JAMES R. MARTIN is Professor of Linguistics (Personal Chair) at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research interests include systemic theory, functional grammar, discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, focussing on English and Tagalog - with special reference to the transdisciplinary fields of educational linguistics and social semiotics. Recent publications include Working with Discourse (with David Rose, 2003), Re/Reading the Past (edited with Ruth Wodak, 2003), Genre Relations (with David Rose, 2006), and Knowledge Structure ( edited with Fran Christie, 2007). Professor Martin was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998, and was awarded a Centenary Medal for his services to Linguistics and Philology in 2003.

PETER R.R. WHITE is Lecturer in Linguistics and Media at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. His most recent publications include Appraisal - the Language of Evaluation and Stance' in The Handbook of Pragmatics. He maintains an email and discussion list on Appraisal theory at www.grammatics.com/appraisal. He is a former print, radio and television journalist and journalism trainer.