The studies presented in this volume focus on two distinct but related areas of specialized communication professional and academic settings, resting on an anti-essentialist notion of identity as a phenomenon that emerges from the dialectic between individual and society.

The authors start from a detailed analysis of discourse practices as evidenced in texts, their production and the professional performance patterns which underlie such practices, and explore the way the actors, roles and identities are constructed in language and discourse. In particular, by highlighting discursive attitudes and aptitudes, they underscore the need to understand discourse in light of norms of professional responsibility, showing that not only do professionals and academics use discourse to create self- identity, but they also use identity constructed through discourse to influence society.

Contents: James Archibald: Foreword: Discursive Identity in Professional Communication - Giuliana Garzone: Actors, Identities and Roles in Professional and Academic Discourse: An Introduction - Srikant Sarangi: Reconfiguring Self/Identity/Status/Role: The Case of Professional Role Performance in Healthcare Encounters - James Archibald: Sex and Textness: Do Men and Women Write and Rewrite the Same Way? - Costanza Cucchi: Vague Expressions in the European Parliament: A Marker of Cultural Identity? - Cinzia Spinzi/Eliana Terminiello: 'It's up to all of us': Social Identity in the Language of Public Warnings - Paola Evangelisti Allori: Content as Indicator of Genre Identity. Key Concepts in Sports-Related Arbitral Awards - Alessandra Fazio/Michela Menghini: Professional Identity in Sports-Related Discourse: A Study on the Modelling of a Dynamic Conceptual Structure - Bettina Mottura: Chinese Civil Servants and the Creation of a Discourse Community to Promote Social Change - Giuliana Garzone/Maurizio Catino/Giampietro Gobo/Miriam Bait/Paola Catenaccio/Chiara Degano/Simone Rozzi: Towards an Integrated Model for the Understanding of Communication Failures in Aviation Accidents: Tenuous Identities under Pressure - William Bromwich: Representation of Self and Other in Everyday Life: The Language of Disability in the Handcycle Corpus - Kjersti Fløttum: Linguistically Marked Cultural Identity in Research Articles - Davide Simone Giannoni: Metaphoric Values and Disciplinary Identity in English Research Articles - Michele Sala: Interrogative Forms as Professional Identity Markers in Legal Research Articles - Ulisse Belotti: Manifestations of Identity in Research Articles: The Case of Italian Economics Scholars - Stefania M. Maci: Argumentative Structure in American and Italian Medical Research Articles - Larissa D'Angelo: Exploring Gender Identity in Academic Book Reviews - Polly Walsh: Multiple Roles and Footing Shifts in Academic Lectures.