1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Transdisciplinary Systemic Functional Linguistics
The Routledge Handbook of Transdisciplinary Systemic Functional Linguistics offers a groundbreaking exploration of how M.A.K. Halliday's influential work extends beyond traditional linguistic boundaries to address today's most complex problems.
A key barrier to transdisciplinary research is language, whether due to differing terminology or the lack of a shared research vocabulary. This challenge reflects deeper epistemological divides, as language shapes how knowledge is constructed and communicated across disciplines. This collection shows how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) provides effective tools for addressing complex cross-disciplinary issues. Beginning with Halliday’s foundational work, it traces the development of SFL and its applications. The first section highlights how SFL supports meaning-making in areas such as child development and healthcare, emphasizing language’s role in identity. Later sections explore its use in political, cultural, and environmental contexts, as well as in technology and AI. The volume concludes by outlining how language theory can help address critical societal challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration.
This book a valuable resource for students and scholars in applied linguistics, SFL, forensic linguistics, computational linguistics, and language and communication.
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Introduction: A View to Transdisciplinarity
1: On the Nature of Linguistics and Its Transdisciplinary Potential, Rebekah Wegener, Lise Fontaine and Anne McCabe
2: SFL and Functional Models of Language: Multidisciplinarity or Transdisciplinarity?, Jacques François and Akila Sellami Baklouti
Part I: The Individual in a Transdisciplinary Perspective
3: Child Language Development, Clare Painter and Susan Feez
4: Working Transdisciplinarily in Content and Language Integrated Learning Programmes, Ana Llinares, Rachel Whittaker and Tom Morton
5: Transdisciplinary SFL Praxis with Multilingual Youth and Educators, Ruth Harman, Xiaodong Zhang and Dan Jin
6: Bilingual strata: Neurocognitive Insights for Systemic Functional Linguistics, Matías Morales, Edinson Muñoz and Adolfo M. García
7: Conceptual Metaphor between Universality and Variation: An SFL Perspective on Context, Fatma Benelhadj
8: Clinical Linguistics: A Focus on Interactions and an Interpersonal Perspective, Elizabeth Armstrong, Rimke Groenewold, Deborah Hersh, Christa Akers, Mary-Pat O’Malley and Nicole Muller
9: Language in Affective Disorders: The Opportunities of a Functional Approach, Jamie Williams
Part II: Social Processes in a Transdisciplinary Perspective
10: Thematic and Methodological Transdisciplinarity in SFL-Related Studies of Ideology, Erich Steiner
11: Ecolinguistics and the Rethinking of Society: From Grammar to Narrative, Arran Stibbe
12: A Transdisciplinary Study of Language Reports across Registerial Variation, Nesrine Triki
13: Transdisciplinary Approaches in Translation Studies Empowered by Systemic Functional Linguistics, Bo Wang, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen & Yuanyi Ma
14: “When Language Becomes the Evidence…”: An Analysis of the Transitivity Patterns in Two High-Profile Criminal Trials of the 1990s, Leanne Bartley
15: Functional(ist) Approaches to Promotional Discourse, Hartmut Stöckl
16: Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach to the Analysis of the Digital Text of Software Installation, Dorra Moalla
17: Halliday’s Transdisciplinarity Meets Hasan’s Systemic Socio-Semantic Stylistics (SSS): Exploratory Reflections, Donna R. Miller
Part III: Tools and Technology in a Transdisciplinary Perspective
18: Transdisciplinary Research on Language Behaviour in Situational Context, Stella Neumann
19: Register Revisited: Information Theory as a Bridge between Functional Description and Cognitive Explanation, Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Elke Teich
20: Systemic Transdisciplinary Theory of Cross-Disciplinary Social Research Method Appropriation: Face-to-Face Interviewing, Rodney J. Clarke
21: The Future of Morphology: A Transdisciplinary Approach, Kateryna Krykoniuk
22: Knowledge Graphs for Digital Humanities and Linguistics, Krzysztof Kutt, Luiz do Valle Miranda, Jakub Gomułka, Ricardo Alonso-Maturana, Susana López-Sola, José Palma and Grzegorz J. Nalepa
23: Form and Function: Automatic Methods for Prediction of Functions, Serge Sharoff
24: Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence – a match made in heaven for solving real business problems, August Stapput and Anders Kofod-Petersen
25: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction and Artificial intelligence, Jörg Cassens
Part IV: Reflections on Transdisciplinarity
26: Transdisciplinarity within Systemic Functional Linguistics, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen
27: Epilogue: Rebekah Wegener, Anne McCabe, Akila Sellami Baklouti, and Lise Fontaine
Index
Biography
Rebekah Wegener is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Drawing on functional approaches to language, her research connects theoretical frameworks with applications through multimodal interaction across contexts, computer-mediated communication, and human-computer interaction. Bridging linguistics and practical applications, she explores human-centered and explainable AI in medical and educational domains.
Anne McCabe is Professor Emerita of English at Saint Louis University’s Madrid Campus, where she has taught courses in rhetoric, academic writing, linguistics, public speaking, and English as an additional language. Her research focuses mainly on linguistics applied to language education and she is a member of the UAM-CLIL research group (http://www.uam-clil.org).
Akila Sellami Baklouti is a Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Sfax (Tunisia). She mainly lectures on systemic functional grammar, academic writing, and research methodology. Her research interests and PhD supervision areas include Systemic Functional Linguistics, genre analysis, and genre-based contrastive and translation studies.
Lise Fontaine is a Professor in the Department of Lettres et Communication Sociale at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), and also serves as Director of the undergraduate program committee. Her academic work is centred on linguistic theory, with specific interests in functional grammar, lexicons-grammar, semantics, and referring expressions. Fontaine applies linguistic approaches in interdisciplinary contexts as well.
