Spoken English

Spoken English: The Basics offers a clear, non-jargonistic introduction to what the study of spoken English entails, ranging from its basic phonology and the grammar and vocabulary of speaking to the role of speaking in society. The book describes and illustrates how spoken English is used in a globalised and technology-led world, using data from a range of contexts.
Key features of this book include:
- An introduction to the basics of the study of phonology, accents, and dialects
- Discussions of the role of AI and its educational and language teaching applications
- Examples from British English data, but with reference to spoken data from other varieties of English including North American English, Indian English, Hong Kong English, South African English, Kenyan English, Irish English, Caribbean English, second language learners and expert non-native users
Featuring a glossary of key terms, this book will be of interest to students of several sub-disciplines where spoken English is involved, including corpus linguistics, ESOL/ELT, sociolinguistics, education and literacy, lingua franca and World English, among others, where often a knowledge of the workings of spoken language is assumed.

Michael McCarthy is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Nottingham, UK. He currently teaches academic English at Cambridge University, UK. He is author/co-author/editor of 58 books and 120 academic papers, has given talks and workshops in 46 countries, and has been involved in language teaching and applied linguistics for 58 years.
Steve Walsh is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. He has published 10 books and more than 100 research papers, and has been involved in English Language Teaching and English language teacher education for more than 30 years in diverse contexts, including in Spain, Hong Kong, China, Poland, Hungary and Thailand.