Methodological considerations in language description: an interview with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

Abstract This paper aims to discuss the methodological considerations in language description with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. It is a dialogic reflection on effective procedures and approaches that have been deployed by the interviewer and interviewee in their practice in language description. The discussion draws on the architecture of language outlined in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to provide guidelines on ensuring comprehensiveness and reliability in language description. Some of the topics examined include the goals of language description in SFL, the use of theory as a guiding grid in language description, the effective way of structuring a grammar, common mistakes in language description and the role of register in sampling texts for language description. This paper provides insights for both novice and expert grammarians in the pedagogy of descriptive linguistics.