This new edition of David Crystal's classic book is the definitive survey of English in all its global variations. Despite the astonishingly widespread use of English, each speaker makes it their own. Whenever we write or speak we give away a great deal about ourselves by our choices in pronunciation, dialect, vocabulary and grammar. This fascinating book explores the way the language has developed, and examines the factors that unify it and the variations that divide it both nationwide and worldwide. Now completely revised, The English Language takes into account the phenomenal influence of the Internet as well as social and political changes, recent neologisms, developments in the media and shifting preferences in accent and dialect. There is also a new chapter on the effect of technology on English and a final discussion of the future of the language. Book jacket.