Robert de Beaugrande

Robert-Alain de Beaugrande (1946 – June 2008) was an American text linguist and discourse analyst, one of the leading figures of the Continental tradition in the discipline. He was one of the developers of the Vienna School of Textlinguistik (Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna), and published the seminal Introduction to Text Linguistics in 1981, with Wolfgang U. Dressler. He was also a major figure in the consolidation of critical discourse analysis.

De Beaugrande had an MA in German and English Language and Literature by the Free University of Berlin, in 1971, and a PhD in Comparative Literature and Linguistics by the University of California, Irvine, in 1976. He served as professor of English in the University of Florida from 1978 to 1991, of English Linguistics at the University of Vienna from 1991 to 1997, Professor of English Language at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Professor of English and English Linguistics at the University of Florida at Gainesville, and later as visiting professor in several universities in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.