Hardcover, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English [Hardcover]

Douglas Biber (Author), Stig Johansson (Author), Geoffrey Leech (Author), Susan Conrad (Author), Edward Finegan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0582237254 | ISBN-13: 978-0582237254 | Publication Date: November 5, 1999

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a revolutionary, corpus-based reference grammar of English, based on a groundbreaking research project to analyze the ways in which English grammar is really used. The book looks at four text types ¿ conversation, fiction, news reportage, and academic prose ¿ and reports statistical findings as well as examining the reasons that condition a particular grammatical choice.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a revolutionary, corpus-based reference grammar of English, based on a groundbreaking research project to analyze the ways in which English grammar is really used. The book looks at four text types ¿ conversation, fiction, news reportage, and academic prose ¿ and reports statistical findings as well as examining the reasons that condition a particular grammatical choice.

• Encompasses a six-year research project into the ways in which language is really used.
• Reveals which structures, tenses, and lexical choices occur, and how their distribution differs in different text types.
• Analyzes natural language in each chapter, based on analysis of the real everyday conversations in the Longman Spoken American Corpus and the British National Corpus.
• Contains over 350 tables and graphs that show the frequency of constructions across different registers, from conversation to fiction to academic prose.

About the Author

Douglas Biber is Professor of Applied Linguistics (English Department) at Northern Arizona University. His books and articles deal with language use in spoken and written discourse.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1203 pages
• Publisher: Pearson ESL (November 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582237254
• ISBN-13: 978-0582237254
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, May 13, 2002

By 

Kevin B. Cohen (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hardcover, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Hardcover)

This is an excellent descriptive grammar of the English language. A few months ago I compared several English grammars side-by-side, and this was one of the top two, the other being Quirk et al.'s far more [costly]work. In general, every construction is discussed in terms of a grammatical analysis (theory-neutral), quantitative analysis, and a functional analysis of the quantitative results. I've found the functional descriptions to be especially helpful.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A staggering body of work., January 21, 2008

By 

donmusic (Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hardcover, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Hardcover)

The years of work that went into this book have come to fruition in a stunning wealth of findings that will be indispensable in understanding the inner workings of English and of language in general. This is not a grammar textbook, as one reviewer seems to have mistaken it for. This is a description of English based on an immense corpus of authentic English text taken from spoken conversation, literature, academia, and news, in Britain and the U.S. For the corpus findings alone this book is worth every cent of its prestigious sticker price; there are many surprises and implications for English teachers, grammarians, linguists, and anyone who has a stake in British/American English language stereotypes. As a teacher of English for speakers of other languages, I can say that this book has been a serious eye opener, and has caused me to rethink content and how it is presented. When compared to a dreadful many English-learning materials (grammar texts, ESL texts, etc.), the corpus findings illuminate alarming discrepancies between how English really works, and how English is taught. This book provides, for example, the most commonly used verbs within registers, demonstrates how certain verbs have tendencies to appear in only one tense (or tense-aspect combination) or voice, and reveals that ellipsis (omission of a grammatically necessary part of the sentence, for example, "I want to," or "Feeling well?") occurs more often in British English than in American English. It is an invaluable resource, as well, for unexpected questions about things such as why relative pronouns can sometimes be omitted (a lady I know), but sometimes cannot (a lady who sings). Corpus linguistics can and should play a central role in describing and teaching language. The Longman Grammar is a mammoth achievement.

47 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The English Language Redefined, December 12, 1999

By 

Steven A. Stupak (Seoul, Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hardcover, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Hardcover)

This work redefines the English language. Working with a corpus of more than 40 million words, the authors conform every important grammatical point of the English language with its frequency in British and American speaking and writing. As a professional language tester, one of my greatest problems is the validation of my products. While I design products that withstand validation scrutiny, I have to admit, until now much of my success has been based on intuition rather than science. The LCSWE will be a tremendous boon to my work, as it should be to the work of professional English language testers the world over.