about what was going on in our master program during our sabbatical.
Wander Lowie held the ship of Applied Linguistics while we were away,
leaving us alone while no doubt many problems arose that otherwise would
have needed our attention.
Louisa Semlyen, Laura Sandford and Rosemary Baron of Routledge were
supportive in getting the book published in time. Anna Pot helped me very
effectively withfinalizing the manuscript. The anonymous reviewers of the
proposal and William Grabe, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Paul Meara and Margaret
Thomas gave me very useful comments and suggestions.
There would be no book without the informants that I had the pleasure to
interview and those thatfilled out the questionnaire and provided me with
additional food for thought. I particularly enjoyed the many asides that for
reasons of decency never made it into the text, but that showed me that
nothing that is human is foreign to even this distinguished group of scholars.
My sons Hugo and Philip advised me on this project from the very
beginning in no uncertain terms and helped me tofind the right focus for
the text and the audience.
The Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen made the sabbatical
and therefore the book possible. I am grateful to our Dean, Professor Gerry
Wakker, for her continuous support and understanding over all those years
of cooperation.
My wife Marjolijn was a constant and positive-critical support by reading
and commenting on chapters and helping me with the mysteries of Excel.
And much more than that.
xiv Preface