A West Virginia University professor has been appointed to serve on the Public Language Award Committee for the National Council of Teachers of English.

Jay Dolmage, an assistant professor in the Department of English in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at WVU , will be among those responsible for selecting the recipients of the annual George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language and the Doublespeak Award.

The Orwell Award recognizes writers who have made outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse, while the Doublespeak Award is an ironic tribute to public speakers who have perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing or self-centered.

Dolmage earned his doctorate from the University of Miami in Ohio after studying at the University of British Columbia, University of Windsor in Canada and University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

He has published essays in Disability Studies Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Prose Studies, and Culture and the Statewith essays to be published in the Journal of Advanced Composition, College Composition and Communication and College English.

Dolmage will begin his three-year term with the National Council of Teachers of English after the organizations annual convention Nov. 15-20 in New York City.

The council boasts more than 60,000 individual and institutional members worldwide. It is dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.