This book draws together a rich variety of perspectives on discourse as a facet of contemporary social change, representing a number of different disciplines, theoretical positions and methods. The specific focus of the volume is on discourse as a moment of social change, which can be seen to involve objects of research which comprise versions of some or all of the following research questions: How and where did discourses (narratives) emerge and develop? How and where did they achieve hegemonic status? How and where and how extensively have they been recontextualized? How and where and to what extent have they been operationalized? The dialectical approach indicated above implies that discourse analysis includes analysis of relations between language (more broadly, semiosis) and its social 'context'.

The Editors: Norman Fairclough is Emeritus Professor at Lancaster University, UK, and Emeritus Research Fellow in Lancaster's Institute for Advanced Studies. His research interests are centred upon taking a critical discourse-analytical 'point of entry' in interdisciplinary research on various aspects of contemporary social change, including the 'marketisation' of public services, changes in British politics, 'transition' in post-communist countries, the emergence of the 'knowledge-based economy', and globalization.

Giuseppina Cortese is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Turin. She has contributed to international journals, edited and co-edited volumes (with D. Hymes, P. Riley, A. Duszak) and published on the description, translation and cultural reception of academic/scientific texts in a sociolinguistic and methodological-didactic perspective. She has also researched gender, plurilingual education and, more recently, the discourse of human rights.

Patrizia Ardizzone is Professor of English at the University of Palermo (Faculty of Political Science). Her current research is mainly concerned with discourse analysis, textual and genre analysis of specialized discourse (in particular, the language of politics), bilingualism and translation.