Introduction

This introduction to the final section of the Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict is shorter than the others, as the chapters included here range across many of the approaches that we have seen earlier, which do not need introducing a second time. However, there is one feature that unites the chapters in this section, which is their much closer link to the ‘real’ world. Two of the chapters, Archer et al. (Chapter 25) and Mac Coinnigh et al. (Chapter 30) detail actual interventions in the world through the medium of language. Gales (Chapter 26) demonstrates the importance of being able to linguistically identify text-based threats in a real situation. Archer et al. (Chapter 25), Maxwell and Anderson (Chapter 27), Hanna (Chapter 28) and Tipton (Chapter 29) examine the role of particular participants in processes where conflict is a real possibility.