From Guy Cook:
I write with great sadness to tell BAAL members of the death of Ron Carter, a former Chair of the Association, on 12th September, at the end of a long illness.
Ron made an immense academic contribution to our field and his work will have a lasting legacy in many areas: corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, education, grammar, lexicology, and stylistics. He was a prolific author and editor, a tireless researcher, and an inspiring teacher and supervisor. Yet despite his many achievements he remained unfailingly humane and modest. An enduring memory for those who knew him will be of his kindness, his warmth, his altruism, and his humour. He was unstinting in his help and consideration for others, and many careers have been launched and advanced through his enthusiastic and energetic encouragement and generous support.
It was Ron’s wish to have neither a funeral nor a memorial service, and his widow Jane asks for this to be respected. This in itself is a telling tribute to his lack of arrogance or egotism, and one which says more perhaps than any of us could do in his memory.
I spoke to Ron regularly during the last months of his life. Throughout these very difficult times, he remained cheerful, stoical, philosophical, brave, and—characteristically— always more concerned about others than about himself.
