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David Crystal Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

David Crystal
Photo: Crystal Business Partnership

David Crystal

David Crystal Biography

David works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster. Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1941, he spent his early years in Holyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951, and he received his secondary schooling at St Mary's College. He read English at University College London (1959-62), specializing in English language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk (1962-3), then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading.

He published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.

He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor.

David Crystal's website

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Books by this Author

Books by David Crystal at BookBrowse
Spell It Out jacket The Story of English in One Hundred Words jacket A Little Book of Language jacket By Hook or By Crook jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for David Crystal but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • David Bellos

    David Bellos

    David Bellos is the director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University, where he is also a professor of French and comparative literature. He has won many awards for his ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Spell It Out

    Try:
    Is That a Fish in Your Ear?
    by David Bellos

  • Guy Deutscher

    Guy Deutscher

    Guy Deutscher is the author of Through the Language Glass and The Unfolding of Language. Formerly a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Languages at the University of Leiden ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Spell It Out

    Try:
    Through the Language Glass
    by Guy Deutscher

We recommend 8 similar authors

View all 8 Read-Alikes

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