The Oxford Companion to the English Language provides an authoritative single-volume source of information about the English language. It is intended both for reference and for browsing. The first edition of this landmark Companion, published in 1998, adopted a strong international perspective, covering topics from Cockney to Creole, Aboriginal English to Caribbean English and a historical range from Chaucer to Chomsky, Latin to the World Wide Web. It succinctly described and discussed the English language at the end of the twentieth century, including its distribution and varieties, its cultural, political, and educational impact worldwide, its nature, origins, and prospects, and its pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, word-formation, and usage.

This new edition notably focuses on World Englishes, English language teaching, English as an international language, and the effect of technological advances on the English language. More than 130 new entries include African American English, British Sign Language, China English, digital literacy, multimodality, social networking, superdiversity, and text messaging, among many others. It also includes new biographical entries on key individuals who have had an impact on the English language in recent decades, including Beryl (Sue) Atkins, Adam Kilgariff, and John Sinclair.

It is an invaluable reference for English Language students, and fascinating reading for any general reader with an interest in language.

Tom McArthur's profile page

Jacqueline Lam-McArthur's profile page

Lise Fontaine's profile page

Tom McArthur is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, London, 2002-, and the founder editor of the quarterly journal English Today (CUP), serving from 1984-2007. He was also Director of the Extra-Mural Centre for English Language Studies at the University of Edinburgh (1979-84), and Associate Professor of English at the Université du Québec, Canada, (1979-84). Since 1985 he has been an editor, writer, lecturer, and ELT consultant. He has broadcast with the BBC (UK), CBC (Canada), and ABC (Australia), and has lectured and presented papers in over twenty countries.

Jacqueline Lam-McArthur is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists; Chief Moderator for the Diploma in Translation (DipTrans) and the International Diploma in Bilingual Communications (IDBC) at the Institute of Linguists, London; and examiner, marker, and vetter for Chinese (Putonghua/Mandarin and Cantonese) for the Diplomatic Service Language Allowance Examination at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.

Lise Fontaine is a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University in the Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) where she lectures mainly on functional grammar, word meaning, corpus linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her research interests include functional grammar theory and, more specifically, the study of referring expressions as realised in the noun phrase. In addition to publishing over 20 articles and book chapters, she is the author of Analyzing English Grammar: A systemic-functional introduction (CUP, 2012). She has also co-edited Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice (CUP, 2013); Choice in Language (Equinox, 2013); Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable Theory of Language (Routledge, printing), and The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (CUP, printing).