I teach and research in various areas areas of applied linguistics, particularly those involving English as a Second or Other or Foreign Language (TESOL, TEFL) and in literary stylistics. After taking degrees in English language and literature at Birmingham and Sussex universities, and gaining teaching qualifications, I worked for the British Council and others for ten years in Sweden, Singapore, Poland, Spain and Colombia before joining the University of Wales in Cardiff in 1993.

I currently teach undergraduate modules in Communication and English Language Teaching, and contribute to Second Language Acquisition research. I am writing a book on 'Discourse Stylistics' for Benjamins, due 2010.

I am Editor of the journal Language and Literature (see below). I have been a member of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA) since 1988 and of BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics) since 1994. Board Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies UK. In 2008 I was invited to speak in Hiroshima, Osaka and Kumamoto in Japan, and I taught at summer school Shandong University at Weihai, China, in 2009.

PhD applications are invited in stylistics, discourse analysis and English Language Teaching. Current PhD students supervised by me are working on Competing Newspaper Discourses on the 'Rise of China', Songs and Stories in German Primary ELT, Language Learning Strategies, Task-based Language Learning and others.

Some recent publications

• (2009). 'Texts, readers - and real readers' Language and Literature 18 (3) 333-339.
• (2008). 'A Grammarian's Funeral: On Browning, post-structuralism, and the state of stylistics' In G. Watson ed. The State of Stylistics Amsterdam: Benjamins. 31-44.
• (2008). Empirical research into the processing of free indirect discourse and the imperative of ecological validity. In S. Zyngier et al. Directions in Empirical Studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 21-34. 
• (2007).'Expert Introduction' to J. Bray, 'The effects of FID: empathy revisited' in P. Stockwell and M. Lambrou eds. Contemporary Stylistics Continuum, London.
• (2007) 'Every joy is a sorrow to me now. Vocabulary in culture and communication' In Davidson, Palfreyman and Coombe eds. Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in a Second Language. Dubai: TESOL Arabia. 79-87.
• (2006) 'Stylistics in second language contexts: A critical perspective' In G. Watson and S. Zyngier (eds.) Literature and stylistics for language learners. Palgrave Macmillan. 3-14
• (2006) 'Literature as a social practice'. In S. Goodman and K. O’ Halloran (eds.) The Art of English: Literary Creativity Palgrave Macmillan  pp. 451-9.
• (2005) Literature in Language Education. Palgrave Macmillan.

Language and Literature is a major international stylistics journal published four times a year by Sage. It is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index and also in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Language and Literature is devoted to exploring areas of common interest to scholars and teachers of language and literature. Its main aim is to promote understanding and co-operation between linguists and literary scholars by publishing new work which examines or is related to, the language of literary texts. For more information and a free online sample copy, visit the journal webpage.

The Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA) is an international association for those who work in stylistics, poetics, and associated fields of language and linguistics. The Association has grown steadily and now includes several hundred members from around fifty countries worldwide. It hosts an international conference annually, and sponsors seminars and symposia.