Lachlan Mackenzie

The main focus of my research has been on the development of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) together with Kees Hengeveld and many other researchers worldwide. This model differs from other approaches to the analysis of languages in taking the discourse act as its basic unit of analysis. It is strongly oriented to language typology. FDG distinguishes four levels of linguistic organization (interpersonal, representational, morphosyntactic and phonological) and orders these levels in a top-down fashion. Each level is structured hierarchically. Major publications in this area are Hengeveld & Mackenzie (2008), Keizer (2015) and Hengeveld & Mackenzie's article in Heine & Narrog (2015). For a complete bibliography and other information about this approach, see the Functional Discourse Grammar homepage; see also the Functional Discourse Grammar page by Inge Genee at Oxford Bibliographies (membership or institutional access required).

I am one of the Editors responsible for the articles section of the journal Functions of Language (John Benjamins), which publishes articles and reviews books from the full spectrum of functional linguistics, seeking to bring out the fundamental unity behind the various schools of thought, while stimulating discussion among functionalists; the other editors responsible for the articles in Functions of Language are Martin Hilpert (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland) and Sumin Zhao (University of Edinburgh, Scotland).

I am a member of the editorial board of the Croatian linguistics journal Jezikoslovlje, the Slovene journal of English Studies ELOPE, the Romanian journal British and American Studies as well as the Spanish journals Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, Journal of English Studies, Complutense Journal of English Studies and Babel-AFIAL, the online journal Language under Discussion, the international journal Corpus Pragmatics and the Brazilian journals Alfa — Revista de Linguística and Acta Scientiarum: Language and Culture.

I am also a member of the Editorial Board of the book series Discussions in Functional Approaches to Language at Equinox Publishing.

From 2015 to 2023 I was a member of CELGA-ILTEC, a linguistics centre of the University of Coimbra, formed from the Centre of General and Applied Linguistics (CELGA) and the Institute for Theoretical and Computational Linguistics (ILTEC). From 2010 to 2013, I was the coordinator of ILTEC's participation in the British Council’s international project Language Rich Europe.

From 2002 to 2018 I was associated with the research group Santiago-Centred International Milieu for Interactional, Typological and Acquisitional Research, SCIMITAR. It focuses on the grammar-discourse interface from the viewpoint of functional-typological linguistics, also considering information processing and the acquisition of languages. SCIMITAR has been coordinated since its inception by Prof. Dr. María de los Ángeles Gómez-González, Full Professor in the Department of English and German Philology of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. SCIMITAR has received funding for its research projects from various authorities and organizations, notably the European Regional Development Fund, the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness and the Xunta de Galicia (the Autonomous Government of Galicia). SCIMITAR organizes a number of international workshops. The last one to involve me was IWoDA'16 (Fourth International Workshop on Discourse Analysis) in Santiago de Compostela, held on 29-30 September 2016. A book with articles arising from that Workshop appeared in September 2018, edited by Prof. Gómez-González and myself.

From 2015 to 2019 I was a member of the international project ‘The discursive emotive/evaluative function in different texts and work contexts: Emotion and language at work’ (EMO-FUNDETT). This project was coordinated by Prof. Dr. Laura Alba-Juez, Full Professor of English Linguistics at the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid, Spain. It was concerned with the emotional function of language, especially as this is realized and managed by individuals and groups in both institutional and corporate work environments. Among the outcomes of this project are two MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) on Language and Emotion to which I contributed a lecture on 'Emotions and the lexicon' and an interview with Prof. Alba-Juez. Another product is a volume called Emotion in Discourse, 2019, John Benjamins Publishers.

From 2017 to 2023 I was Treasurer of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), the Linguistics Society of Europe. The SLE organizes annual conferences (the 2018 edition was in Tallinn, Estonia, the 2019 edition was in Leipzig, Germany, while the 2020 and 2021 editions took place online because of the Covid-19 crisis). The 2022 conference was held in Bucharest from 24 to 27 August 2022 and the 2023 conference was held in Athens, Greece from 29 August to 1 September 2023. The next SLE Conference will be held in Helsinki from 21 to 24 August 2024. SLE publishes two journals, Folia Linguistica and Folia Linguistica Historica.