Web resources

General resources

linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics: The web site of the Linguistic Society of America contains a section "What is Linguistics" that contains a large number of pamphlets written by well-known linguistics on topics ranging from "multilingualism", to "language variation and change", to "language acquisition".
linguistlist.org: This is the main listserv in the field of linguistics. You may search the archives of the Linguist list for any topic in language that interests you. There is a high probability that it has been discussed on the list at some time. There is also an "Ask a Linguist" section: linguistlist.org/ask-ling.
americandialect.org: This is the web site of the American Dialect Society. Its listserv contains discussions of a large range of topic. The "Words of the Year" section makes interesting reading.
bartleby.com/186: You will find here the full text of Edward Sapir's classic introduction to linguistics, An Introduction to the Study of Speech.
ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/index.htm: This is the link to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare, which provides access to many of MIT's linguistics courses.
ted.com/topics/language: This is a list of some of the TED talks on language.
lingforum.com: This is a forum for the general discussion of linguistics, with specialized subfora.
martinweisser.org/courses/intro/intro.html: Martin Weisser of Chemnitz University of Technology presents his introduction to linguistics. It is clearly written and accessible.
homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/linguistics%20links.htm: Karen Chung maintains this very comprehensive list of language and linguistics links.
youtube.com/channel/UCxcu3XYwahHVs_3R_WGRGDQ: This YouTube channel airs videos that encompass the broader field of linguistics.
ethnologue.com: This website supplies statistics concerning the use of English (and other languages) worldwide.

Linguistic terminology

www2.let.uu.nl/Uil-OTS/Lexicon: This "Lexicon of Linguistics" is produced at Utrecht University.
sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/Index.htm: The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) has an extensive glossary of terms.
ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/frames/glossary.htm: The Internet Grammar (see below) contains a "Glossary of Terms", which might prove useful.
glottopedia.de/index.php/Main_Page: This is a free dictionary of linguistics (modeled on Wikipedia) under the direction of Sven Naumann and Jan Wohlgemuth. It is not complete but already has many helpful entries.
nativlang.com/linguistics/linguistic-terms-dictionary.php: This is a brief, but useful glossary of terms.
usingenglish.com/glossary.html: This is a list of linguistic terminology designed for ESL speakers but useful for all students of grammar and linguistics.

Dictionaries and thesauruses

public.oed.com/about: The Oxford English Dictionary is the premier source of information about English vocabulary. Libraries often have subscriptions to the online version, which may be searched electronically.
merriam-webster.com: This is a commercial online dictionary and thesaurus available from Merriam-Webster.
yourdictionary.com: This is a commercial online dictionary.
visualthesaurus.com: This is a 3-D thesaurus of English which allows you to explore sense relations in the language.
visuwords.com: Similar to the above website is Visuwords, another online graphical dictionary that allows users to view a word and its entire lexical field.
thesaurus.com: This is an online thesaurus by dictionary.com. See the 1911 edition of Roget's thesaurus at: machaut.uchicago.edu/rogets
wordsmyth.net: This is another online dictionary and thesaurus.
thefreedictionary.com: The Free Dictionary by Farlex contains a dictionary, lists of acronyms and idioms, among other sources.
urbandictionary.com: The Urban Dictionary is a comprehensive resource on English slang. Caution: contains offensive language.
itools.com/lang: This metasite allows easy access to a variety of dictionaries, thesauruses, word translators, and other interesting tools.
phrases.org.uk/index.html: The Phrase Finder provides both an online thesaurus of phrases and sayings and a bulletin board that allows you to query the origin of a phrase or saying.

Grammar

ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar: This web site contains a grammar compiled at the University College London. It is also available in an app.
papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_126/book126.htm: This "The HyperTextBook Modern English Grammar" is written by Daniel Kies.
edufind.com/english/grammar/index.php: This site contains an online grammar and other sources.
library.utoronto.ca/utel/language/Grammar.htm: A brief review of English traditional grammar by A.G. Rigg of the University of Toronto.

