Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am sorry to pass on the news of the death several days ago of Robert de Beaugrande, a good friend and an outstanding linguist who contributed much to the inception of text and discourse analysis and to critical discourse linguistics.

Robert helped to develop what was known at one time as the Vienna School of Textlinguistik, and also to some early work on cognitive linguistics. In his later work, he contributed to what we now call Critical Discourse Analysis, and wrote many insightful and incisive analyses of politically charged texts and issues, combining methods of functional linguistics with the emerging techniques of computer-based corpus analysis.

Robert had a flamboyant personal style and a strong commitment to progressive politics. He worked in and supported students in several developing African nations, in Asia, the mid-East, and Brazil, as well as having a prestigious appointment for several years at the University of Vienna.

In semi-retirement, he devoted himself to producing a website with full text of many of his classic and newer publications, making it a treasure house of information especially for those around the world who cannot afford the exorbitant prices of academic books today.

The site is at:

http://www.beaugrande.com/

Sadly,

Jay Lemke

Educational Studies

University of Michigan

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Professor de Beaugrande was a member of the LNC list at languageandcapitalism.info . He contributed in innumerable ways. He will be missed.