Cambridge University Press

978-1-107-11698-6 — The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edited by Geoff Thompson , Wendy L. Bowcher , Lise Fontaine , David Schönthal
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The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Presenting a field-defining overview of one of the most appliable linguistic

theories available today, this Handbook surveys the key issues in the study of
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), covering an impressive range of theoret-
ical perspectives. With contributions from some of the world’s foremost SFL
scholars, including M. A. K. Halliday, the founder of SFL theory, the Handbook
covers topics ranging from the theory behind the model, discourse analysis
within SFL, and applied SFL, to SFL in relation to various fields of research such
as intonation, typology, clinical linguistics, and education. Chapters include
discussion on the possible future directions in which research might be con-
ducted and issues that can be further investigated and resolved. Readers will be
inspired to pursue the challenges raised within the volume, both theoretically
and practically.

geoff thompson (1947–2015) was an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University

of Liverpool. He has published many journal articles, chapters, and edited
volumes, including Evaluation in Context (2014, with L. Alba Juez), Text-Type and
Texture (2009, with G. Forey), and System and Corpus: Exploring Connections (2006,
with Susan Hunston).

wendy l. bowcher is a Professor and the Director of the Functional Linguistics

Institute at Sun Yat-sen University. Her publications include the edited collec-
tions Society in Language: Language in Society: Essays in Honour of Ruqaiya Hasan
(2016, with J. Y. Liang), Systemic Phonology: Recent Studies in English (2014, with
B. A. Smith), and Multimodal Texts from around the World: Cultural and Linguistic
Insights (2012).

lise fontaine is a Reader at Cardiff University. She has published numerous

articles, chapters, and books. Recent publications include the co-authored Refer-
ring in Language: An Integrated Approach (Cambridge, forthcoming), Perspectives
from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable Theory of Language (Routledge,
2018, with A. Sellami-Baklouti), and Analysing English Grammar: A Systemic-
functional Introduction (Cambridge, 2012).

david schönthal is a Research Associate at Cardiff University. His main

research interests are different approaches to grammar, the meaning of words,
and the implementation of a multimethod approach. He is co-author of Referring
in Language: An Integrated Approach (Cambridge, forthcoming).

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cambridge handbooks in language and linguistics

Genuinely broad in scope, each handbook in this series provides a complete

state-of-the-field overview of a major sub-discipline within language study and
research. Grouped into broad thematic areas, the chapters in each volume
encompass the most important issues and topics within each subject, offering a
coherent picture of the latest theories and findings. Together, the volumes will
build into an integrated overview of the discipline in its entirety.

Published titles
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and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio
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L. Bavin and Letitia Naigles
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Herschensohn and Martha Young-Scholten
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K. Grohmann
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The Cambridge Handbook of Communication Disorders, edited by Louise Cummings
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Kockelman, and Jack Sidnell
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Randi Reppen
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Gaëtanelle Gilquin, and Fanny Meunier
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Roberts
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and R. M. W. Dixon
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The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, edited by Geoff
Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine, and David Schönthal

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The Cambridge
Handbook of Systemic
Functional Linguistics
Edited by
Geoff Thompson
University of Liverpool

Wendy L. Bowcher
Sun Yat-Sen University

Lise Fontaine
Cardiff University

David Schönthal
Cardiff University

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Names: Thompson, Geoff, 1947- editor. | Bowcher, Wendy L., editor. | Fontaine, Lise,
editor. | Schönthal, David, editor.
Title: The Cambridge handbook of systemic functional linguistics / edited by Geoff
Thompson (University of Liverpool), Wendy L. Bowcher (Sun Yat-Sen University,
China), Lise Fontaine (University of Cardiff), David Schönthal (Cardiff University).
Other titles: Systemic functional linguistics | Cambridge handbooks in language and
linguistics.
Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University
Press, 2019. | Series: Cambridge handbooks in language and linguistics | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058445| ISBN 9781107116986 (hardback ; alk. paper) |
ISBN 1107116988 (hardback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781107539747 (pbk. ; alk. paper) |
ISBN 1107539749 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Functionalism (Linguistics) | Systemic grammar.
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Geoff Thompson (1947–2015)

Generous scholar, loyal friend, and dedicated mentor

Photo: Courtesy of Susan Thompson. With thanks.

This volume was initiated by Geoff Thompson in 2014. The shape

and flow of the contents reflect his vision for the handbook, and,
from the start, Geoff took the lead in the editorial team in
contacting contributors, editing, and commenting on the early
contributor submissions. As a team of editors working together,
we could never have imagined that we would not finish the
volume together, and yet, in November 2015 we received the
sad news that Geoff had suddenly passed away. We have retained
Geoff as first editor of the volume as a way of recognizing his
significant role in getting this volume off the ground and of
remembering all he has done for us. We know that we speak
for all the contributors in saying that we miss Geoff’s generosity
and his scholarly insights very much. The volume is thus dedi-
cated to him.

Lise, Wendy, and David

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Contents

List of Figures page ix

List of Tables xiv
Contributors xvi
Preface xxix
Acknowledgements xxxi

Introduction Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine, and David Schönthal 1

Part I SFL: The Model 9

1 Firth and the Origins of Systemic Functional Linguistics: Process,
Pragma, and Polysystem David G. Butt 11
2 Key Terms in the SFL Model Jonathan J. Webster 35
3 Semantics Miriam Taverniers 55
4 The Clause: An Overview of the Lexicogrammar Margaret Berry 92
5 The Rooms of the House: Grammar at Group Rank Lise Fontaine
and David Schönthal 118
6 Context and Register Wendy L. Bowcher 142
7 Intonation Wendy L. Bowcher and Meena Debashish 171
8 Continuing Issues in SFL Mick O’Donnell 204
9 The Cardiff Model of Functional Syntax Anke Schulz and Lise
Fontaine 230
10 SFL in Context Christopher S. Butler 259

Part II Discourse Analysis within SFL 283

11 Models of Discourse in Systemic Functional Linguistics
Tom Bartlett 285
12 Cohesion and Conjunction Maite Taboada 311
13 Semantic Networks Andy Fung and Francis Robert Low 333
14 Discourse Semantics J. R. Martin 358
15 Appraisal Susan Hood 382