Phonetics and phonology

internationalphoneticassociation.org: This is the web site of the International Phonetic Association. You will find a full IPA chart and various other resources here.
phonetics.ucla.edu/index.html: Peter Ladefoged's online version of his books A Course in Phonetics, 5th edn., and Vowels and Consonant, 2nd edn., provide a wealth of material on English phonology, including pronunciations.
unc.edu/~jlsmith/pht-url.html: Jennifer Smith maintains an excellent website with online resources.
fonetiks.org: The sounds of the different dialects of English are exemplified here.
home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/: This is Kevin Russell's (University of Manitoba) course on phonology. It includes practice transcribing and reading transcriptions.
chass.utoronto.ca/%7Estairs/phthong/phthong100.html: This course in phonetics is written by Henry Rogers and Michael Stairs of the University of Toronto.
smu-facweb.smu.ca/~s0949176/sammy/: Designed by Daniel Currie Hall, this website shows the position of the articulators for the different speech sounds along with the relevant IPA symbol.
nativlang.com/linguistics/ipa-pronunciation-lessons.php: Joshua Rudder's website provides an introduction to phonetics.

Morphology

www2.hawaii.edu/~bender/toc.html: Byron Bender provides a short discussion of English morphology.

Syntax

lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/overview.html: An overview of English syntax based on The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

Semantics

semanticsarchive.net: This is a website for scholars working in the area of semantics. It can be searched by topic and contains a "semantics resources" section.

Pragmatics

carla.umn.edu/speechacts: This site, from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) provides information on pragmatics and speech acts.
universalteacher.org.uk/lang/pragmatics.htm: This is a discussion of topics in pragmatics, including speech acts and the given/new distinction.
thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2011/02/rsa-animate---language-as-a-window-into-human-nature/: In this entertaining RSA animate feature, Harvard psycholinguist Steven Pinker explains why human beings use indirect speech acts.

Lexicon

wordsmith.org/awad/index.html: Wordsmith is an online community of individuals from over 170 countries who chat about words. A popular feature of the website is A Word a Day.
cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html: This is Alan Cooper's list of English homonyms.
youtube.com/user/MerriamWebsterOnline/videos: In the popular Merriam Webster "Ask the Editor" series, editors explain differences between commonly confused and misused words.
wordnet.princeton.edu: This site, directed by George A. Miller, provides a comprehensive lexical database of the English language.
wordwizard.com/index.php: Wordwizard focuses on contemporary English usage and the origins of English words and sayings.
languagemonitor.com: The Global Language Monitor documents the astounding growth of vocabulary in English: approximately one new word every 98 minutes.
worldwidewords.org: This is another site listing new words appearing in English.
victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/: The University of Wellington, New Zealand houses Averil Coxhead's Academic Word List: the most frequently used words in academic English.
lextutor.ca: The Compleat Lexical Tutor is a web-based tool that can assist language learners in their acquisition of vocabulary. It includes a wide range of features such as a concordance, a word frequency list, and a cloze passage generator.
lognostics.co.uk/: Lognostics, maintained by Paul Meara, provides useful tools for those interested in vocabulary acquisition research with second language speakers. The archives contain most of what has been written on second language vocabulary acquisition since the 1970s.
victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation: This is the website of New Zealand Applied Linguist Paul Nation, known for his work on vocabulary acquisition. Here you can download the General Service List and the Academic Word List, among other useful vocabulary resources.

Corpus linguistics

natcorp.ox.ac.uk: The British National Corpus contains a wide variety of spoken and written samples of British English from a wide range of sources. The BNC may also be accessed from Mark Davies' web site: corpus.byu.edu/bnc
corpus.byu.edu: Mark Davies of Brigham Young University has designed a range of user-friendly, online corpora, including the Corpus of Contemporary American English (used in this textbook), the Time Corpus, the Corpus of Historical American English, the Strathy Corpus (of Canadian English), and several others. One may also access a portion of Google Books via his website.
youtube.com/user/TheGrammarLab: "The Grammar Lab" is a set of four excellent tutorials on using the Corpus of Contemporary American English, including one tutorial on prescriptive and descriptive grammar.
books.google.com/ngrams: Google Ngram Viewer allows you to search Google books.
google.com/advanced_search: This allows you to search all of Google Books, and you may limit your searches in various ways.
ice-corpora.net/ice/index.htm: The International Corpus of English is an international project that allows users to search corpora of regional Englishes around the world, both spoken and written.
icame.uib.no: The International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English is a project which collects and distributes information on English language corpora.
helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/: The Varieng research group at the University of Helsinki maintains a complete listing of available English-language corpora.

