I am ICREA Research Professor in Sociolinguistics in the Departament d'Humanitats at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. There I am a member of the Grup de Recerca en Espais Interculturals, Llengües i Identitats (GREILI). I am also Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (UK); Visiting Professor at University College London, Institute of Education; and editor of the Routledge book series Political Economy and Applied Linguistics. I joined ICREA in September 2012 after 16 years at the University College London Institute of Education, where I was Professor of Languages in Education. Prior to that, I worked in Barcelona for 18 years as an English teacher in centres such as ESADE, and as a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Universitat de Barcelona and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. I completed my PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University Lancaster (UK) in 1995.

Research interests

I have published articles, chapters and books on a variety of topics. At present, I draw on a range of social sciences sources, especially Marxist political economy, to develop frameworks for understanding globalization, internationalisation, multiculturalism, bi/multilingualism, politics and identity. I am especially interested in neoliberalism and its effects on 21st-century societies, especially the inequality and class conflict that it engenders. I am author (with John Gray and Marnie Holborow) of Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics (Routledge, 2012) and auhtor of Social Class in Applied Linguistics (Routledge, 2014), Political Economy in Sociolinguistics (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Post-truth and Political Discourse (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). I am currently working on two books for Routledge, a monograph entitled Innovations and Challenges in Identity Research and a co-edited book (with Sarah Khan) entitled The Secret Life of English-medium Instruction in Higher Education.