(Sorengo, Switzeland, 1943). He studied Romance philology at the universities of Basel, Zurich, Salamanca, Coimbra and Padua. Doctorate in 1969 in Ibero-Romance philology, French linguistics and Italian literary studies at the University of Basel. In 1972 he qualified as a university lecturer at the University of Basel with the venia legendi “Romance philology”. He was assistant and lecturer at the University of Basel and professor at the universities of Trier, Groningen, Coimbra, Cosenza, Paderborn and Göttingen. Since 1989 he has been holding the position of a full professor for linguistics and didactics of Roman languages at the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Vienna. Since 2011 he is Professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He has given lectures in almost every country in Europe, in Cuba, in Chile and in Peru. In 1994 he became a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, further „Grande Oficial da Ordem do Mérito da República Portuguesa“ (1998), Prof. h.c. of the University of Bucharest (1999),  holder of the Spanish „Encomienda de la Orden del Mérito Civil“ (2000), corresponding member of the Academia Chilena de la Lengua (2000), honorary member of the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2001), holder of the Ordin naţional „Pentru Merit“ of Romania (Ofiţer 2002, Comandor 2011), holder of the gold medal of the arts faculty of the Comenius University Bratislava (2003), full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2004), holder of the „Medalla de Honor Presidencial que conmemora el Centenario del Natalicio de Pablo Neruda“ (2004), honorary member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences (2004), Dr. h.c. of the University of Timişoara / Temesvar (2006), holder of the „insignia de aur“ of the University Petre Andrei / Iaşi (2007), Dr. h.c. of the University of Stockholm (2007), Honorary professor at the University Ricardo Palma / Lima (2008), Prof. h.c. of the University of Iaşi (2009), Dr. h.c. of the University of Iaşi (2010), Dr. h.c. of the Comenius-University of Bratislava (2010) and full member of the Reial Acadèmia de Doctors (2015). Michael Metzeltin was, among others, chairman of the Balkan commission (2008-2011) and of the commission “Südosteuropa – Türkei – Schwarzmeerregion” (2011-2014) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is author of 32 monographs and 282 articles on Romance topics, on texts linguistics and discourse analysis. He is co-founder and co-editor among other things of the Romanistisches Kolloquium (RK, 28 volumes, since 1984), the Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik  (LRL, 12 volumes, 1988-2005) and the Cinderella-book series (19 volumes, since 1996). His main research focus is, among others, in the fields of linguistic typology, text theory and discourse analysis by developing new approaches.