Li Wei is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Birbeck, University of London, UK. Vivian Cook is Professor Applied Linguistics at the University of Newcastle, UK.

"These volumes take their mission seriously: to build the future of applied linguistics, grounded in language but with a broad concern for real-world issues. The volumes make for rewarding reading and demonstrate the continuing and renewed relevance of applied linguistics."

• Introduction: Language in the globalized world; 1. Multilingualism, gender and globalisation (Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University, USA & Ingrid Pillar, University of Sydney, Australia); 2. Language and economy (Florian Coulmas, German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo); 3. Linguistic diversity, biodiversity and poverty (Suzanne Romaine, University of Oxford, UK); 4. Discourse in organisations and workplace (Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, Uppsala University, Sweden); 5. Multimodal discourses (Gu Yueguo, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China); 6. Language and culture (Nick Enfield, UCLA, USA); 7. Language in legal contexts/forensic linguistics (John Gibbons, University of New South Wales, Australia); 8. Translation and politics (Christina Schaeffner, Aston University, UK); 9. Religious language management (Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University, Israel); 10. Language and the Brain (Marjorie Lorch, Birbeck College University of London, UK); 11. Clinical linguistics (Martin Ball, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA and Nicole Mueller, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA); 12. Sign linguistics, sign language learning and sign bilingualism (Gary Morgan, University College London, UK and Bencie Woll, University College London, UK).