LEGENDARY PROFESSOR DAVID CRYSTAL at IATEFL POLAND CONFERENCE
THE OPENING PLENARY AT THE CONFERENCE WILL BE PRESENTED BY THE LEGENDARY PROFESSOR DAVID CRYSTAL! |
If you have ever used a Cambridge University Press dictionary, then the person responsible for compiling it was probably Professor Crystal!
He is probably best-known for producing 2 encyclopaedias – ‘The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language’, and the ‘Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language’. His talks about ‘Englishes’ and the ‘History of the English Language’ are also renowned for their immense depth and detail, as well as a wonderful sense of humour. I was lucky enough to be in an ELT audience at the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw, many years ago, and David Crystal’s talk about how English became the dominant language around the world was amazing – it lasted nearly three hours, and the audience literally groaned when he finally drew it to a close. It was the best presentation I have ever seen, and still remains in ‘my first place!’ I’m so pleased I got the chance to tell him so.
For those of you who don’t know David Crystal so well, here are some more details about him. He works as an editor, lecturer, broadcaster, and writer. His academic interests include English language learning and teaching, English genre, Shakespeare, indexing, lexicography, and much more. He is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Patron of IATEFL and the Association for Language Learning (ALL), President of the UK National Literacy Association, and a number of other institutes.
At our conference, he will represent the company he has been associated with for many years, Cambridge University Press, and his plenary session will open the conference on Friday the 17th of September at 12.15.
His topic? ‘The Future of Englishes’, will examine the consequences of the global status of English for the future development of the language. His talk will review the relevant statistics, the historical reasons for the language’s present position, and the trends which are affecting English world-wide, both formally (in relation to grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary), and functionally (in relation to cultural diversity). Implications for language teaching will be briefly discussed.
What a wonderful start to our 30th-anniversary conference, this will be!
author: Peter Whiley
