Professor Farzad Sharifian holds the Chair in Cultural Linguistics at Monash University, Australia. He is a leading linguist with a multidisciplinary background in cognitive science, anthropology and education. Sharifian is a pioneer of Cultural Linguistics who has developed a theoretical and an analytical framework of cultural cognition, cultural conceptualisations, and language, which draws on analytical tools and theoretical advancements in several disciplines, including cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, anthropological linguistics, distributed cognition, complexity science, and cognitive psychology. The theoretical/analytical frameworks and their applications in the areas of intercultural communication, cross-cultural pragmatics, second language learning, and political discourse analysis are the subject of Sharifian’s monograph entitled Cultural conceptualisations and Language (John Benjamins, 2011).

Sharifian completed a PhD at Edith Cowan University, Perth in 2003. Sharifian’s PhD study, which develops a novel theoretical framework of cultural conceptualisations and applies it to the exploration of Aboriginal English, received multiple awards and was described in the citation for his 2002 University Research Medal as “having the potential to transform the research approach within the discipline”. In 2003, he was awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship by the Australian Research Council, which he undertook at the University of Western Australia. He has received several awards in recognition for his work, including the Edith Cowan University’s Research Medal.

Professor Sharifian is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Language and Culture, the Series Editor of Cultural Linguistics book series(Springer) and the editor (With Professor Ning Yu) of the book series Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts at John Benjamins. He has widely published in many international journals and edited books, including articles in more than 20 leading international journals. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. He is currently the President of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia.