John Bernard Pride

Background

John Pride was born on October 26, 1929, in the United Kingdom.

Education

John Pride began his education at the Royal Naval College. Later he served in the British Navy and then the Forestry service before beginning to study English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University in 1954. He graduated in 1958 with First Class Honours.

Career

John Pride started his career as a professor of English. He taught in a number of places including Edinburgh University, Gothenburg University in Sweden, and in Somalia and Mongolia. In 1965, he took up a post of a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of Leeds. He held this post until 1969 and became a professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington. Pride retired from the university in 1985 due to ill health and returned to England where he spent his retirement in Cornwall and then Hampshire.

John Pride published his book The Social Meaning of Language in 1971. In 1984, he wrote such books as Parents and Reading: A Case Study in Competence and Prestige and Sociolinguistic Aspects Of Language Learning And Teaching was published. His last book New Englishes was published in 1982. He also was an editor of such books as Language for the Third World Universities and Cross-Cultural Encounters: Communication and Mis-Communication.

Achievements

• John Pride was an English educator, writer and editor who was famous for his books devoted to sociolinguistics. His famous books are The social meaning of language and New Englishes.
  
  John Pride also influenced the way English was taught in New Zealand secondary schools. He reformed the secondary school curriculum and added a wide range of topics that reflect his conviction that a sociolinguistic approach was essential for a proper understanding of how English works.

Works

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• book

  • New Englishes

    (In the present-day world, English is the major internatio...)

    1982
  • The Social Meaning of Language 1971
  • Sociolinguistic Aspects of Language Learning and Teaching 1979

Views

In his works, John Pride focussed on Variation and diversity in language use. His goal was to illustrate the complexity of real speech.

Personality

John Pride was an enthusiastic man with a remarkable ability to synthesize material from many very disparate sources.