ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of some key themes and features in the new capitalism and the importance of language in this area. The language of the free market is now firmly embedded in discourse practices employed in the workplace, in politics, the media and universities. The chapter presents a number of linguistic studies that have dealt with these developments and start offwith recent developments at universities. The managerial rhetoric employed in the institutional changes, the ‘discourse of enterprise’ has been transported from political discourse, mainly Labour’s ‘Third Way discourse’ into the public services in general and Higher Education in particular. The justification for adopting entrepreneurialism and its discourses in Higher Education is based on the hegemonic discourses of enterprise and new capitalism which insist that any organization or business wanting to survive has to adapt to global market conditions.
