David Crystal & Shakespeare’s Words
Professor David Crystal, OBE, co-founder of Crystal Semantics, designer of Shakespeare’s Words website, author and linguist
Crystal Semantics Limited is an innovative Web marketing technology that makes use of Crystal’s research into semantics. The company, launched in 2001, ‘is the result of 8 years and $8 million investment in research and its ground breaking technology harnesses human linguistic intuition” (Lexdon, n.d.) based on Crystal’s long career studying the English language. The company uses semantic categorization to match content on websites with on-line advertising. In addition to delivering ads with some connection to the web content, it also protects the brand name from negative or damaging connections (such as a McDonald’s ad appearing alongside an article on childhood obesity). iSense and SiteScreen are two products developed by Crystal Reference System Limited, another company founded and chaired by David; both this and Crystal Semantics became a subsidiary of ad pepper media, which provides the content-matching service iSense. The brand protection service, SiteScreen, is operated by Emediate ApS, also owned by ad pepper media. The three companies are based in Europe, and offer services in 18 European languages. With David Crystal’s dedication to linguists and semantics, he has assured that English will be the primary language of the Internet, and he is “a proponent of a new field of studies, Internet linguistics. (Wikipedia)
More impressive is the work put into creating a free on-line resource called Shakespeare’s Words, a product of Crystal Reference System Ltd., designed in collaboration with Penguin Books, creating encyclopedia and reference databases on-line. David and his son Ben, a professional actor, own and operate the website Shakespeare’s Words, a glossary of over 50,000 words found in the plays and poems. Not only are all these words succinctly described and searchable on the website, but David and Ben also make full-text versions of the play and poems available, based on the New Penguin Shakespeare editions. This huge undertaking is presented as an open learning resource, although as Murphy (2010) points out, “there is a certain amount of hard sell on the site” (p. 407) with several links to Amazon.com and PayPal, yet the plays and poems are presented ad-free and open to anyone with Internet access. While David and his son, along with fellow linguists, scholars and colleagues – Ian Saunders, the co-founder of Crystal Semantics and Reference System was also the website administrator for the first edition of Shakespeare’s Words – the two Crystals are just as interested in the current evolution of the English language as the early modern usage from the Renaissance. David Crystal is a world expert on semantics, and I am deeply inspired by his sustained interest and life-long career in trying to understand what other people mean. As my two main interests in my studies of educational technology are Shakespeare and the semantic web, I will continue to pay lots of attention to the enterprising professor.
Lexdon (n.d.). Crystal Semantics announces launch of new technology to end placement of ads alongside controversial content. Retrieved on Sept 28, 2011 from http://www.lexdon.com/article/crystal_semantics_announces_launch_of/57367.html
Murphy, A. (2010). Shakespeare goes digital: Three open Internet editions. Shakespeare Quarterly 61(3), 401-414.
Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Everton Walker 4:10 pm on September 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting production. I like this idea of the site staving off bad commercials and yielding to the impact of multinational companies. The glossary idea is a great one as it facilitates the linguistic idea perfectly. Although this is a major investment, I think it’s a rewarding one even if profit is not gained. I strongly believe that once persons are educated from such a venture, it is a natural success.
kstooshnov 10:03 pm on September 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Everton,
Like you, I am not a big fan of advertising in any form, and the less cluttered a website can be, the better. Of course, not all of them are bad, but even the good ones are manipulative in some way. I like the idea of designing a fabulous website freely accessible by all, but like the Dark Knight’s Joker says “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” David Crystal seems to have found the ideal balance between commerce (selling off Crystal Semantics and Reference System to ad pepper media) and his passion for linguistics, going back to Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language.
Deb Giesbrecht 5:19 pm on September 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting concept. I wonder how he got $8 million dollars rounded up by his investors?!
Great marketing campaign though and I am sure the payoff is well received. English has always been the language of business, but never thought of it as the language of the internet. Wonder if they put Spanish McDonalds ads together in Spanish websites?
kstooshnov 9:39 pm on September 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Deb,
Thanks for your comments, and something I learned while teaching English in Japan is the mercurial qualities of my native language. More than just adapting to other languages (sushi, kamikaze and otaku are familiar enough imported words), English takes almost every noun, adjective and some conjunctions can be made into a verb, for instance. I also found this great article by David Crystal explaining how Shakespeare’s words are not so far off from modern English, only 15% of his words are not commonly used today.
David William Price 4:43 pm on September 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting site… I think I’d prefer cursor-driven popups vs. searching in the sidebar.
kstooshnov 9:06 pm on September 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks David,
I agree, there are still lots of thing that could be improved with the website. Some interesting things are happening with Internet Shakespeare Editions published for the Internet by a team at the University of Victoria, with introductions, choices between different editions, and other clickable features, but there is no glossary at all. Hopefully both the Crystals and UVic keep tinkering with their sites.