Introduction

Abstract

There is little doubt that discourse research constitutes one of today’s megatrends in social science. A wide variety of indications points to the general “discursivization” of the academic community. Firstly, an increasing number of conferences and academic gatherings have been organized on issues related to discourse theories and discourse analysis. Secondly, in the recent past, various new and mostly inter-and trans-disciplinary journals have emerged serving as reservoirs for issues related to discourse analysis (e.g. Critical Discourse Studies; Discourse and Communication ; Discourse Studies ; Journal for Discourse Research ). Thirdly, scientific networks, such as the World Network in Ideology and Discourse Analysis and Research Portal in Discourse Analysis/Diskursanalyse.net, interlink and communicate the research activities of discourse analysts. Fourthly, it has become almost impossible to keep track of all the publications discussing discourse theories, elaborating empirical methods of discourse analysis or presenting achieved empirical results of discourse analysis.