M. A. K. Halliday

Language, context, and text : aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective

This study deals with the linguistic study of texts as a way of understanding how language functions in its immensely varied range of social contexts. The authors adopt a functional approach to language, in which the different registers or functional varieties of a language are explained by reference to the different contexts in which they occur. Their analysis reveals how, on the one hand, each text is unique, while on the other, the way a text is organized and the kinds of coherence it displays are closely related to the place and the value that it has in its social and cultural environment.

Towards a Language-Based Theory of Learning

Abstract Despite the fact that educational knowledge is massively dependent on verbal learning, theories of learning have not been specifically derived from observations of childrens language development. But language development is learning how to mean; and because human beings are quintessentially creatures who mean (i.e., who engage in semiotic processes, with natural language as prototypical), all human learning is essentially semiotic in nature. We might, therefore, seek to model learning processes in general in terms of the way children construe their resources for meaning—how they simultaneously engage in “learning language” and “learning through language.” A number of characteristic features of language development, largely drawn from systemic-functional studies of infancy, childhood, and early adolescence, offer one possible line of approach towards a language-based interpretation of learning.

Halliday's introduction to functional grammar

Preface PART I: THE CLAUSE Chapter 1: The architecture of language Chapter 2: Towards a functional grammar Chapter 3: Clause as message Chapter 4: Clause as exchange Chapter 5: Clause as representation PART II: ABOVE, BELOW AND BEYOND THE CLAUSE Chapter 6: Below the clause: groups and phases Chapter 7: Above the clause: the clause complex Chapter 8: Group and phrase complexes Chapter 9: Around the clause: cohesion and discourse Chapter 10: Beyond the clause: metaphorical modes of expression References Index

RELEVANT MODELS OF LANGUAGE

∗ This is a revised version of a paper presented to the Conference of Teachers in Approved Schools on “Language, life and learning”, organised by the Home Office Childrens Departmer t Development Group and the Programme in Linguistics and English Teaching (University College London) at Sunningdale, May 1969. I am much indebted to Professor Basil Bernstein for his very helpful comments on the paper, which already owes a lot to the inspiration of his work.

Some notes on ‘deep’ grammar

In the representation of syntagmatic relations in language, we may distinguish between a linear sequence of classes, such as ‘adjective followed by noun’, and a non-linear configuration of functions, such as ‘modifier-head relation’ or simply ‘modification’. Both of these have been referred to as ‘structure’, although this term has also been extended to cover paradigmatic as well as syntagmatic relations. For Hjelmslev, for whom ‘structure’ was not a technical term (see e.g. 1961: 74 (=1943: 67)), ‘the structural approach to language … [is] conceived as a purely relational approach to the language pattern’ (1948: quoted in Firth, 1951: 220); among others who have emphasized the relational aspect of such studies are Firth (1957: 17 ff., 1951: 227–8; cf. Robins, 1953; Palmer, 1964a), Tesniere (cf. Robins, 1961: 81 ff.) and Pike(cf. Longacre, 1964: 16). Chomskys (1964: 32) distinction, using Hocketts terms, between ‘surface structure’ and ‘deep structure’, ‘structure’ here going beyond syntagmatic relations, is extremely valuable and widely accepted: the surface structure of a sentence is defined as ‘a proper bracketing of the linear, temporally given sequence of elements, with the paired brackets labelled by category names’, while the deep structure, which is ‘in general not identical with its surface structure’, is ‘a much more abstract representation of grammatical relations and syntactic organization’.

Discourse in society : systemic functional perspectives

Introduction Generic and Register Qualities of Texts and Their Realization Opinion Texts in Conversation Patterns of Information in Initial Position in English Generic Expectancies and Discoursal Surprises: John Donnes The Good Morrow Intertextuality and Text Semantics The Social Production of Language: History and Structures of Domination Knowledge and Laughter: An Approach to a Socio-Cognitive Linguistics A Systemic-Functional Semiotics of Art The Conception of Contexts in Text Bibliography Subject Index

Creating value in the “new economy”

Business operates everywhere in an environment that is both dynamic and challenging: markets have globalised (supply markets and customer markets); technology has become all embracing (this includes product and process technology) and relationships with suppliers, customers and competitors are undergoing constant change (often influenced by external forces such as technology). A new business model is emerging, one in which competitive advantage is based upon managing processes that facilitate rapid and flexible responses to ‘market’ change and one in which new capabilities are based upon developing unique relationships with partners (suppliers, customers, employees, shareholders, government and, often, with competitors), an understanding of, and the ability to use and to manage the new technology and to understand the impact of knowledge creation and its distribution.

Added value, enterprise value and competitive advantage

This paper attempts to answer the questions raised in a previous paper by the authors (“Creating value in the ‘new economy”’, Management Decision, Vol. 40 No. 8) which dealt with how business has had to reevaluate the importance of its assets in the “new economy”. The present paper now addresses the questions of how these changes affect traditional marketing delivery structures and mechanisms and, more importantly, how these changes affect the cost of marketing and the estimation of value that marketing delivers. The disciplines of marketing are such that a major role can be played in exploring the likely scenarios that will optimise competitive advantage.

Aspects of Language and Learning

La presente obra recopila una serie de clases magistrales impartidas por M. A. K. Halliday allá por el 1986 en la National University of Singapore. Estos manuscritos habían quedado almacenados y no parecía que fueran jamás a ver la luz, tal y como, en un principio, había planeado hacía tiempo este autor. Finalmente, su editor y sus compañeros, considerando el valor de estos documentos, deciden ofrecerlos al público a través de la editorial alemana Springer reunidos en un único tomo. El profesor australobritánico advierte que no ha emprendido corrección o actualización alguna del contenido, hecho que atribuye a la falta de tiempo y fuerza, dejándolo tal y como estaba en su formato original. No obstante, realiza una breve contextualización de las distintas partes en las que se estructura su obra, a la espera de que los contenidos puedan servir de ayuda a quien esté intentando acercar el estudio del lenguaje a un público formado, si bien no especializado en lingüística. El libro en sí se ubica en el marco de la lingüística sistémico-funcional (SFL en inglés), modelo desarrollado por Halliday y sus compañeros en la década de los sesenta del pasado siglo. De acuerdo con el citado modelo, se parte del supuesto de que, para poder comprender el lenguaje, es necesario comenzar con el sistema para luego relacionarlo con su estructura. Para nuestro autor, es fundamental observar el aspecto social de la lengua si se desea avanzar en la comprensión de la misma. En este sentido, la interacción entre los hablantes y la situación en la que estos se ubican son aspectos esenciales del análisis lingüístico. Así, estos factores juegan un papel determinante en el momento en que un niño comienza a dar sus primeros pasos —en lo que al habla se refiere—, adquiriendo y empleando simultáneamente la que se convertirá en su lengua materna o L1. Eso es algo ya observado previamente por otros teóricos como Vygotsky, para quien la formación de aquellos conceptos más espontáneos estaba directamente relacionada con el entorno próximo (lo que este autor denominaba como zone of proximal development)1. Este enfoque sistémico-funcional de la lingüística propuesto por Halliday representa un punto y aparte para la investigación en años venideros. La obra aquí reseñada se estructura en ocho capítulos: el primero sirve a modo de introducción a los seminarios posteriores, tratando acerca del

Languages and Cultures

My general theme has been that of language and learning; and inevitably in considering the various specific aspects of this theme, my approach has been to interpret language in its cultural context. But I have not previously raised the question of the relationship of language to culture in a general or systematic way; certain things I have simply taken for granted, and others I have referred to in passing as they arose in the context of some particular step in the discussion.