Varieties of English

ic-migration.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/icfiles/ic/lsp/site/: This website is maintained by The Language Samples Project (LSP), a project developed in the Anthropology Department of the University of Arizona. It gives information on a number of British and North American varieties.
ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html: This is the website for The North American Atlas Project (University of Pennsylvania) directed by William Labov.
uni-due.de/SVE: This is Raymond Hickey's excellent website on varieties of English.
www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html: This link presents the results of a dialect survey of over 30,000 U.S. English speakers targeting pronunciation of certain lexical items and lexical choice.
hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html: Jack Sidnell's site, African American Vernacular English (Ebonics), includes a comprehensive description of this variety.
evolpub.com/Americandialects/AmDialLnx.html: This website provides many links to resources on varieties of English spoken in the United States, Canada, and the West Indies.
angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html: For fun - This online quiz helps native speakers of U.S. English to determine if they are a Yankee (from the North) or a Dixie (from the South).
microsyntax.sites.yale.edu: The Yale Diversity Project records dialect diversity in syntactic structures in the varieties of English spoken in North America.
phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary: This website provides a comprehensive discussion of Estuary English, a developing dialect of British English in and around London and the southeast of England.
macquariedictionary.com.au: The Macquarie Dictionary is the most comprehensive online resource for Australian English.
uni-due.de/IERC: The Irish English Resource Center provides an Irish English atlas along with sound files of its regional variants and numerous other resources.
hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/index.html: This website contains descriptions of a variety of English dialects, pidgins, and creoles.
scots-online.org/grammar/sse.htm: Information on Standard Scottish English is available on this website.
satocenter/langnet/definitions/singlish.html: Here is a comprehensive description of "Singlish" written by Anthea Fraser Gupta.
accent.gmu.edu: The Speech Accent Archive reproduces the accented speech of speakers from many different language backgrounds (both native and non-native English speakers) reading the same sample paragraph.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6303D94B68C71D1D: In this YouTube channel from Macmillan Education, renowned applied linguist David Crystal presents a series of illuminating short talks on global English.
gazzaro.it/accents/files/accents2.html: Gabriele Azzaro's Worldwide Accents of English provides a wealth of sound files containing samples of dialectal varieties of English.

Animal communication

animallanguageinstitute.org: This is the website of the Animal Language Institute, whose mission is to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of the communication systems of other species.
acp.eugraph.com: This compilation of texts, images, sounds, videos, and links comes to us from the Animal Communication Project.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text: This article on "Animal Minds", from the National Geographic website, provides up-to-date information on research that is being conducted on animal communication.
ted.com/talks/einstein_the_parrot_talks_and_squawks.html: In this TED talk, Einstein the parrot and her trainer Stephanie White illustrate Einstein's astounding command of human language.
ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jane_goodall_on_what_separates_us_from_the_apes.html: In this TED talk, the internationally recognized authority on the primate world Jane Goodall notes that all that separates humans from primates is human's sophisticated use of language.
ted.com/talks/peter_tyack_the_intriguing_sound_of_marine_mammals: Behavioral ecologist Peter Tyack studies acoustic communication in whales and dolphins. In this TED talk, he explains how these animals communicate via sound and song.
blog.ted.com/talking-with-animals-7-examples-of-interspecies-communication/: In the Ted talk "Talking with Animals" behavioral biologist Denise Herzing discusses advances in humans communicating with marine mammals.
ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write: In this Ted talk Susan Savage-Rumbaugh discusses the breakthroughs that she has made working with bonobo apes, who show a great capacity to understand human language.
speakdolphin.com/home.cfm: This site provides comprehensive information on research being conducted on dolphin communication.
video.pbs.org/video/1778560467/: This video about Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research with parrots examines the issue of whether parrots actually understand what they are saying.
koko.org/: This is the website of The Gorilla Foundation, dedicated to the study of gorilla communication. Here you can find information on Project Koko, a most comprehensive interspecies communication study involving humans and gorillas.

