David Crystal Biography

David works from his home in Holyhead North Wales as a writer editor lecturer and broadcaster. Born in Lisburn Northern Ireland in 1941 he spent his early years in Holyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951 and he received his secondary schooling at St Mary’s College. He read English at University College London (1959-62) specialised in English language studies did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk (1962-3) then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics first at Bangor then at Reading. He published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964 and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies in such fields as intonation and stylistics and in the application of linguistics to religious educational and clinical contexts notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales Bangor.
David Crystal’s authored works are mainly in the field of language including several Penguin books but he is perhaps best known for his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Recent books include The Story of English in 100 Words (2011) and Spell it out: the singular story of English spelling (2012). Co-authored books include Words on Words (2000 a dictionary of language quotations compiled with his wife and business-partner Hilary - Wheatley Medal 2001) and Shakespeare’s Words (2002) and The Shakespeare Miscellany (2005) the last two in collaboration with his actor son Ben. A new book with Hilary Crystal Wordsmiths and Warriors: the English-language Tourist's guide to Britain was published in September 2013. Other Shakespeare work includes a regular article for the magazine of Shakespeare’s Globe Around the Globe. Think On My Words an introduction to Shakespeare’s language appeared in 2008. All Shakespeare books can be viewed at The Shakespeare Portal.

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