Teun van Dijk is one of the founders of Critical Discourse Studies and this collection brings together some of his most important writing, framed by new introductory material. He examines the role of discourse in the reproduction of power and domination in society and the ways in which media and political elites control access to public discourse.

TEUN VAN DIJK is Professor of Critical Discourse Analysis at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. He holds two honorary doctorates and has lectured widely in many countries, especially in Latin America. He is the editor of The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (4 vols, 1985) the introductory book Discourse Studies (2 vols., 1997) as well as the reader The Study of Discourse (5 vols., 2007). He has founded 6 international journals, Poetics, Text (now Text& Talk), Discourse& Society, Discourse Studies, Discourse& Communication and the internet journal in Spanish Discurso& Sociedad (www.dissoc.org), of which he still edits the latter four.