David Banks is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France. He has degrees in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge (UK), and in English from the Université de Nantes (France), where he also obtained his doctorate. He has an HDR from the Université de Bordeaux 2. He is former Head of the English Department, Director of ERLA (Equipe de Recherche en Linguistique Appliquée) and Chairman of AFLSF (Association Française de la Linguistique Systémique Fonctionnelle). He is author or editor of over 30 books and has published over 130 academic articles. His publication The Development of Scientific English, Linguistic features and historical context (Equinox), won the ESSE Language and Linguistics book award 2010. His research interests include the diachronic and synchronic study of scientific text and the application of Systemic Functional Linguistics to English and French.