Book excerpt: Per Linell took his degree in linguistics and is currently professor of language and culture, with a specialisation on communication and spoken interaction, at the University of Linköping, Sweden. He has been instrumental in building up an internationally renowned interdisciplinary graduate school in communication studies in Linköping. He has worked for many years on developing a dialogical alternative to mainstream theories in linguistics, psychology and social sciences. His production comprises more than 100 articles on dialogue, talk-in-interaction and institutional discourse. His more recent books include Approaching Dialogue (1998), The Written Language Bias in Linguistics (2005) and Dialogue in Focus Groups (2007, with I. Marková, M. Grossen and A. Salazar Orvig).