Ruth Wodak
Ruth Wodak   (born 12 July 1950 in London) is an Austrian linguist, who is Emeritus Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University and Professor in Linguistics at the University of Vienna. Wodak's research is predominantly rooted in discourse studies and in critical discourse analysis. Together with her former colleagues and some of her early 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, an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented approach to analysing 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 Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Studies, and of the Journal of Language and Politics. She was the founding editor (together with Paul Chilton) of the book series Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture.