

    1. Read the first 5 entries under each of the MOST popular postings.
      1. Identify the overall symbolic characteristics of fanfiction, including language choice (e.g., lexicon, style, direct discourse, use of dialects), graphics, colors, logos.
      2. Compare the 5 entries in terms of length in addition to the symbolic characteristics noted above.  In what way(s) are they similar and in what way(s) are they different?
    2. Read the first ten REVIEWS of recent entries.
      1. Identify the symbolic characteristics of these reviews:  language choice (e.g., pronouns, adjectives, adverbs).
      2. Compare the 10 entries in terms of length in addition think about:
        1. the length of each review
        2. the content
        3. how the evaluations are expressed.
        In what way(s) are they similar and in what way(s) are they different?
      3. Make a list of the positive adjectives used in the reviews.  Make a list of the negative adjectives.  Does one type seem to be more common than the other, i.e. positive or negative?  Why do you think this is so?
    3. Locate the 3 most popular titles under each category (movies, books, cartoons, anime, games, etc.).  Is there a large difference in the number of entries between the first and third most popular titles?  Why do you think the most popular titles have so many entries?  What does this seem to reflect about:  our society, our interest in the imaginary, how we relate to those specific books, movies, TV shows, cartoons, etc., our desire to connect with others using these fictitious characters and settings?   What types of plots, character development, personality traits, etc. do readers seem to appreciate and relate to the most?  Again, why do you think this is so?

    Have you ever tried to write a fan fiction entry?  Have you ever responded to one?