allan bell (born 26 july 1947), is a new zealand academic and sociolinguistic researcher. he has written extensively on new zealand english, language style, and media language. he is a founding co-editor of the international quarterly "journal of sociolinguistics" and is known for his theory of audience design. currently, he is working as the director of the institute of culture, discourse & communication and is a professor of language & communication at auckland university of technology.