Dr Kenneth Kong has recently published his monograph, Professional Discourse, with Cambridge University Press (2014). Using a wide range of professional genres (such as research papers, business reports, performance commentaries, guidebooks and legal documents) Professional Discourse focuses on the discourse of professional writing, employing analytic paradigms from systemic-functional linguistics, pragmatics, text analysis, sociology and anthropological linguistics. Kenneth Kong argues that while professions use different sets of practices, their use of language displays many universals. This is demonstrated through the analysis of data from a broad cross-section of professional settings such as medicine, law, business, mass media and engineering. This examination of professional discourse, and its important role in society, is of interest to researchers in applied linguistics, to professionals who want to understand better the role of language in their work, as well as to teachers of English for specific purposes.

Unique selling points of Professional Discourse include how its analysis:

• investigates inter-professional discourse so that readers can see the connections between different professions
• explores current trends in discourse analysis, such as identity and multimodality
• examines discourse from a range of perspectives, including systemic functional linguistics, pragmatics, text analysis, and sociology

Recent endorsements

“Kenneth Kong’s Professional Discourse is a keenly competent and deeply insightful discussion of the language and identity work of professionals. It is the state of the art in the field today.”
—James Paul Gee, Arizona State University

“Professional Discourse promises to become a landmark contribution to the politics of, training for, and conduct of being professional in diverse occupations across international communities. It provides in-depth coverage of the theories, techniques, and assumptions in an engaging yet precise style, and serves as an indispensable resource for students as well as seasoned practitioners and researchers.”
—Patrice M. Buzzanell, Purdue University