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viii CONTENTS

16 SFL and Diachronic Studies David Banks 410

17 SFL and Multimodal Discourse Analysis Kay L. O’Halloran,
Sabine Tan, and Peter Wignell 433
18 SFL and Critical Discourse Analysis Gerard O’Grady 462

Part III SFL in Application 485

19 Language Development Geoff Williams 487
20 Applying SFL for Understanding and Fostering Instructed Second
Language Development Heidi Byrnes 512
21 Language and Education: Learning to Mean Peter Mickan 537
22 Systemic Functional Linguistics and Computation: New Directions,
New Challenges John Bateman, Daniel McDonald, Tuomo Hiippala,
Daniel Couto-Vale, and Eugeniu Costetchi 561
23 Clinical Linguistics Elissa Asp and Jessica de Villiers 587
24 Language and Science, Language in Science, and Linguistics as
Science M. A. K. Halliday and David G. Butt 620
25 Language and Medicine Alison Rotha Moore 651
26 Language and Literature Donna R. Miller 690
27 Language and Social Media: Enacting Identity through Ambient
Affiliation Michele Zappavigna 715
28 Theorizing and Modelling Translation Erich Steiner 739
29 Language Typology Abhishek Kumar Kashyap 767

Index 793

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Figures

3.1 Four types of conceptions of ‘meaning’ in SFL page 57

3.2 Three design alternatives in modelling a semantic
stratum: topological [1], systemic/typological [2], and
discourse-structural [3] 61
3.3 One-to-many [2], many-to-one [3], and many-to-many [4]
conceptions of variability between meanings and forms in
relation to the default view of one-to-one meaning-to-form
couplings within lexicogrammar [1] 62
3.4 Interpersonal grammatical metaphors of mood (left) and
modality (right) theorized within a view of variation of
one-to-many 64
3.5 The traditional view of metaphor (left), and an alternative
view which is equally inspiring in the study of grammatical
metaphor (right) 65
3.6 Metaredundancy relationships between strata, starting from
the top focusing on the content side of language (left), and
starting from the bottom focusing on the expression side of
language (right) 68
3.7 Shunting perspectives in theorizing grammatical
metaphor as a tension between lexicogrammar
and semantics 73
3.8 Shunting perspectives in theorizing the metafunctions
as semantic components of the system of language 74
3.9 Abstraction-based and pattern-based approaches to semantics,
highlighting a topological and discourse-structural design,
respectively 79
3.10 An actualization approach of semantics,
highlighting registers as gatekeepers between context
and lexicogrammar 84

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x LIST OF FIGURES

3.11 Overview of semantic models in SFL in terms of

differentiating dimensions in the overall architecture
(stratification, instantiation, metafunctional
complementarity); different design principles (systemic,
topological, and discourse-structural); and the role of
variability between meanings and forms 86
4.1 Types of process represented as a system network 94
4.2 More delicate choices within material processes 97
4.3 A more delicate choice within mental processes 100
4.4 A choice within relational processes 104
4.5 A simplified MOOD network for English 105
4.6 A simplified MODALITY network for English 109
4.7 Thematic options for declarative clauses 116
5.1 Word classes in SFL (adapted from Halliday and
Matthiessen (2014:75)) 122
6.1 Register and context in SFL theory (adapted from
Halliday 1999:8) 151
6.2 System network for field (from Bowcher 2014:203) 157
6.3 Matthiessen’s map of the different ‘fields of activity’
(from Matthiessen 2014a:11) 159
6.4 More delicate distinctions for the category of ‘expounding’ 159
6.5 Martin’s model of stratified context plane (connotative
semiotic) with language as expression form (denotative
semiotic) (from Martin 1999:40) 162
6.6 Martin’s instantiation hierarchy (Martin 2008:33) 162
7.1 The relation of realization among the strata of language
with tone unit and information unit shown [note: the
downward slanting arrows mean ‘is realised by’]
(cf. Halliday 1992:24) 175
7.2 The constituents of the tone unit showing some analytical
conventions 176
7.3 System network for choices in foot composition and
ictus state (from Halliday and Matthiessen 2014:18) 178
7.4 Intonation systems 178
7.5 Choices in the Tone Unit system showing the more
delicate choices available in the pretonic and system of
tone [note: in this diagram Tonic 2 refers to a Minor Tonic]
(from Halliday and Matthiessen 2014:18) 184
7.6 Unmarked Theme/Rheme and Given/New functional
elements in a clause 188
7.7 Analysis of marked information unit distribution 189
7.8 Tone 1 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 191
7.9a Tone 2 – the sharp rising tonic with a step down pretonic 191
7.9b Tone 2 – the sharp rising tonic with a high level pretonic 191
7.10 Tone 3 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 192
7.11 Tone 4 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 192

