Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is an advanced grammar reference. It combines explanations of English grammar with information on how, when, and why we use different structures. It shows the differences between spoken and written grammar and includes frequency information of the most common forms.
Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English
The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is an entirely new grammar of American and British English – from the language of conversation to the language of academic textbooks. There are no made-up examples in this groundbreaking new grammar. The authors began, not with preconceived notions of the grammar of English, but with a huge bank of language data, the Longman Corpus Network.
A six-year research project brought together the linguistic expertise of an international author team – all acknowledged experts in the field of corpus linguistics and grammar.
The result of this research is the present volume. Many points of traditional grammar are confirmed, but now on the basis of much larger amounts of statistical data than ever before. Some aspects of traditional grammar are challenged by this book, and some new findings, not even suspected before now. will surprise and interest the reader.
What makes this book so special is that it turns English inside out. Professor Douglas Biber’s research team tagged and parsed the structures in the Corpus. This analysis revealed the degree to which different grammatical features of language vary according to the type of language. The way language is used in conversation is quite different from the way language is used in fiction, which in turn is often very different from the grammatical characteristics of newspapers or academic books.
But why is it different? The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English takes its reader into new and uncharted territory for a grammar, by suggesting the reasons why we choose a particular structure in a particular context.
- Entirely corpus-based grammar of English.
- Over 350 tables and graphs showing the frequency of constructions across different registers, from conversation to fiction to academic prose.
- 6,000 authentic examples from the Longman Corpus Network.
- British English and American English grammar compared.
- New and challenging findings.
- Reveals the differences between spoken and written English.
Book Features
- Examines patterns of use in the news, fiction, and academic English.
- It takes grammar and vocabulary together and looks at how they interact.
- It is based on the analysis of 40 million words of British and American, written and spoken corpus text.
- Uses over 3000 examples of real, corpus English to illustrate the points.
- Uses frequency tables and graphs to make the new findings of this grammar clear.
