Systemic Functional Linguistics, Part 1 Volume 1

The Collected Works of Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen covers more than 35 years of work by one of the world’s leading scholars in the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) school. It examines the nature, functions and structure of human language from a number of points of view within the framework of contemporary scientific thought. The series is organized into a number of distinct topics that reinforce each other, and together constitute a coherent, cutting-edge body of theoretical and descriptive work.

Volume 1 provides the foundation for the whole series of collected works, and includes chapters that serve as introduction of and summaries of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is concerned with the nature of systemic functional linguistics as theory, as framework and as a school of linguistics. It includes an overview of the organization or the ＂architecture＂ of language according to SFL and of the lexicogrammatical subsystem of language, and of Halliday’s conception of language as a resource for making meaning. It is also concerned with the history and development of SFL. A new chapter written for this volume addresses the theme underpinning all chapters in the volume: the challenge of theorizing language. It introduces the metaphor of cartography, used by Matthiessen in his work on language, as a way of mapping linguistic theory, showing how all areas relate to one another.

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen is a Swedish-born linguist and a leading figure in the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) school, having authored or co-authored more than 100 books, refereed journal articles, and papers in refereed conference proceedings, with contributions to three television programs. He is currently Chair Professor in the Department of English at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Before this, he was Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney. Professor Matthiessen has worked in areas as diverse as language typology, linguistics and computing, grammatical descriptions, grammar and discourse, functional grammar for English-language teachers, text analysis and translation, the evolution of language. Kazuhiro Teruya is Associate Professor, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and Program Leader of Japanese programs. He is a founding member of the PolySystemic Research Group. His major publications include A Systemic Functional Grammar of Japanese, Two Volumes (Continuum, 2007), Key Terms in Systemic Functional Linguistics (with Christian Matthiessen & Marvin Lam, Bloomsbury, 2010), ’Registerial hybridity: indeterminacy among fields of activity’ (with Christian Matthiessen, Equinox, 2016). Dr Canzhong Wu is Senior Lecturer with the Centre for Language in Social Life, in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University. His research interests include translation studies, systemic functional linguistics, corpus linguistics and computer-assisted learning and teaching. He has developed a range of computational tools for discourse analysis and corpus-based studies. Diana Slade is Professor of Applied Linguistics, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics. She is also Director of ANU Institute of Communication in Healthcare. Her major publications include Communicating in Hospital Emergency Departments (co-authored, Springer), Effective Communication in Clinical Handover: from Research to Practice (co-edited with Eggins, S. & Geddes, F.), Analysing Casual Conversation (with Eggins, S., 1997/2006, Cassell/Equinox).