Professor Ruth Wodak

Professor of Discourse Studies

Degree: PhD (Vienna), Habilitation (Vienna)

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Centre for Language in Social Life, Cultural Political Economy, Institute for Advanced Studies, Language, Ideology and Power Group (LIP), Language Variation and Change

Current Teaching

Introduction to Discourse Studies

Critical Discourse Analysis

Politics of Language - Language Policies

Qualitative Methods of Text - and Discourse Analysis

Ethnography and Fieldwork

Research Interests

Ruth Wodak is 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 since 1991. She has stayed co-director of the Austrian National Focal Point (NFP) of the European Monitoring Centre for Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism (see http://www.eumc.eu.int for more information on the work of the EUMC and the NFP's) (now renamed European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights - FRA).

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 focussed 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 and in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Together with her 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" which is interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, and analyzes the change of discursive practices over time and in various genres.

Her main research agenda focus the development of theoretical approaches in discourse studies (combining ethnography, argumentation theory, rhetoric and functional systemic linguistics); gender studies; language and/in politics; prejudice and discrimination.

Currently, Ruth is studying 'everyday politics' in the European Parliament and communicative decision making procedures while contrasting these - on the one hand - withresearch in Political Sciences, on the other hand - with TV series, such as The West Wing and Im Kanzleramt (book in preparation: Politics as Usual: The Discursive Construction and Representation of Politics in Action, Palgrave). Moreover, four edited books are in press: The Construction of History. Remembering the War of Annilihation (with H. Heer, W. Manoschek, A. Pollak; Palgrave); Migration, Identity, and Belonging (with G. Delanty, P. Jones; Liverpool Univ. Press); Qualitative Discourse Analysis for the Social Sciences (with M. Krzyzanowski; Palgrave);Communication in the Public Sphere. Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 4(with V. Koller; De Gruyter). Michal Krzyzanowski and Ruth Wodak are also finalizing the book manuscript on Institutional and Every day Discrimination - The Austrian Case (Transaction Press) which summarizes findings of the EU project XENOPHOB (5th framework), for Austria.

She is member of the editorial board of a range of linguistic journals, co-editor of the journal Discourse and Society and editor of Critical Discourse Studies (together with Norman Fairclough, Phil Graham and Jay Lemke) and of the Journal of Language and Politics (together with Paul Chilton). Together with Greg Myers, Lancaster,Ruth edits the book series DAPSAC (Benjamins). She was also section editor of "Language and Politics" for the Second Edition of the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. She is chair of the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel for the EURYI award, in the European Science Foundation.

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. Recently, she was awarded the Karen Hesselgren Chair of the Swedish Parliament and will be staying at University of Örebro, Sweden, from March to June 2008.

Her current research projects include EMEDIATE (EU funded project, STREP programme, 2004-2007, on The Development of Media in the EU from 1953 up to 2004; coordinated by Bo Stråth, European University Institute, Florence); DYLAN (EU funded integrated project, 6th framework, coordinated by Anne-Claude Berthoud, Lausanne; on European Language Policies and their national, regional, and local implementation); 'New Discourses in Contemporary China' (NDCC) (together with Paul Chilton, Lancaster University); and 'Asylum-seekers and Refugees in the British Press' (funded by ESRC, together with Paul Baker, Lancaster University).

Ruth currently teaches on MA and PhD levels and supervises 15 PhD students at Lancaster University. She also convenes the LIP group (Language, Ideology, and Power) which meets every week during term times.

See full CV.

Some recent book publications

ANNOUNCEMENT:

New book in DAPSAC series: Wilson, John & Sharon Millar (2007) The Discourse of Europe. Benjamins

New book in DAPSAC series: Hodges, Adam & Chad Nilep (2007) Discourse, War & Terrorism. Benjamins.

New book in DAPSAC series: Goatly, Andrew (2007) Washing the Brain - Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Benjamins.

Other Selected Publications

Some of the papers below are downloadable. Click on the title to download.

Ruth Wodak (2007), Discourses in European Union organizations: Aspects of access, participation, and exclusion.' In: Charles Briggs (ed.) Four decades of epistemological revolution: Work inspired by Aaron V. Cicourel. Special Issue TEXT and TALK, Vol.27/ Issue 5/6, 655 - 680.

Ruth Wodak (2007), 'Turning the Tables: Anti-Semitic Discourse in Post-war Austria.' In: Teun van Dijk (ed.) Discourse Studies. Vol. V, London: Sage, 250 - 375 (reprinted from Discourse & Society 1991)

Rudolf de Cillia & Ruth Wodak (2007), 'Katastrophe und Wiedergeburt'. Zur diskursiven Konstruktion gemeinsamer Geschichte im Osterreich des Jahres 2005. In: Angelika Redder (Ed.) (2007): Diskurse und Texte. Festschrift fur Konrad Ehlich zum 65. Geburtstag. Tubingen: Stauffenberg Verlag, 117 - 128.

Ruth Wodak (2007), 'Grenzgänger zwischen den Gebieten und Kontinenten. Ein Vorbild.' in Ursula Seeber & Jacqueline Vansant (Eds.) Schwarz auf Weiß. Ein transatlantisches Würdigungsbuch für Egon Schwarz. Vienna: Czernin, 100-109.

