Ruth Wodak (born 12 July 1950 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

) is an Austrian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...

, 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 The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

. Her research is mainly located in discourse studies and in

critical discourse analysis Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice. CDA combines critique of discourse and explanation of how it figures within and contributes to the exi ...

. 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, 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 th
Journal of Language and Politics
She was the founding editor (together with Paul Chilton) of the book serie
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture
She was also section editor of "Language and Politics" for the Second Edition of the Elsevier '' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics''. Ruth Wodak chaired the

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at th ...

and

Social Sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the o ...

Panel for EURYI Award, in the

European Science Foundation The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an association of 11 member organizations devoted to scientific research in 8 European countries. ESF is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organisation that promotes the highest quality science ...

from 2006 to 2008.

Awards and honours

In 1996, she was awarded the

Wittgenstein-Preis The Wittgenstein Award (german: Wittgenstein-Preis) is an Austrian science award supporting the notion that "scientists should be guaranteed the greatest possible freedom and flexibility in the performance of their research." The prize money of up ...

, the highest Austrian science award, for her projects focused on "Discourses on Un/employment in EU organizations; Debates on

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

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. She was awarded the Kerstin Hesselgren Chair of the

Swedish Parliament The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and s ...

and stayed at University of Örebro, Sweden, from March to June 2008. In December 2011, Professor Karl Heinz Töchterle, Minister of Science and Education, presented her with the Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria (''Großes Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich''), in Vienna, on behalf of the President of Austria, Dr

Heinz Fischer Heinz Fischer GColIH OMRI RSerafO GCollSE (; born 9 October 1938) is a former Austrian politician. He took office as President of Austria on 8 July 2004 and was re-elected for a second and last term on 25 April 2010, leaving office on 8 July ...

. "The award citation emphasises the social relevance and impact of her outstanding research on the discursive construction of national and transnational identities and patterns of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism." She was elected Fellow of the

Academy of Social Sciences The Academy of Social Sciences is a representative body for social sciences in the United Kingdom. The Academy promotes social science through its sponsorship of the Campaign for Social Science, its links with Government on a variety of matters, ...

in 2013. Ruth Wodak has been a

Fulbright Austria The Austrian-American Educational Commission/ Fulbright Austria (AAEC) is one of the 50 bi-national commissions under the Fulbright Program, which exists in order to promote “mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the pe ...

Scholar at Stanford University. She has held visiting professorships at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, and

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, and a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

Selected bibliography

Books

*Wodak, Ruth (2015). ''The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean''. London: Sage. *Wodak, Ruth (2011). ''The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual'' (2nd revised edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. *Reisigl, Martin & Wodak, Ruth (2001). ''Discourse and Discrimination.'' London: Routledge. *Wodak, Ruth (1996). ''Disorders of Discourse.'' London: Longman.

Edited books

*Wodak, Ruth, & Forchtner, Bernhard (Eds.) (2017). ''The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics.'' London: Routledge. *Wodak, Ruth, Mral, Brigitte, & Khosravinik, Majid (Eds.) (2013). ''Right Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse.'' London: Bloomsbury Academic. *Wodak, Ruth (Ed.) (2013). ''Critical Discourse Analysis: Four Volumes.'' Sage. *Wodak, Ruth, Johnstone, Barbara, & Kerswill, Paul (Eds.) (2011). ''The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistics.'' Los Angeles: Sage. *Wodak, Ruth & Meyer, Michael (Eds.) (2009). ''Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis'' (2nd revised edition). London: Sage. *Wodak, Ruth & Reisigl, Martin (Eds.) (2009). ''The Discursive Construction of National Identity''. Edinburgh: EUP. *Wodak, Ruth & Koller, Veronika (Eds.) (2008). ''Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere.'' Berlin: De Gruyter. *Wodak, Ruth, & Krzyzanowski, Michal (2008). ''Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences.'' Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. *Wodak, Ruth & Chilton, Paul (Eds.) (2005). ''New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis.'' Amsterdam: John Benjamins. *Weiss, Gilbert & Wodak, Ruth (Eds.) (2003). ''Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity.'' Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. *Wodak, Ruth, de Cillia, Rudolf, Reisigl, Martin, & Liebhart, Karin (Eds.) (1999). ''The Discursive Construction of National Identity.'' Edinburgh: EUP. *Wodak, Ruth (Ed.) (1997). ''Gender and Discourse.'' London: Sage. *Wodak, Ruth (Ed.) (1989). ''Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse.'' Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References

External links

Staff page at Lancaster UniversityProfile at Academia.eduLanguage, Ideology and Power Research GroupJournal of Language and Politics
*

Entry for Ruth Wodak
at

OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It wa ...

Worldcat Classify {{DEFAULTSORT:Wodak, Ruth Linguists Sociolinguists Applied linguists Discourse analysts Academics of Lancaster University Academics of the University of East Anglia Örebro University faculty 1950 births Living people Recipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences Austrian women academics Linguists from Austria Women linguists University of Vienna alumni Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists