Curriculum vitae :
Educated at the Grammar School, Llandrindod Wells, 1939-1946, and the University College of North Wales, Bangor 1946-1950; research student at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), 1950-1953; BA (Wales), 1949; MA (Wales), 1952; Doctorat de l'Université de Paris, 1956.
French master at the Wade Deacon Grammar School, Widnes, 1954-55, and at the Grammar School, Llangollen, 1955-57.
Lecturer in French at the University of St Andrews, 1958-64, and at the University of Leeds, 1965-66.
Foundation Professor of French, University of Stirling, 1967-72. Professor of French, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1972-92 (Professor of Romance Languages, 1975-87); Research Professor, 1992-95; Professor Emeritus, 1995- .
Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1982. Has lectured in numerous universities in the United Kingdom, the United States (UCLA, University of California at Davis, Cornell), Romania (Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi, Bacau) and Finland (Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Turku, Åbo Akademi).
Membership of national committees, etc.: Board of Governors, Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, 1971-77; Committee of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 1972- (chairman, 1979-90); Council of the Philological Society, 1973-79, 1984-87; Broadcasting Council for Wales, 1980-84.
Editor, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, vols 34 (1972) – 36 (1974); co-editor, vols 37 (1975) – 53 (1991). Chairman of the editorial committee, MHRA Style Book, 2nd edn (1978), 3rd edn (1981), 4th edn (1991), 5th edn (1996), MHRA Style Guide (2002).
Editor of the series Blackwell Reference Grammars.