Ruth Wodak and Rudolf de Cillia (2007), Commemorating the past: the discursive construction of official narratives about the Rebirth of the Second Austrian Republic. Discourse & Communication, 1(3), 337-363.

Ruth Wodak (2007): Review, Siegfried Jaeger & Dirk Halm (Eds.) (2007). Mediale Barrieren? Rassismus als Integrationshindernishttp://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-08/08-1-22-d.htm

Ruth Wodak (2007),'Doing Europe': the Discursive Construction of European Identities, in Discursive Constructions of Identity in European Politics Edited by Richard C.M. Mole, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 70-95.

Ruth Wodak (2007), Comment to Charles Briggs, 'Anthropology, Interviewing, and Communicability in Contemporary Society'. Current Anthropology 2007/48/4, 573.

Ruth Wodak (2007), AFTERWORD. "What Now?" - Some Reflections on the European Convention and its Implications, In: M. Krzyzanowski & F. Obetrhuber (2007): (Un)doing Europe. Bern: Peter Lang, 203- 216.

Ruth Wodak (2007), Editorial: Language and Ideology-Language in Ideology. Journal of Language and Politics 6/1, 1-6.

Kendall, Gavin (2007). What Is Critical Discourse Analysis? Ruth Wodak in Conversation With Gavin Kendall [38 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(2), Art. 29, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-07/07-2-29-e.htm.

Wodak, R. (2007) Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis. A cross-disciplinary Analysis. Pragmatics and Cognition. 15:1, 203-225.

Ruth Wodak & Scott Wright (2007), 'The European Union in Cyberspace: democratic Participation via Online Multilingual Discussion Boards, In: Brend Danet & Susan C. Herring (Eds.), The Multilingual Internet. Language, Culture, and Communication Online., Oxford: OUP, 385 - 407.

Wodak, R. (2006) Medical Discourse: Doctor-Patient Communication. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 7, pp. 681-687. Oxford: Elsevier.

Wodak R and de Cillia R (2006), Politics and Language: Overview. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 9, pp. 707-719. Oxford: Elsevier.

Wodak R (2006), Blaming and Denying: Pragmatics. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in- Chief) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 2, pp. 59-64.Oxford: Elsevier.

Wodak R. (2006) 'Vzaimosvyaz' diskurs - obshchestvo: kognitivnyj podhod k kriticheskomu diskurs-analizu'. The Proceedings of Ural State Pedagogical University. 19, 107-116. A Translation of Wodak, R. (2006) 'Mediation Between Discourse and Society: Assessing Cognitive Approaches in CDA'. Discourse Studies 8: 1, 179-190.

Wodak, R. (2006) 'Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis'. Handbook of Pragmatics, Benjamins.

Wodak, R. & Wright, S. (2006) 'The European Union in Cyber-Space: Multilingual Democratic Participation in a virtual public sphere?' Journal of Language and Politics 5:2, 251-275

Wagner, Ina & Wodak, Ruth (2006) Performing Success: Identifying strategies of self-presentation in women's autobiographical narratives. Discourse and Society 3.

Ruth Wodak, 2006, Discourse-analytic and Socio-linguistic Approaches to the Study of Nation(alism) In: Gerard Delanty and Krishan Kumar (eds) 2006, The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism, London: Sage, 104-117.

Rudolf de Cillia & Ruth Wodak (2006) Ist Osterreich ein "deutsches" Land? Sprachenpolitik und Identitat in der zweiten Republik. Innsbruck: Studienverlag. Cover

Wodak, Ruth (2006) Review Article: Dilemmas of discourse (analysis), Language in Society, 35, 595-611.

Wodak, R. (2006) 'Images in/and news in a globalised world' in Lassen, Inger, Strunck, Jeanne, Vestergaard, Torben (eds) Mediating Ideology in Text and Image. Ten Critical Studies, Amsterdam: Benjamins (DAPSAC Series).

Wodak, R. (2006) 'Mediation between discourse and society: assessing cognitive approaches' Discourse Studies 8:1 pp 179-190

Ulsamer, F., Krzyzanowski, M. & Wodak, R. (2006) The European Dilema: Institutional Patterns and Politics of 'Racial' Discrimination. Final Project Report from the 5th EU framework (XENOPHOB - Political Dilemmas).

Wodak, R. (2006) History in the making: the making of history. Journal of Language and Politics 5:1

Oberhuber, F., Barenreuter, C., Krzyzanowski, M., Schonbauer, H., & Wodak, R. (2005) 'Debating the Constitution: on the representations of Europe/the EU in the press. Journal of Language and Politics 4:2 pp 227-271

Wodak, R. (2005) Understanding and explaining social change: "déjà-vu" experiences. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 15:2 pp240-243

Wodak, R. (2005) 'Global and local patterns in political discourses - Glocalisation' Journal of Language and Politics 4:3, pp367-370

Student Websites

LING 440 Critical Discourse Analysis

LING401 RIAL Workshop

Qualitative Methods for the New Route PhDs

(password required)

Potential Doctoral Proposals

Discourse Studies

Identity Politics

Language and/in Politics

Analysis of Media

Critical Discourse Analysis

Keywords: Discourse analysis, Gender, Gender identities, Memory, Migration and diaspora, Multilingualism, National identities, New media, Non-verbal communication, Organisations, Semiotics, Sociolinguistics, Spoken language corpora

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