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List of Figures xi

7.12 Tone 5 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 193

7.13 Tone 13 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 194
7.14 Tone 53 – the tonic and pretonic pitch contours 194
7.15 Direct secondary tones of Tone 1 195
7.16 Indirect secondary tones of Tone 1 195
7.17 Indirect (neutral) secondary tone [.1] ([.1.], [.1+], and
[.1-] respectively) 196
7.18 Direct secondary tones of Tone 2 196
7.19 Indirect secondary tones of Tone 2 197
7.20 Indirect secondary tones of Tone 3 ([.3] and [-3]
respectively) 198
7.21 Direct and indirect secondary tones of Tone 4 ([4.] and
[4] respectively) 198
7.22 Direct and indirect secondary tones of Tone 5 ([5.] and
[5] respectively) 199
9.1 The main components of a systemic functional grammar
(e.g. Fawcett 2000a:36) 233
9.2 Partial view of the main generative components of the
COMMUNAL computer model 234
9.3 A very small systemic functional grammar for the English
clause (Fawcett 2008a:93) 237
9.4 A simplified system network for the ‘information’
sub-network of MOOD (Fawcett 2008a:157) 239
9.5 The basic categories of syntax (Fawcett 2008a:74) 243
9.6 The basic relationships of syntax (Fawcett 2008a:75) 243
9.7 A common configuration of the nominal group in the
Cardiff Grammar 246
9.8 Filling and exponence in the nominal group 246
9.9 Diagram of the structure of the prepositional group 247
9.10 Example of the syntax of the prepositional group 247
9.11 Full tree diagram showing a nominal group, a quality
group, and a prepositional group 247
9.12 Full structure of the quality group 248
9.13 The structure of the quantity group 249
9.14 Diagram showing the generic structure of the deictic
determiner 249
9.15 Example of conflation between elements 250
9.16 Syntax for example (7) 254
9.17 Analysis of the syntax and semantics of example (7) in the
Cardiff Grammar (based on Fawcett 2010:148) 254
10.1 Two-dimensional multidimensional scaling plot of
relationships among the questionnaire responses 261
10.2 Hierarchical clustering dendrogram for the
questionnaire data 262
10.3 Multidimensional scaling plot for the final ratings data 263
10.4 Hierarchical clustering dendrogram for the final ratings 264
11.1 GSP of a Fairy Tale (Hasan 1996:54) 292
11.2 GSP of a Shopping Transaction (Hasan 1996:56) 292

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xii LIST OF FIGURES

11.3 The cline of (de)contextualization (Cloran 2010) 295

12.1 RST representation of example (20) 325
13.1 The semantic network of warning and threat
(Halliday 1973:89) 337
13.2 The overall organization of semantic networks of
‘progressive message’ (Hasan 2013:286) 340
13.3 Options in expressing questions: a simplified fragment
(see Hasan 1989:246; Hasan et al. 2007:713) 343
14.1 An outline of discourse semantic systems
(by metafunction) 378
14.2 Discourse semantics in relation to register and
lexicogrammar 379
15.1 An outline of the system of appraisal (from Martin and
White 2005:38) 385
15.2 Simultaneous choices in identifying instances of attitude
(adapted from Liu 2017:74) 385
15.3 A topological perspective on attitude resources (from
Martin 2000:165) 389
15.4 A network of graduation options (adapted from
Hood 2010:105) 391
15.5 A network of modes of realization for attitude (from
Hood and Martin 2007:746) 392
15.6 The system of engagement (from Martin and White
2005:134) 396
17.1 Register and genre (reproduced from Martin and
White 2005:32) 437
17.2 Language strata (reproduced from Martin and
White 2005:9) 438
17.3 Adapted from O’Halloran’s (2008a) SF-MDA framework
work for language and visual imagery 439
17.4 Constituent levels of the Ebola webpage organized in
terms of hypertext components (left): Masthead/Banner (1),
Content (2), Bottom Sitemap (3); and discourse types (right):
Reporting (4), Information (5), Promotion (6), News (7) 443
17.5 Photograph-text complex from the webpage’s main visual
display 444
17.6 ‘Current Situation’ section of webpage with constituent
parts outlined 448
17.7 An example of multiple relational processes in a graph 449
17.8 Ebola infographic 451
17.9 Ebola symptoms resemiotized in images 452
17.10 Intersemiotic connections between the infographic and
other parts of the webpage 452
17.11 ‘Get Involved’ section, with constituent parts outlined 453
17.12 ‘Funding’ subsection 454
17.13 Screenshot of News section, with constituent
parts outlined 455
17.14 Intersemiosis on the Ebola webpage 456

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List of Figures xiii

19.1 A preliminary illustration of mapping a system in a

protolinguistic network 492
19.2 Hasan’s semantic network fragment: making choices in
demands for information (reproduced in Williams
1995:158) 504
21.1 Genre teaching and learning cycle (Rothery 1994; also see
Rose and Martin 2012) 540
21.2 People’s participation in society (Mickan 2013:34) 541
24.1 Typology of grammatical metaphors (from Halliday
2004a:41–2) 634
25.1 The main determinants of health (after Dahlgren and
Whitehead 2007) 652
25.2 Network of key contextual options in Phase 2 of genetic
counselling (after Moore and Butt 2004) 672
25.3 Network fragment: key semantic options in
‘rational strategy’ within Phase 2 of genetic counselling
(after Moore and Butt 2004) 673
25.4a Original image used in decision aid for genetic counselling
(after Lobb et al. 2002) 674
25.4b Revised image used in decision aid for genetic counselling
(after Lobb et al. 2002) 674
26.1 The double-articulation framework (adapted from Hasan
1989:99) 701
26.2 The ‘Russian dolls’ of appraisal in the poem 706
27.1 An example of an Instagram feed (left) and an individual
post (right) 716
27.2 The individuation cline (adapted from Martin et al.
2013:490) 721
27.3 Subjectification (adapted from Zappavigna 2016) 723
28.1 Direction of metaphorization [note: numbers refer to
examples in Figure 28.3] (Halliday and Matthiessen
1999:264) 748
28.2 Incomplete re-metaphorization in target language
(from Steiner 2004:143) 749
28.3 Contextual configuration 751
28.4 Translation procedures: change in grammatical category
in translation (extended from Steiner 2004:141, based on
a monolingual version in Halliday and Matthiessen
1999:246) 757

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Tables

5.1 Example of the rank scale page 120

5.2 The nominal group (EnTenTen13, SketchEngine) 124
5.3 Experiential and logical analysis of the white cup 125
5.4 Analysis of a ‘measure nominal’ (adapted from Halliday
and Matthiessen 2014:392) 125
5.5 Analysis of the children in blue hats (adapted from Halliday
and Matthiessen 2014:383) 126
5.6 The verbal group (EnTenTen13, SketchEngine) 126
5.7 Description of the adverbial group (adapted from Halliday
and Matthiessen 2014:422) 127
5.8 The prepositional phrase 129
5.9 Epithet headed nominal group (adapted from Halliday
and Matthiessen 2014:391) 130
5.10 Sample clause analysis (EnTenTen13, SketchEngine) 130
5.11 Clause analysis with Advgp (EnTenTen13, SketchEngine) 130
5.12 Nominal group (adapted from Halliday and Matthiessen
2014:364) 135
5.13 Verbal group (adapted from Halliday and Matthiessen
2014:397) 135
5.14 Experiential structure at and below the clause 138
5.15 Comparison of units following three criteria 139
7.1 Tone units and information units (tone unit boundaries
marked with double forward slashes) 176
7.2 Distribution of tone, tonic, and pretonic elements
in the excerpt. (NB: MT = minor tonic) 185
7.3 Choices in the system of key and their typical meanings
(see Halliday and Matthiessen 2014:169) 187
8.1 Two approaches to structural analysis 208
8.2 Types of verbal processes (IFG4:305) 211
9.1 Strands of meaning in Cardiff SFG (from Fawcett 2008a) 240
9.2 The main elements of the clause in the Cardiff Grammar 244

