- Ruth Wodak
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Lancaster University, Linguistics and English Language, Faculty Member
Ruth Wodak is Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies at Lancaster University since 1/9/2004 (personal chair). She moved from Vienna, Austria, where she was full professor of Applied Linguistics, University Vienna, since 1991 (she is still supervising PhD students at the Department of Linguistics, University Vienna).Ruth is past-president of the Societas Linguistica Europea. On February 6, 2010, Ruth was awarded an honorary doctorate by University Orebro, Sweden. In September 2010, Ruth became member of the Academia Europaea. On December 19, 2011, Ruth was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria (Großes Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich) (see https://plus.google.com/photos/108476165525172811802/albums/5689034182536784017?authkey=CPjX67rShNuptQE&banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/108476165525172811802/albums/5689034182536784017for some details of the ceremony).
Besides various other prizes, Ruth was awarded the Wittgenstein Prize for Elite Researchers in 1996 which made six years of continuous interdisciplinary team research possible. The main projects focused on "Discourses on Un/employment in EU organizations; Debates on NATO and Neutrality in Austria and Hungary; The Discursive Construction of European Identities; Attitudes towards EU-Enlargement; Racism at the Top: Parliamentary Debates on Immigration in Six EU countries; The Discursive Construction of the Past - Individual and Collective Memories of the German Wehrmacht and the Second World War." In October 2006, she was awarded the Woman's Prize of the City of Vienna.
Her research is mainly located in Discourse Studies (DS) and in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Together with her former colleagues and Ph.D students in Vienna (Rudolf de Cillia, Gertraud Benke, Helmut Gruber, Florian Menz, Martin Reisigl, Usama Suleiman, Christine Anthonissen), she elaborated the "Discourse-Historical Approach in CDA" (DHA) in the 1990s which is interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, and analyzes the change of discursive practices over time and in various genres.
She is member of the editorial board of a range of linguistic journals, co-editor of the journals Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Studies (with John Richardson andPhil Graham) and Journal of Language and Politics (with Paul Chilton). Together with Greg Myers, Ruth edits the book series DAPSAC (Benjamins) (the most recently published monograph in the DAPSAC series is Journalism and Politics).
Ruth has held visiting professorships in Uppsala, Stanford University, University of Minnesota, and Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. In the spring 2004, she had a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. 2007, she was awarded the Kerstin Hesselgren Chair of the Swedish Parliament and stayed at University of Örebro, Sweden, from March to June 2008.
Ruth's main research agenda focus the development of theoretical approaches in discourse studies (combining ethnography, argumentation theory, rhetoric, and text linguistics); organizational communication; identity politics and politics of the past; language and/in politics; racism, prejudice and discrimination.
2010, a special issue of the European Journal of Cultural Studies, edited by Lynne Pearce (English Department, Lancaster) and Ruth was published , focusing the construction of regional and national identities in the media and in fiction. A special issue of Critical Discourse Studies together with John E. Richardson (Newcastle) on 'Discourse, History, and Memory' was published in October 2009. In this special issue, we present a range of different discourse theoretical approaches to the discursive construction of memory and the past(s). Another special issue ( The Journal of Language and Politics) is dedicated to New Discourses in Contemporary China (edited by Paul Chilton, Hailong Tian and Ruth Wodak) (2010). This special issue will be published as edited volume in 2012, updated and revised (Benjamins).
The edited volume Memory and Justice (Passagen Verlag, Vienna), co-edited with Gertraud Auer (Kreisky Forum, Vienna) was also published in November 2009. This volume is dedicated to European and more global, transnationalaspects of commemoration and to the many ways societies deal with traumatic pasts. Moreover, Ruth has just published (together with P. Kerswill and B. Johnstone) a new comprehensive Handbook of Sociolinguistics (2010). Ruth's monograph The discourse of politics in action: politics as usual has been published in June 2011 in paperback (second revised edition, Palgrave). The co-edited book, with Gerard Delanty and Paul Jones, Migration, Identity and Belonging has also just been published as paperback in March 2011 (Liverpool Univ. Press).
Moreover, two edited volumes are in press: Analysing European Fascism: Fascism in Text and Talk (co-edited with John Richardson, Routledge 2012); Rightwi
Phone: +441524592437
Address: County South
Department of Linguistics and English Language
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YL