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Grammatical Complexity in Academic English: Linguistic Change in Writing

Hardback

Main Details

Title Grammatical Complexity in Academic English: Linguistic Change in Writing
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Douglas Biber
By (author) Bethany Gray
SeriesStudies in English Language
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:292
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 157
Category/Genrelinguistics
ISBN/Barcode 9781107009264
ClassificationsDewey:808.042
Audience
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Illustrations 31 Tables, black and white; 48 Line drawings, black and white

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 26 May 2016
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Grammatical Complexity in Academic English uses corpus-based analyses to challenge a number of dominant stereotypes and assumptions within linguistics. Biber and Gray tackle the nature of grammatical complexity, demonstrating that embedded phrasal structures are as important as embedded dependent clauses. The authors also overturn ingrained assumptions about linguistic change, showing that grammatical change occurs in writing as well as speech. This work establishes that academic writing is structurally compressed (rather than elaborated); that it is often not explicit in the expression of meaning; and that scientific academic writing has been the locus of some of the most important grammatical changes in English over the past 200 years (rather than being conservative and resistant to change). Supported throughout with textual evidence, this work is essential reading for discourse analysts, sociolinguists, and applied linguists, as well as descriptive linguists and historical linguists.

Author Biography

Douglas Biber is Regents' Professor of Applied Linguistics in the English Department at Northern Arizona University. Bethany Gray is Assistant Professor of English (Applied Linguistics and Technology) at Iowa State University.

Reviews

'This book is most useful for linguists or academic scholars interested in language change, textual features (especially as those features intersect with communicative or social functions), and/or corpus-based research.' Jessie Sams, Linguist List