Christian Matthias Ingemar Martin Matthiessen (born 1956) is a Swedish-born

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and a leading figure in the

systemic functional linguistics Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics, among functional linguistics, that considers language as a social semiotic system. It was devised by Michael Halliday, who took the notion of system from J. R. Firth, his ...

(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. One of his major works is ''Lexicogrammatical cartography'' (1995), a 700-page study of the

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

systems of English from the perspective of SFL. He has co-authored a number of books with

Michael Halliday Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M. A. K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018) was a British linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistics (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descri ...

. Since 2008 he has been a professor in the Department of English at the

Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU or HKPU) is a public research university in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The university is one of the eight government-funded degree-granting tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Founded in 1937 a ...

. Before this, he was Chair of the Department of Linguistics at

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a Public university, public research university in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the Sydney metropolitan area. ...

in Sydney.

Biography

Matthiessen was born and raised in Sweden. His mother, Christine Matthiessen, is credited with starting his interest in language as an object of study. His father, Martin Edmond, was a painter. Matthiessen completed his undergraduate degree at Lund University in 1980, where he studied English, Arabic, and philosophy. His Master of Arts was taken at UCLA, with a dissertation on English tense. In 1989 he completed a PhD at the same institution: ''Text generation as a linguistic research task''. While studying at UCLA, he worked first as a teaching assistant. From 1980 to 1983 he was a research assistant at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. In 1983 he took a position as research linguist at the institute, where he worked on the application and development of systemic theory and descriptions for text generation, including the maintenance and expansion of a systemic grammar of English for text generation. It was during this time that he worked with Bill Mann and Sandra Thompson in the development of

rhetorical structure theory Rhetorical structure theory (RST) is a theory of text organization that describes relations that hold between parts of text. It was originally developed by William Mann, Sandra Thompson, Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen and others at the Univers ...

. In 1988 he moved to the University of Sydney, where he was lecturer, then senior lecturer until 1994. During this period he worked on multilanguage generation, speech generation, English grammar, semantics and discourse, and systemic functional theory. In 1994 he moved to Macquarie University's Department of Linguistics, first as associate professor. In 2002 he took up a chair at Macquarie until 2008, when he was appointed chair and head of the Department of English at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. From 2009 to mid-2012, he was also associate dean of the Faculty of Humanities at PolyU. Since May 2011, he has been honorary professor at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, and guest professor at the University of Science and Technology, Beijing.

Contributions to linguistics

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, language typology, the evolution of language. He is an author of ''

Rhetorical Structure Theory Rhetorical structure theory (RST) is a theory of text organization that describes relations that hold between parts of text. It was originally developed by William Mann, Sandra Thompson, Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen and others at the Univers ...

'', along with Bill Mann and Sandra Thompson. Matthiessen's 1,000-page ''Lexicogrammatical Cartography'' offers "the best account of the S.F. description of English based on Halliday's work."Butt, D. 2001. Firth, Halliday and the development of systemic functional theory. In Auroux, S, Koerner, E.F.K., Niederehe, H., Versteegh, K. (eds). ''History of the language sciences'', Volume 2. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. 1831 pp. His co-authored book, with

, ''Construing Experience through Meaning: A language based approach to cognition'' shows how to construe a linguistic/semiotic approach to cognition without invoking pre-linguistic mental fictions.

Contributions to systemic functional linguistics

Matthiessen has worked across many areas of linguistics, but has specialized, theoretically, in the modelling of language from the

, including in

systemic functional grammar Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description originated by Michael Halliday. It is part of a social semiotics, semiotic approach to language called ''systemic functional linguistics''. In these two terms, ''systemic'' ...

. He has been described as the "de facto cartographer" of

. Halliday acknowledges Matthiessen's work in extending the description of grammar from the systemic functional perspective via his contributions to the Penman project.Halliday, M. A. K. (1995). On language in relation to the evolution of human consciousness. In S. Allen (Ed.), Of Thoughts and Words: The relation between language and mind. Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 92 Stockholm, 8–12 August 1994 (pp. 45-84). London: Imperial College Press.

Selected works

*Matthiessen C.M.I.M. (1995) ''Lexicogrammatical cartography: English systems'', Tokyo, International Language Sciences Publishers *Halliday M.A.K., Matthiessen C.M.I.M. (2000) ''Construing experience through meaning: a language-based approach to cognition'', Open linguistics series, Continuum International. *Matthiessen C.M.I.M., Caffarel A., Martin J.R. (2004) ''Language typology: a functional perspective'', Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 700 pp. * Halliday, M.A.K., Matthiessen C.M.I.M. (2004).
An introduction to functional grammar
', 3rd ed. London, Arnold *Matthiessen C.M.I.M. (2004) "Descriptive motifs and generalisations". In A. Caffarel, J.R. Martin, C.M.I.M. Matthiessen (eds.), ''Language typology: a functional perspective'' (pp. 537–64). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins *Martin J.R., Painter C., Matthiessen C.M.I.M. (2006) ''Working with functional grammar'', Hodder Arnold Publication, 340 pp. *Matthiessen C.M.I.M., Halliday M.A.K. (2009) ''Systemic functional grammar: a first step into the theory'', Higher Education Press

References

External links

"Language evolving: Notes towards a semiotic history of humanity"
Webcast by Christian Matthiessen at

UBC The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...