J L Meurer is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis, Brazil. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University and was a visiting researcher at the University of Birmingham, U.K., and at the Centre for Language in Social Life, at Macquarie University, Sydney.

He is the author of Aspects of Language in Self-help Counselling (1998) and co-author of Parâmetros de Textualização (1997) and Gêneros Textuais (2002). He has taught and supervised MA and PhD students at the Post-Graduate Program in English and Applied Linguistics at UFSC. His main research interests include critical discouse analysis, genre studies, text linguistics, applications of systemic functional linguistics, and the integration of sociological theories to explain the interdependence between language and other forms of social practice in different contexts