Women in Social Semiotics and Sfl : Making a Difference

This book showcases interviews with nine women who have made pioneering contributions to social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics (SFL), highlighting how these women have taken the discipline into new and innovative directions, and the enduring impact of their work.

The volume features interviews with a generation of scholars inspired by the prominent linguists Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in Sydney, reflecting on their achievements in the advancement of theory, knowledge, and practical application as well as the establishment of research centers in different parts of the world. A consistent interview format helps to illustrate the different directions the work of these scholars has taken and their different takes on key concepts to the discipline such as register, genre, text and context, and multimodality. Taken together, the interviews offer insights into key strands of social semiotic and SFL scholarship and give inspiration toward moving the field into new theoretical and applied directions.

Reflecting on the groundbreaking work of renowned women scholars in social semiotics and SFL and their continued global impact, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in these fields, as well as those in the areas of language pedagogy, literacy, and multimodality.

Eva Maagerø (born 1951) is professor of Norwegian at University of South-Eastern Norway, Department of Languages and Literature Studies. Her research interests are social semiotics, systemic functional linguistics, multimodality, and literacy. She has published extensively and co-authored Social Semiotics; Key Figures, New Directions (Routledge, 2015).

Ruth Mulvad (born 1948) is former associate professor at National Center for Reading, University Colleges in Denmark. She has researched SFL-based teaching and learning across the curriculum in primary and secondary school and in teacher education. She has published on SFL in education, theoretical texts, and teaching materials.

Elise Seip Tønnessen (born 1951) is Professor Emeritus in Department of Nordic and Media Studies, University of Agder, Norway. Her research interests include literacy, multimodality, and children’s literature and media culture. She has co-edited Multimodality and Aesthetics (Routledge, 2019) and co-authored Social Semiotics; Key Figures, New Directions (Routledge, 2015).