"This book is unusual in its breadth of coverage. It analyses popularisations, pedagogical and student genres as well as journal articles, and spoken as well as written texts. It brings together perspectives from discourse analysis, composition research, English for Specific Purposes, literacy studies, and sociology of science, as well as genre analysis. And its examples come from Chinese, American, and British academic institutions. Because of this breadth, even readers who think they are up to date with one aspect or another of academic discourse will find some new insights, and references to studies they had missed. All this is presented with brevity, lightness of touch, apt quotations, striking examples, and a readable style." - Greg Myers, Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Lancaster University, UK.

"Ken Hyland's latest book provides a refreshingly non-technical orientation to the important world of academic discourse. In it, he covers an impressively wide range of genres, both spoken and written, and does so with a welcome and useful integration of sociological and discourse-analytic perspectives." - John M. Swales, Professor emeritus of Linguistics, University of Michigan, USA.

"In summary, in Academic Discourse Hyland analyses different genres, spoken as well as written texts, from different theoretical perspectives, using examples from different institutional cultures in different parts of the world. Despite its breadth of coverage Hyland's book represents a valuable and comprehensive study, which not only imposes relevant questions, but provides valid answers in regard to this subject establishing new directions for future investigations." English Text Construction, 2:2, 2009

Reviewed in The Year's Work in English Studies, Volume 90