Anne Barron is Professor of English Linguistics at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany. Recent publications include Public Information Messages (2012) and Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics (2003). She has also co-edited several volumes, including Pragmatics of Discourse (2014), Variational Pragmatics (2008) and Pragmatics of Irish English (2005), all three co-edited with Klaus P. Schneider. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Pragmatics and Intercultural Pragmatics.

Yueguo Gu is a Special Title Professor of Linguistics at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. Recent publications include Using the Computer in ELT (2006) and Pragmatics and Discourse Studies (2010). He has also edited several series of textbooks and collections of academic papers such as Initial Exploration of Online Education (2004) and Second Exploration of Online Education (2005).

Gerard Steen is Professor of Speech Communication, Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also the founding director of the Metaphor Lab Amsterdam.