Professor Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday served as Advisor to the Halliday Centre from 2005 to 2018. As a significant contribution to language studies, he developed a theoretical approach known as ‘systemic functional linguistics’, incorporating a comprehensive model of grammar appliable to different languages. He also emphasised on theory as a resource for solving real-world problems (he called it an ‘appliable’ theory). As a result, his work has been of interest to a wide audience of those concerned with language in both theory and practice.
1925 |
Born in Leeds, England |
1947 |
Enrolled in Peking University |
1948 |
External BA (Hons.) London University (Modern Chinese) |
1949 |
Research student under Wang Li at Lingnan University, Guangzhou, China, doing dialect field work |
1955 |
PhD studies at Cambridge under J.R. Firth; title of dissertation: "The Language of the Chinese Secret History of the Mongols" |
1963 - 1970 |
University College London, Director of the Communication Research Centre |
1976 - 1987 |
University of Sydney, Founding Professor of Linguistics |
1979 |
Research Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities |
1981 |
David H. Russell Award for distinguished Research in the Teaching of English, National Council of Teachers of English (USA) |
1986 |
Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor, National University of Singapore |
1989 |
Corresponding Member of the British Academy |
2002 |
Inaugural recipient of the AILA Gold Medal Award for exemplary scholarship in the field of applied linguistics |
2003 |
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong |
2005-2018 |
Advisor, The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies, City University of Hong Kong |
2007 |
Recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of British Columbia in recognition of his contribution to linguistics, including especially educational linguistics |
2008 |
Recipient of an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Education honoris causa) from The Hong Kong Institution of Education |
2012-2015 |
Honorary Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong (CityU) |
2013-2018 |
Advisor, The Functional Linguistics Institute, Sun Yat-sen University |
2018 |
Deceased |