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List of Tables xv

9.3 Examples taken from Fawcett (2007) of individual

elements of the nominal group [note: element being sampled
is in italics; head is underscored; each example may be
composed of more than one element] 245
9.4 Examples of the quality group with an adjective expounding
the apex (from Tucker 1998) 248
9.5 Examples of the quality group with an adverb expounding
the apex 248
9.6 Examples of the quantity group (from Fawcett 2000a:307) 249
9.7 Examples of the realization of the genitive cluster (from
Fawcett 2000a:307) 249
9.8 Main processes and participant roles in the
Cardiff Grammar 250
11.1 Classification of rhetorical units (Cloran 2010) 295
12.1 Types of lexical cohesion according to Halliday and
Hasan (1976) 317
12.2 Types of lexical cohesion (Halliday and Matthiessen
2014:644) 318
12.3 Cohesive chains in example (13) 320
13.1 Semantic descriptions in SFL (building on
Cloran et al. 2007) 334
13.2 Realization of options from system G in Figure 13.3 345
13.3 Selection expressions and examples of some choices in
system G 345
13.4 Realization of options from system H in Figure 13.3 346
13.5 Selection expressions and examples of some choices in
system H 346
13.6 Applications of message semantics networks 348
14.1 Selected lexical relations in Text 2 363
14.2 Identity chains in Text 4 364
15.1 Additional affect parameters (Martin 2017:31) 387
16.1 An example from Old English (adapted from Cummings
2010:41) 412
16.2 An example from Old English (adapted from Cummings
2010:42) 413
16.3 An example from Old English (adapted from Cummings
2010:86) 413
16.4 An example from Old English (adapted from Cummings
2010:102) 413
16.5 An example from Old English (adapted from Cummings
2010:122) 414
17.1 Text and image systems 442
22.1 Description of request (by human) 573
22.2 Description of service (by human) 573
24.1 The ‘general drift’ of grammatical metaphor
(from Halliday 2004a:42) 635
26.1 Taxis, –er roles, Verbal Groups, and process types 703
26.2 Overview of grammatical parallelism in the poem, by rank 707

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Elissa Asp is Professor of English and Linguistics, and Coordinator of

Linguistics at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS. She was educated at
Glendon College and York University in Toronto, where she specialized in
linguistic description of discourse and linguistic theory. She is interested
in the neurobiology of language, relations between linguistic theories and
evidences, developing models that elucidate real language processing in
context, and clinical applications of linguistics. Her ongoing research
addresses three main areas: (1) discourse correlates of neurodegenerative
diseases associated with ageing; (2) MEG studies of neurocognitive
networks supporting language processing; (3) theoretical implications of
(1) and (2) for models of language. Her recent publications include
A. Tremblay, E. Asp, A. Johnson, Z. M. Małgorzata, T. Bardouille, and A. J.
Newman. 2016. What the Networks Tell Us about Serial and Parallel
Processing: An MEG Study of Language Networks and N-gram Frequency
Effects in Overt Picture Description. The Mental Lexicon 11(1): 115–60,
E. Asp. 2013. The Twin Paradoxes of Unconscious Choices and
Unintentional Agents: What Neurosciences Say about Choice and Agency
in Action and Language. In L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett, and G. O’Grady, eds.,
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 161–78, and E. Asp and J. de Villiers. 2010. When
Language Breaks Down: Analyzing Discourse in Clinical Contexts. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
David Banks is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at the Université
de Bretagne Occidentale at Brest, France. He was born in Newcastle (UK),
in 1943, but has been living abroad since 1976. He has an MA in
philosophy from the University of Cambridge (UK) a doctorate from the
Université de Nantes (France), and an HDR from the Université de
Bordeaux 2 (France). He taught at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale
from 1981 until his retirement in 2011. He is a former head of the
English Department, director of ERLA (Equipe de Recherche en

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Linguistique Appliquée), and president of AFLSF (Association Française de

la Linguistique Systémique Fonctionnelle). His research interests include
the synchronic and diachronic analysis of scientific text, and the
application of Systemic Functional Grammar to English and French. He
has authored or edited more than twenty books, and has published over
one hundred academic articles. His book The Development of Scientific
Writing, Linguistic Features and Historical Context (2008) won the ESSE
Language and Linguistics Book Award 2010. His extramural interests
include poetry, choral singing, and ocean rowing.
Tom Bartlett is Professor of Language and Communication Research at
Cardiff University. His main research areas are Systemic Functional
Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Discourses of Development.
His publications include Hybrid Voice and Collaborative Change:
Contextualising Positive Discourse Analysis (2012), Analysing Power in Language:
A Practical Guide (2014), and Contesting Key Terms and Concepts in the
Civil Sphere, (with N. Montesano Montessori and H. Lloyd). In P. Garrett
and J. Cots, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Language Awareness (2017).
John Bateman is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of
Bremen specializing in multimodal semiotics, computational linguistics,
functional linguistic theory, and formal ontology. He has published
widely in all these fields, with several introductory textbooks and survey
articles, particularly for multimodality, linguistic ontologies, and natural
language generation. Ongoing research includes work on film, graphic
novels, human–robot interaction, and embodied semantics.
Margaret Berry, now retired, was Reader in English Language at the
University of Nottingham, UK. She has published introductory books on
Systemic Linguistics: An Introduction to Systemic Linguistics, Vol. 1: Structures
and Systems (1975) and An Introduction to Systemic Linguistics, Vol. 2: Levels
and Links (1977). She has also published articles on a wide number of
aspects of SFL, including context of situation, exchange structure, Theme
and Rheme, Given and New, register variation, and the application of SFL
to the teaching of English. Her current research interests are in context of
situation, exchange structure, Theme and Rheme, and the written
language of school children. She has lectured in China, Australia, and
Canada, as well as in Europe. She was instrumental in the organization of
a series of SFL workshops in Nottingham (1989–1992) which led to the
formation of the European branch of the Systemic Functional Linguistics
Association.
Wendy L. Bowcher is a Professor and the Director of the Functional
Linguistics Institute at Sun Yat-sen University China. She is editor of
Multimodal Texts from around the World: Cultural and Linguistic Insights
(2012), co-editor (with T. D. Royce) of New Directions in the Analysis of
Multimodal Discourse (2007/2014), co-editor (with B. A. Smith) of Systemic
Phonology: Recent Studies in English (2014), and co-editor (with J. Y. Liang) of
Society in Language: Language in Society: Essays in Honour of Ruqaiya Hasan

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(2015). Wendy was instrumental in the formation of the Japan

Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics (JASFL) in 1993 and served
for several years as the JASFL Vice-President. From 2011 to 2014 she was
Vice-Chair of the International Systemic Functional Linguistics
Association (ISFLA). Her research interests include the study of context in
the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics, multimodal discourse
analysis, and English intonation.
Christopher S. Butler took a degree in biochemistry at Oxford University
and taught biochemistry for several years, but then moved to the area of
linguistics, which he taught for twenty-five years in the UK, first at the
University of Nottingham, then at what is now York St John University,
where he held a Professorship in Linguistics. He took early retirement in
1998 in order to devote more time to research and writing. He holds an
Honorary Professorship at Swansea University and is Visiting Professor at
the University of Huddersfield. He has Honorary Doctorates from Ghent
University, Belgium, and from the Universidad de La Rioja, Spain. He has
published a number of books and more than eighty articles on a range of
topics, including functional linguistics, computational and statistical
techniques of language study, and corpus linguistics, especially as applied
to the functionally oriented study of English and Spanish. His most
significant book-length publications are Structure and Function: A Guide to
Three Major Structural-Functional Theories, 2 volumes (2003) and Exploring
Functional-Cognitive Space, co-authored with F. Gonzálvez-García (2014). He
holds the Licentiateship of the Royal Academy of Music in Pianoforte
Performance. He is also interested in music analysis, and particularly in
the relationships between music and language.
David G. Butt is an Associate Professor at Macquarie University, Australia.
He has been Director of the Centre for Language in Social Life in
Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney and has conducted
research in medical contexts (surgery and psychiatry), discourse analysis
(political texts and literary stylistics), context modelling (field, tenor, and
mode), systems theory (realizational systems), grammar (Systemic
Functional Linguistics), and the history of linguistics and interacting
sciences. His recent publications include D. G. Butt and J. J.
Webster. 2017. The Logical Metafunction in Systemic Functional
Linguistics. In T. Bartlett and G. O’Grady, eds., The Routledge Handbook of
Systemic Functional Linguistics. D. G. Butt, A. R. Moore, and J. R.
Cartmill. 2016. Transactions between Matter and Meaning: Surgical
Contexts and Symbolic Action. In S. J. White and J. R. Cartmill, eds.,
Communication in Surgical Practice. As well as D. G. Butt. 2015. The ‘History
of Ideas’ and Halliday’s Natural Science of Meaning. In J. J. Webster, ed.,
The Bloomsbury Companion to M. A. K. Halliday.
Heidi Byrnes is George M. Roth Distinguished Professor of German Emerita
at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on adult L2 literacy
acquisition, particularly at the advanced level. Those interests have been

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shaped by Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics because of its

concern with meaning-making in oral and written texts that are
embedded in contexts of culture and contexts of situation and realized in
culture-specific genres. Other influences are sociocultural theory, the
work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, and insights obtained in task-based
teaching and learning. Together, these approaches have provided an
educationally ‘appliable’ framework for the unique, integrated,
articulated, four-year genre-oriented, and task-based curriculum in the
German Department at Georgetown University. She has addressed
diverse aspects of adult L2 learning in such a setting in journal
publications (e.g. Applied Linguistics Review, Language Teaching, Language
Testing, Linguistics and Education, MLJ), as well as chapters in numerous
edited volumes, but particularly in the 2010 MLJ (94) monograph
Realizing Advanced Foreign Language Writing Development in Collegiate
Education: Curricular Design, Pedagogy, Assessment (co-authors, H. H. Maxim
and J. M. Norris) and the co-edited volume (with R. M. Manchón), Task-
based Language Learning: Insights from and for L2 Writing. She is a past
president of AAAL, past editor-in-chief of the Modern Language Journal, and
is the recipient of numerous professional association awards, including
the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award of AAAL.
Eugeniu Costetchi is a semantic architect at the European Publication
Office via Infeurope S. A. in Luxembourg. His expertise centres on
software development, computer programming and coding (e.g. Python,
Java, and C++). His research interests focus on Semantic Web
technologies, Ontology building methodologies, and Ontology quality
metrics. He specializes in parsing English text within the Systemic
Functional Linguistic framework. He is currently a PhD candidate in
computational linguistics at the University of Bremen, focusing on
natural language processing applicable to dialogue systems.
Daniel Couto-Vale is a researcher and dialogue system developer at
SemanticEdge GmbH, Berlin, working with compositional and
componential semantics for dialogue systems. In his portfolio, there are a
series of deployed dialogue systems for call centres as well as tools for
lexicogrammar building and dialogue system maintenance. Together
with Dr Vivien Mast, he has published articles about speech
recognition, miscommunication detection, imperative forms, and
reference handling in different conferences on dialogue system and
cognition.
Meena Debashish is an Associate Professor in the Department of Phonetics
and Spoken English at The English and Foreign Languages University,
Hyderabad, India. The broad field of her research interest includes the
interrelations of phonetics, intonation, grammar, and discourse. She has
specialized in the study of speech sound, including Indian varieties of
English, and has researched and taught over many years on the
intonation of English.

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Jessica de Villiers is an Associate Professor of English Language at the

University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC. She completed her PhD
at York University in Toronto, specializing in English linguistics, and a
Post-doc at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, focusing on
behavioural neuroscience. She specializes in clinical linguistics, discourse
analysis, and neurocognitive processes in language use. Her recent
publications include J. de Villiers, S. Yang, and P. Szatmari. 2013. Autism
and Asperger Syndrome: Language Use. In V. Preedy, ed., The
Comprehensive Guide to Autism. E. Asp and J. de Villiers. 2010. When
Language Breaks Down: Analyzing Discourse in Clinical Contexts. Cambridge,
and J. de Villiers and R. Stainton, eds. 2009. Michael Gregory’s Proposals for a
Communication Linguistics.
Lise Fontaine is a Reader in the Centre for Language and Communication
Research at Cardiff University (Wales) and co-director of the Linguistics
in Cardiff Research Network (LinC). She lectures mainly on functional
grammar, word meaning, corpus linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her
research interests include functional grammar theory and, more
specifically, the study of referring expressions. In addition to publishing
over twenty articles and book chapters, she is the author of Analysing
English Grammar: A Systemic-functional Introduction (Cambridge University
Press, 2012) and co-author of Referring in Language: An Integrated Approach
(Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). She has also co-edited the
following four volumes: Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice
(Cambridge University Press, 2013), Choice in Language: Applications in Text
Analysis (2013), Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable
Theory of Language (2018), and The Oxford Companion to the English Language,
2nd edition. (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Andy Fung recently obtained his PhD from the Department of English at
the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. As a member of the PolySystemic
Research Group, he has situated himself mostly within Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL) and specializes in functional semantics. He
also holds a part-time teaching position at the School of the Arts and
Social Sciences, Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), where he teaches
linguistics in a Distance Learning (DL) module. His recent research
contribution is the initial mapping of Cantonese message semantic
networks, drawing on the descriptive insights of Hasan’s (1983)
contextually open network of semantic options within the English
system. He has also done work on register under the influence of
Matthiessen’s context-based registerial cartography. Other research areas
include political discourse, healthcare communication, and multimodal
analysis. He has various research collaborations with scholars around the
world, engaging in a number of international conferences, and
contributing book chapters on semantic networks. He is currently
involved in a large-scale government-funded research project on Political
Discourse Analysis (PDA) entitled ‘Political Discourses in Hong Kong:

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A Systemic Functional Perspective 2015–2018’, in which he is working

with Dr Eden Li, Sum Hung, and two other colleagues from the OUHK,
investigating the ways in which political ideologies are realized in
political discourses though semantic and lexicogrammatical resources.
M. A. K. Halliday (1925–2018) came to linguistics through the study of
Chinese (beginning in 1944) and through the influence of J. R. Firth, who
took up the supervision of Halliday’s PhD at Cambridge University (1955).
After teaching positions in Chinese at Cambridge, and at Edinburgh in
General Linguistics, he took up the Headship of General Linguistics at
University College, London (1965–1970). He was Foundation Professor in
Linguistics at the University of Sydney, and Professor Emeritus from
1987. From Macquarie University to Athens, Halliday has also received at
least eleven honorary doctorates, besides other awards.
Halliday sees himself primarily as a grammarian, and a ‘generalist’,
integrating semantic resources across all the strata of language,
including context. He developed a model organized around ‘meaning
potential’ (reflecting Firth’s injunction that ‘meaning is made at all
levels’). Such a model became possible with Halliday’s characteristic
tool – the system network: his mode of mapping the choices that have
semantic consequences within the major functions of language. These
metafunctions encompass the more specific systems, thereby giving
Halliday’s neo-Firthian approach its technical title: Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL). Through eleven volumes of his Collected Works, there are
few areas of language study to which Halliday has not turned his deep
analysis and lucid expository style. This has meant that his influence has
spread across a range of disciplines, from linguistic typology, education,
and on to neuroscience – in fact any field that needs an ‘appliable
linguistics’.
Tuomo Hiippala is an Assistant Professor of English Language and Digital
Humanities at the University of Helsinki. His current research focuses on
applications of computer vision and machine learning to multimodality
research. His major publications include The Structure of Multimodal
Documents (2015) and Multimodality: Foundations, Research and Analysis, co-
authored with J. A. Bateman and J. Wildfeuer (2017).
Susan Hood is an Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of
Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Her research draws on Systemic
Functional Linguistics in discourse analytic studies of the building of
knowledge and the sharing of values in modes of academic interaction.
Current research interests include studies of the multimodal discourse of
lecturing. Major and recent publications include Appraising Research:
Evaluation in Academic Writing. As well as Knowledge-building: Educational
Studies in Legitimation Code Theory. (co-edited with K. Maton and S. Shay),
(2016).
Abhishek Kumar Kashyap is a Research Professor in the School of Foreign
Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, China. He received his PhD in

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linguistics from Macquarie University (Australia) for his description of

