The printed book has proved its usefulness, but Paragon Software wanted to create a mobile app that would allow users to make certain queries and find absolutely exact answers in a flash, study new grammar rules and understand how they work in real language,
look through related topics, and at the same time enrich their vocabularies.
The printed book has proved its usefulness, but Paragon Software wanted to create a mobile app that would allow users to make certain queries and find absolutely exact answers in a flash, study new grammar rules and understand how they work in real language,
look through related topics, and at the same time enrich their vocabularies.
Printed books provide language learners with a table of contents or an index, allowing them to quickly reach the page that will answer their question but mobile apps do not usually have pages at all. Furthermore, there are so many mobile devices these days, running a number of operating systems with their unique technology specifics, that Paragon Software wanted the app to be available for every language learner.
The software developers met this challenge by looking closely at the data structure and devising a deeply marked-up device-agnostic format that allows the use of mathematical algorithms to provide lightning-fast access to any word within the entire text of the printed book.
This fact made us take a closer look at the data structure and elaborate a deeply marked-up device-agnostic format, which can by means of some mathematic algorithms provide lightning-fast access to any word (!!!) of the whole print book.
This mark-up covers topical headwords, examples, rules, language considerations (eg, regional specifics, indications) as well as many other factors.
<grammarEntry id= "Se308" ><title >kinds of English <⁄title ><subtitle>(1): standard English and
dialects<⁄subtitle>
<section id= "unnumbered"
>
<block >‘A language is a dialect that has an army and a navy.’
(Max Weinreich)<⁄block>
<⁄selection>
<section id= "unnumbered">
<block>‘Dialect: A language variety that has everything going for
it, except the government, the
schools, the middle class, the law and the armed forces.’ (Tom McArthur)<⁄block>
<⁄selection>
<section id= "Se308se01"><
title>What is ‘standard English’?<⁄title>
<block>After King Alfred’s victory over the Vikings in 878, the
government of Southern England
came to be established in London, which later became the capital of the whole of Britain. Because of
this, the
English spoken in London and the East Midlands was gradually adopted as the ‘official’
variety of English. And as time went by, this dialect (and its later developments, profoundly influenced
by
Norman French), became the ‘standard’ language – the form of English generally
accepted for use in government, the law, business, education and literature. Standard English, like all
standard languages, is therefore largely the result of historical accident. If the Vikings, who held the
north of
England, had defeated Harold’s army, the capital of modern Britain might well be York, and this
book would be written in (and about) a very different kind of English.<⁄block>
<⁄selection>
<section id= "Se308se02"
>< title >What is a dialect?<⁄ title >
<block>Many people think that dialects are corrupted forms of a language,
spoken by ignorant people who
make mistakes because they have not learnt correct grammar. This is not at all true (for more about
correctness, see 309< anchor id= "Se308se02a1" ⁄>). A standard language is not linguistically
‘better’ than other dialects; it is simply the dialect that has been adopted for official
purposes such as government and education. All English dialects have a long history, going back to the
distinct forms of speech of the Germanic and Scandinavian invaders who came from various parts of
northern
Europe to occupy Britain during the Middle Ages. And each of these dialects has a grammar that is as
rich
and systematic as standard English, even though it may be very different. Some examples of English
dialect
forms:<⁄block>
<⁄selection>
<⁄grammarEntry>
Development Stage 2. How should the information be presented on a small mobile device? Mobile platform integration.
Paragon Software has been developing and improving its proprietary cross-platform Slovoed dictionary technology for over a decade and brought this expertise to turn one of the world's most authoritative English reference tools into an app for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.
The most advanced and fastest program shell on the market gave Swan's reference guide data:
— a very complete Index;
— the thematically-organized Contents Overview;
— the A-Z list of entries.
Each of these lists can be scrolled, or more conveniently searched by entering the keywords the user is interested in, e.g. future, conditionals, 'have'.
The Slovoed technology provides other useful language-learning tools, including:
— cross-references;
— favorite entries;
— search history;
Now introducing the Practical English Usage app: Michael Swan's vital reference tool that helps teachers and higher-level learners of English
