The discursive construction of identity is often under the control of the dominant forces in society and frequently results in forms of manipulation and abuse. This awareness led to the celebration of the First International Conference on CDA (València 2004), where over three-hundred academics working in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis became actively engaged in this important issue.

The seven studies included in this volume have been selected as representative of those areas of human experience that have been given most intellectual attention and considered to be in fact in need for critical unravelling. Ethnic categorization in multicultural classrooms, patriotic discourse construction in Chinese readers, the denial of Palestinian identity in schoolbooks, the diverse constructions of European identities, Arabs constructing themselves on the worldwide web, identity construction in sexual assault trials, the representations of a dangerous ‘other’ in cases of PLWHAs, are the contextual perspectives embraced in this book to account for forms of power abuse in the discursive construction of identities.

Chit Cheung Matthew Sung, Lancaster University, in Discourse and Communication, Volume 4(3), 2010:
This volume makes a unique contribution to our knowledge of identity construction in a variety of discourses, and in particular, to our understanding of how CDA theories and methodologies can be applied to these discourses so as to bring into clearer vision the diverse conceptions, structures, processes and functions vis-a-vis identity construction. In a similar vein to most CDA explorations, the collection underscores its social significance. As Rosana Dolón and Júlia Todolí highlight in the preface, it is hoped that these critical studies will eventually lead to desired social changes. The papers are representative of a range of contexts which are especially in want of CDA investigations, and will be of interest to (critical) discourse analysts, linguists, sociologists, educators, psychotherapists and others.