the grammar of Bajjika (an Indo-Aryan language of Bihar, India) and its
typological comparison. His research interests include language
description and language typology, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis,
pragmatics, register analysis, and World Englishes. He has published his
research in all these areas in well-known journals, e.g. Journal of
Pragmatics, Language Sciences, Linguistics, International Journal of the Sociology
of Language, and Word. He is currently co-editing a special issue of
Linguistics and the Human Sciences on ‘English in Indian Context: Challenges
for Describing a Language Variety’.
Francis Robert Low retired from the Department of English, at the Hong
Kong Polytechnic University, in December 2016. His area of study and
research was Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) specializing in
Multimodality and Multisemiotics. His main contributions in recent
years mainly include ‘text+’ which is a model for multisemiotic resources
integration in meaning-making and quantification of images. He has also
done work on natural language processes in machines, image theory
development, and image typology influenced by Matthiessen’s work.
Other research areas include time and space in comics, image archiving,
image analysis software for teaching and research, films, and
interdisciplinary curriculum such as multiliteracies, classroom
discourse, images in public health education, images in adverts, and
business websites. He has been involved in various research
collaborations with scholars around the world in the areas of
multimodality, semi-artificial intelligence (SAI) on natural language
cross-over with machines, business communication, and multiliteracies,
and with Eija Ventola of Aalto University, Finland, on communication in
marketing and advertising. Throughout his career, Low frequently
presented his research at international conferences, and between
2012–2016 he conducted workshops and research discussions at various
universities in China and other parts of the world, such as Sun Yat-sen
University (SYSU), Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS),
Beihang University, Aalto University (Finland), Cordoba University
(Argentina), Pontificia Catholic University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and
Yuan Ze University (Taiwan).
J. R. Martin is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney, where he
is also Deputy Director of the LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building. His
research interests include systemic theory, functional grammar,
discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality, and critical
discourse analysis, focusing on English and Tagálog – with special
reference to the transdisciplinary fields of educational linguistics,
forensic linguistics, and social semiotics. Recent publications include a
collection of interviews with Wang Zhenhua: Interviews with J. R. Martin
(2015), a book with S. Dreyfus, S. Humphrey, and A. Mahboob on
teaching academic discourse on-line: Genre Pedagogy in Higher Education

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(2016), and a book with M. Zappavigna on Youth Justice Conferencing:

Discourse and Diversionary Justice (2017). Eight volumes of his collected
papers, edited by W. Zhenhua, have been published in China (2010,
2012). Professor Martin was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of
the Humanities in 1998, and was Head of its Linguistics Section
2010–2012; he was awarded a Centenary Medal for his services to
Linguistics and Philology in 2003. In April 2014 Shanghai Jiao Tong
University opened its Martin Centre for Appliable Linguistics.
Daniel McDonald works at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. He is
a researcher and software developer, working at the interface of
functional, corpus, and computational linguistics. With co-author J. O.
Zinn, he has recently published a book detailing the shifting discourse-
semantics of risk in The New York Times over the past thirty years, Risk in
The New York Times (1987–2014): A Corpus-based Exploration of Sociological
Theories (2017), devising and releasing open-source methods for
functionally driven computational linguistic analysis in the process.
Peter Mickan is Research Fellow in Charles Darwin University and Visiting
Research Fellow in the School of Humanities, University of Adelaide,
where he established and managed the Postgraduate Applied Linguistics
Program. His research interest in Functional Linguistics encompasses
language learning in school and academic programmes, text-based
curriculum design and pedagogy, and revival of German in the Barossa,
South Australia. His publications include Language Curriculum Design and
Socialisation, (2013), as well as two co-edited volumes: Text-based Research
and Teaching: A Social Semiotic Perspective on Language in Use, (with E. Lopez)
(2017) and Language Education Curriculum Design, (with I. Wallace) (2018).
Donna R. Miller holds the Chair of English Linguistics at the Department of
Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Bologna,
where she coordinates its English Language Studies Program and heads
the Department’s Centre for Linguistic-Cultural Studies (CeSLiC). Her
research has largely focused on register analysis in a Hallidayan
perspective, particularly on institutional text types, while her corpus-
assisted investigations – including those of literature – have typically
examined the grammar of speaker evaluation in terms of appraisal
systems. For example, see D. R. Miller. 2016. On Negotiating the Hurdles
of Corpus-assisted Appraisal Analysis. In S. Gardner and S. Alsop, eds.,
Systemic Functional Linguistics in the Digital Age.
In recent years Miller has actively taken up the defence of Ruqaiya
Hasan’s framework for the study of that register which is like no other,
Verbal Art, and also reflected intensely on Jakobson’s potential place
within it. For example, see D. R. Miller. 2016. Jakobson’s place in Hasan’s
Social Semiotic Stylistics: ‘Pervasive Parallelism’ as Symbolic Articulation
of Theme. In W. L. Bowcher and J. Y. Liang, eds., Society in Language,
Language in Society: Essays in Honour of Ruqaiya Hasan. In addition, see D. R.
Miller and A. Luporini. 2018. Systemic Socio-Semantic Stylistics (SSS) as

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Appliable Linguistics: The Cases of Literary Criticism and Language

Teaching/Learning. In A. Sellami Baklouti and L. Fontaine, eds.,
Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable Theory of
Language. Where Miller and Luporini report on research into how this
front-line form of stylistics might achieve its social accountability in the
Italian university context of the teaching/learning of L2 English.
Alison Rotha Moore is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and
Linguistics at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has degrees in
linguistics and public health, has held nationally competitive grants for
research on health discourse, and previously worked at Macquarie
University, the University of Sydney, and Westmead Hospital. Her
ongoing research interests include Systemic Functional Linguistics,
modelling register and context, health discourse, and the representation
and treatment of animals. Across these concerns a unifying theme is the
construal of agency and identity. Her recent publications include A. R.
Moore. 2017. Register and Message Semantics. In T. Bartlett and
G. O’Grady, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics. As
well as A. R. Moore. 2016. Lovers, Wrestlers, Surgeons: A Contextually
Sensitive Approach to Modelling Body Alignment and Interpersonal
Engagement in Surgical Teams. In S. White and J. Cartmill, eds.,
Communication in Surgical Practice.
Mick O’Donnell is a Lecturer in the English Department at the Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid. His current research interests involve exploring
grammatical development in Spanish learners of English, mainly by
applying computational linguistics to learner productions. He currently
leads the Alegro project, developing an online English grammar learning
system intended to keep the learner focused on exactly those
grammatical issues within their Zone of Proximal Development. He has
developed various widely used corpus annotation tools, including the
UAM CorpusTool, Systemic Coder, and RSTTool. Some relevant
publications include M. O’Donnell. 2013. Systemic Functional Linguistics
and Corpus Linguistics: Interconnections and Current State. In F. Yan and
J. J. Webster, eds., Developing Systemic Functional Linguistics: Theory and
Application. M. O’Donnell. 2012. Using Learner Corpora to Redesign
University-level EFL Grammar Education. Revista Española de Lingüística
Aplicada (RESLA). 1(Extra): 145–60, and M. O’Donnell. 2009. The UAM
CorpusTool: Software for Corpus Annotation and Exploration. In C. M.
Bretones Callejas et al., eds., Applied Linguistics Now: Understanding
Language and Mind/La Lingüística Aplicada Hoy: Comprendiendo el Lenguaje y la
Mente. Almería: Universidad de Almería. 1433–47.
Gerard O’Grady is a Reader at the Centre for Language and Communication
Research at Cardiff University. His chief research interests are intonation,
spoken information structure, and CDA. He is the co-editor of The
Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (2017), the author of
the monograph A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse: The Intonation of

