Career
After initial training in my native Scotland, I worked from 1997 to 2004 and again from 2007 to 2015 at VU Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I am now retired and reside in the Netherlands with a second home in Portugal. From 2002 to 2007 I was the Treasurer and Executive Member of ESSE, the European Society for the Study of English, a federation of over thirty different national associations. I currently organize ESSE’s annual Doctoral Symposium for postgraduate students in English Studies. From 2017 to 2023 I was Treasurer of the Societas Linguistica Europća.
Please click on the links below for further details of my career.
M.A. (first-class honours) in French and German, University of Aberdeen (Scotland)
This five-year degree course at the University of Aberdeen incorporated two periods of study abroad, a year at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) and half a year at the Université Paul Valéry (Montpellier, France). The degree gave me an excellent grounding in French and German language and literature, and in the two respective cultures. I am fluent in both French and German.
Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Edinburgh
My doctoral dissertation, supervised by the late Prof. Ronald E. Asher and Prof. Roger Lass, was an excellent training in sound methodology and precise argumentation. The dissertation was a study of the syntax and semantics of German prepositions. I have retained a lifelong interest in those tiny but vital words. During my final year in Edinburgh, I taught courses in general and French semantics.
Lecturer in English Language, VU University Amsterdam
Although my qualifications were in continental languages, I was granted a tenured position in English in the Faculty of Arts, now the Faculty of Humanities of VU Amsterdam, one of Amsterdam's two universities. I built up enormous experience in teaching both advanced practical skills, oral and written, and linguistics and its application to varieties of English. I also established myself as a researcher in Functional Grammar, an approach to language developed in the Netherlands. In the academic year 1983-84 I was a fellow at NIAS, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies.
Full Professor in English Language, VU University Amsterdam
In this capacity, I led a teaching unit (no longer existent) that covered the full spectrum of the scholarly and scientific study of the English language. I was responsible for the programming and execution of the entire teaching curriculum and later for its adaptation to the so-called Bologna requirements. Concurrently, I was co-responsible for a succession of research programmes, and for many years was Chair of the Board of IFOTT, an also no longer existent three-university research institute in functional linguistics. Here is a list of the clever people, in chronological order, who were my PhD students or students with whose PhD I was closely associated:
Director of Research, Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam
This position put me in charge of the entire research effort of the then Faculty of Arts, comprising programmes in language, literature, history, art history and archaeology across a broad range of times, countries and languages. This experience taught me the skills of making maximum use of limited resources, optimizing research output and encouraging bright young researchers.
Part-time Professor, VU Amsterdam
As Professor of Functional Linguistics in what is now the Faculty of Humanities at VU Amsterdam, I developed my international profile as a productive researcher, especially in the area of Functional Discourse Grammar, and as a teacher of postgraduate courses.
Emeritus Professor, VU Amsterdam
As a retired professor, I worked in my area of expertise as a guest professor at various universities and as a member of three research groups: CELGA-ILTEC (University of Coimbra, Portugal, 2015-2023), SCIMITAR (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2002-2018) and EMO-FUNDETT (National Distance Education University, Spain, 2015-2019).
Academic Consultant in Languages and Linguistics
As a consultant, I take part in linguistic research projects, am active in the editing and proofreading of books and journals, discharge temporary teaching positions across Europe and elsewhere, offer advice and guidance to researchers on methodology and expression, and provide consultancy services for universities. I also work on various university, national and international assessment committees, notably for the European Commission.