David Birch is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Central Queensland, Australia. Previously he taught at Murdoch University in Western Australia, and at the National University of Singapore, having completed his doctorate at the University of York, England.

`Paves the way for a politically more aware and more responsible stylistics, and as such makes essential reading for anybody interested in the practice of literary criticism, and more particularly, in the role of ideology at the interface of language and literature.' - Journal of Literary Semantics`Accessible style and presentation ... extensive bibliography.' - Poetics Today

• Chapter 1 How texts mean; Chapter 2 Language, literature and scientific fictions; Chapter 3 Reading literary texts; Chapter 4 Reading texts closely; Chapter 5 The linguistics of text;

David Birch is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Central Queensland, Australia. Previously he taught at Murdoch University in Western Australia, and at the National University of Singapore, having completed his doctorate at the University of York, England.

`Paves the way for a politically more aware and more responsible stylistics, and as such makes essential reading for anybody interested in the practice of literary criticism, and more particularly, in the role of ideology at the interface of language and literature.' - Journal of Literary Semantics`Accessible style and presentation ... extensive bibliography.' - Poetics Today

• Chapter 1 How texts mean; Chapter 2 Language, literature and scientific fictions; Chapter 3 Reading literary texts; Chapter 4 Reading texts closely; Chapter 5 The linguistics of text;