Expounding register and registerial cartography in systemic functional linguistics: an interview with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

Abstract

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen is a leading scholar in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Together with William C. Mann and Sandra A. Thompson, he developed Rhetorical Structure Theory, a discourse analytical framework which he has continued to expand and extend using insights from the architecture of SFL. His contributions to SFL are in various areas, such as functional language typology, theoretical modeling of the dimensions of language and comprehensive paradigmatic description of English lexicogrammatical systems. In this interview, he discusses various topics on register from the SFL perspective, including the definition of register and the location of register in the SFL architecture. The interview also relates to Halliday’s and Martin’s conceptions of register, Matthiessen’s long-term project of registerial cartography, and the applications of register in various domains. The discussion is expected to contribute to the debates on register and its applications.

Keywords:

• register
• systemic functional linguistics
• registerial cartography
• field of activity
• application

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. BBN is an American high-tech company that provides research and development services.

2. Christian Matthiessen avoids using the term SLA, as he does not like the acquisition metaphor, which comes with wrong connotations and could mislead people into theorization. Therefore, he prefers to use “learning how to mean in a second language or foreign language”.