Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the cultural and discursive changes within UK universities which have evolved within an era influenced by neoliberal governmentality from 1981 to the present. It examines key sites of transmission of the discourse and institutionally ratified values of universities focusing on case studies of institutional discourse. The book utilizes an overarching critical applied linguistics (CAL) approach. The kind of linguistic analysis used at a descriptive level within an overarching CAL approach also needs to be systematic and able to identify repeated patterns across stretches of text. When values are imposed by metaphorical choices in texts, it can affect the way the reader/hearer conceptualises and understands the target domain of the metaphor. Metaphors have a rhetorical function of arousing certain emotions in the reader/hearer.