Anthony Townley

Biography

Anthony Townley completed his post-graduate degrees in Linguistics at Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) and undertook research for his Ph.D. thesis in collaboration with a law firm in Istanbul, where he gained access to the authentic legal texts and discourse practices pertaining to the negotiation of a Mergers-and-Acquisitions type transaction, conducted in English, with European partners and counterpart lawyers. He adopted a Multi-Perspectival Research Model to analyze the Lexico-Grammatical Features and Rhetorical Structures of email communications and the negotiated contractual documents, in conjunction with analyses of the Range of Discourse Capabilities and the Interactional Roles and Relationships of the Legal and Business Professionals involved in the negotiation process, including their own interpretive agendas, repertoires and expertise. He accumulated 20 years of varied professional work experience, most recently as the Director of Academic Writing at at Koç University in Istanbul. He has also worked as a commercial lawyer in Sydney and as an English language instructor, in a variety of teaching and administrative roles in Australia, Turkey and Japan. His special teaching areas include: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Academic Writing, Legal Writing and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and he is currently undertaking sociolinguistic research of legal/business discourse practices in Japan.