Blogs

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll: This blog, run out of the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania, contains commentary on a wide range of issues related to language and cognition.
yek.me.uk: This blog by Jack Windsor Lewis discusses issues of phonetics and general linguistics.
virtuallinguist.typepad.com: Susan Purcell's blog "The Virtual Linguist" covers a range of general issues about language.
vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/: The blog Vocabulogic is maintained by Susan Ebbers along with guest contributors. In addition to its regular blog posts on vocabulary, the site contains an extensive list of links on blogs and online tools, morphology and etymology, and resources for teaching English language learners.
mr-verb.blogspot.com: Mr. Verb, a blog site contributed to by "Team Verb", covers a wide range of linguistic topics in a highly accessible manner.
arnoldzwicky.org: Arnold Zwicky, Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University, characterizes this blog as "mostly about language".
phonetic-blog.blogspot.ca: This is the blog maintained by John Wells, the eminent British phonetician.
illinois.edu/blog/view/25: Dennis Baron's "Web of Language" contains both serious and humorous reflections on language.
david-crystal.blogspot.ca: This blog is written by the well-known linguist David Crystal.
citizensociolinguistics.com/: Citizen Sociolinguistics is maintained by Betsy Rymes at the University of Pennsylvania. The blog explores everyday encounters with language, examining different ways of speaking and attitudes toward these differences.
blog.tesol.org/: This blog from the international organization Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages covers issues of socio-political importance for TESOL teachers as well as pedagogical tips for working with English language learners.

Teaching resources

owl.english.purdue.edu: Purdue University's online writing lab provides comprehensive guidance for teachers and students interested in grammar, style, and mechanics.
writingcenter.unc.edu/: The writing lab of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides numerous writing resources for students and teachers.
iteslj.org: The Internet TESL Journal provides methodological resources for teachers of English as a second or foreign language.
nystesol.org/eslsites.html: New York State's affiliate of the international organization Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages provides a wealth of links for teachers of English as a second/foreign language.
catesol.org/resources.aspx: California's affiliate of the international organization Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages provides numerous links of interest for teachers of English as a second/foreign language.
teachingenglish.org.uk/: The British Council's website provides access to publications, lesson plans, webinars, professional development resources, and a host of other useful resources.

Spelling and usage

infoplease.com/cig/grammar-style/spelling-demons.html: This online resource provides a list of common spelling demons.
grammar.quickanddirtytips.com: Grammar Girl provides a helpful, searchable database for questions of style and usage.
http:/andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing: This guide to grammar and style compiled by Jack Lynch of Rutgers University contains helpful guidance for writing papers along with a list of useful style manuals.
wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html: Common Errors in English Usage by Paul Brians contains a very comprehensive and entertaining list of errors in spelling and usage.
bartleby.com/people/Fowler-H.html: This link allows users to search the 2nd edition of H. W. Fowler's classic, The King's English (1908), for answers to usage questions.

Linguistic humor

ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/contents.html: This compilation of linguistic humor is maintained by Beatrice Santorini of the University of Pennsylvania.
engrish.com: This website is devoted to collecting humorous examples of the English of non-native English speakers. Caution: Some adult content.
nytimes.com/2009/09/03/fashion/03accent.html?_r=2: This is an amusing article from the New York Times on "upper crust" accents of North American English.
paulnoll.com/Books/Clear-English/English-European.html: This brief humorous piece examines what would happen to the English language if it became the official language of the European Union.
spellingsociety.org/uploaded_misc/poems-online-misc.pdf: These humorous poems play upon the many ways in which English vowels may be pronounced.