On Tuesday, Exeter College had the privilege of inviting world renowned linguist, David Crystal in to talk to A Level English Language students.

After his lecture, we caught up with him about his visit.

Why do you think it's important to come to events like this and talk to students?

The subject of language has become so important, people are studying language all over the place. Language is front of everyone's eyes and it's not an easy subject because there's lots and lots of aspects of it. The vocabulary, the grammar, the pronunciation, the spelling, the way it's used, the accents, the dialects, the lot. So it requires a course, a proper course and A Level English Language has become hugely popular across the country, simply because it covers all these aspects of language. It relates them to present day activities, it isn’t just reading something in the past like how literature was, this is literature today and language being used today and so the kids love it and the enthusiasm is obvious. When I talk to a group like this they are clearly very enthused about the subject and it's because they can relate it to their own lives – their own accents, their own dialects, how children learn language – their brothers and sisters, how their parents use language differently from them and it all comes in together.

How did you get into languages? Was there a defining moment as a student where you knew this was the path you wanted to follow?

Oh yes, I think like most people you fall in love with your teachers ideas and enthusiasm and everything that happened to me at university college, the people who taught language there were just brilliant and I fell in love with language at that particular point. I’d always been interested in languages because I have a multi bilingual background, coming from Wales, but I’d never thought of myself as a linguist until I went to university college.

What do you hope students will get out of today?
What I hope is that they will get a reinforcement to the ideas that the teaching staff here have been putting to them officially in the syllabus. You treat your teachers a bit like Gods and at the same time you think they're just making all this up. Maybe it isn’t real out there but when someone like me comes in and says actually, the kind of things you have been taught over the last few months and the next few months are not just of importance here but they have importance everywhere. I explain that this really is an important subject, that there are aspects of it in my life that I shall tell you all about and suddenly it coincides with what the teachers have been saying and suddenly there's a new dimension of relevance that comes out of an occasion like this. Also, to be honest, a lot of them read my books, they're on the syllabus, so people have read them and they like to meet the author, like I do. When I go to literary festivals, I like to meet the author and to have the voice of the book in reality is an exciting moment.

You can find out more about David here.

@jarveybarvey @ExeterCollege @davcr Completely wonderful morning! It was thoroughly enjoyed by all

– Charlene (@Charlene_Norris) January 17, 2017