José Jesús de Bustos Tovar, professor emeritus at the Complutense University in Madrid, was awarded the Rivadeneyra prize for his doctoral thesis directed by Rafael Lapesa. His research is centred on describing and analysing the processes of linguistic evolution and on introducing and applying the criteria of the theory of discourse to the history of Spanish. He is a corresponding member of the Real Academia Española and the Academia de Buenas Letras in Seville, a patron of the Fundación Ramón Menéndez Pidal, president of the Asociación Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española and a member of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.