Linguistics is a huge discipline with many sub-fields, many of which drift towards, and often overlap with, the primary concerns of cultural studies. In general, however, linguistics is concerned with the deconstruction of language itself, with the nuts and bolts (phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexis, etc.) and how these are systematically acquired (psycholinguistics) and how they interact with the socio-cultural context in which they are used (sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics). Both of these approaches to language and culture are represented in this collection. The eclecticism of the papers should be seen as a strength, reflecting the wide range of ways in which we are all influenced by, and to an extent constructed by, language.