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Increments (2010/12) and has published numerous articles in journals such

as Text and Talk, English Text Construction, Journal of Pragmatics, Functions of
Language, and The International Review of Pragmatics.
Kay L. O’Halloran is Professor in the School of Education, Faculty of
Humanities and a member of the Curtin Institute for Computation at
Curtin University, Australia. Her areas of research include multimodal
analysis, social semiotics, mathematics discourse, and the development
of interactive digital media technologies and visualization techniques for
multimodal and sociocultural analytics. She is editor of the Routledge
Studies in Multimodality series.
David Schönthal is a Research Associate at Cardiff University. He has
previously lectured at Cardiff University on functional grammar,
lexicology, lexicography, and psycholinguistics. His main research
interests are different approaches to grammar, such as functional
grammar and construction grammar, the meaning of words, and the
implementation of a multimethod approach. Specifically, he is interested
in the English nominal group and the functions of the relator of, on
which he completed his doctoral thesis in 2016. He is further passionate
about pedagogy, andragogy, and the teaching of academic writing, and is
offering writing and grammar support sessions to undergraduate and
postgraduate students at Cardiff University. David is also co-author of
Referring in Language: An Integrated Approach (Cambridge University Press,
forthcoming).
Anke Schulz is a Lecturer at the University of Bremen, Germany. Her main
research areas are corpus linguistics, Systemic Functional Grammar, and
English—German contrastive linguistics. She completed her PhD
research at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, focusing on
a corpus-based, contrastive study of English and German computer-
mediated communication.
Erich Steiner, born 1954 in Heidelberg, Germany, studied English and
German Philology in Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Cardiff, Reading, and
London (GB), and has held posts in Saarbrücken, Luxembourg, and
Darmstadt. He has served as Head of Department, Pro-Dean, and Dean at
the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken. Since 1990, he has been Chair
of English Linguistics and Translation Studies, later on English
Translation Studies, Department of Language Science and Technology,
University of Saarland, Saarbrücken. His major research interests include
Functional Linguistics, Translation Theory, and Comparative Linguistics,
as well as empirical linguistics more generally. He has attracted major
research projects from the European Union (ESPRIT/FRAMEWORK,
LEONARDO, MINERVA), as well as from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG/German Research Council) and the
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD/German Academic
Exchange Service). Over the past thirty years he has been Visiting
Professor at Rice University, Houston, Texas, at the University of

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xxvi LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Southern California, Los Angeles, Dublin City University, Macquarie

University, Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, the University
of Oslo, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and City University of Hong
Kong. His major publications include A Functional Perspective on Language,
Action, and Interpretation (1991); Exploring Translation and Multilingual Text
Production: Beyond Content, co-edited with C. Yallop (2001); and Cross-
linguistic Corpora for the Study of Translations: Insights from the Language Pair
English–German, co-edited with S. Hansen-Schirra and S. Neumann (2012).
Maite Taboada is a Professor of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University,
Canada. She works in the areas of discourse analysis, Systemic Functional
Linguistics, and computational linguistics. Her ongoing research includes
opinion and sentiment in text, and coherence relations. Some recent
publications include T. Taboada and D. Das. 2017. Signalling of
Coherence Relations in Discourse, beyond Discourse Markers. Discourse
Processes, T. Taboada, C. Goddard, and R. Trnavac. forthcoming. The
Semantics of Evaluational Adjectives: Perspectives from Natural Semantic
Metalanguage and Appraisal. Functions of Language, and F. Benamara,
T. Taboada, and Y. Mathieu. 2017. Evaluative Language beyond Bags of
Words: Linguistic Insights and Computational Applications.
Computational Linguistics 43(1): 201–64.
Sabine Tan is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education, Faculty
of Humanities at Curtin University. Her research interests include critical
multimodal discourse analysis, social semiotics, and visual
communication. She is particularly interested in the application of
multidisciplinary perspectives within social semiotic theory to the
analysis of institutional discourses involving traditional and new media.
Miriam Taverniers is Associate Professor of Functional Approaches to
English Linguistics at Ghent University. Her research into the nature of
grammatical metaphor in Systemic Functional Linguistics (PhD, 2002) led
to a deep interest in fundamentally theoretical concepts, especially the
design and conception of differentiating dimensions and theoretical
categories in structural-functional and semiotically oriented linguistic
frameworks (such as the relation between lexis and grammar;
stratification, esp. the syntax-semantics interface; the relation between
instance, norm/register, and system; syntagmatic layering and functional
diversity; the concept of ‘construction’ and its relation to paradigmatic
modelling in functional theories). She also works on more descriptive
topics, but always with a special dedication to what a scrutiny of those
topics can contribute to our understanding of the theoretical issues
mentioned above. Current descriptive interests include, in addition to
grammatical metaphor patterns, (secondary) predication and labile verbs
in relation to ergativity/unaccusativity and in a contrastive perspective.
Geoff Thompson (1947–2015) was an Honorary Senior Fellow at the
University of Liverpool. Before his retirement he was Senior Lecturer in
Applied Linguistics in the School of English. He also held honorary

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List of Contributors xxvii

professorships at Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou, China) and the

University of Science and Technology Beijing (China). In May 2015, he
was awarded an honorary doctorate from Linnaeus University (Sweden).
Throughout his career he examined almost fifty doctoral dissertations.
He served as chair of the International Systemic Functional Linguistics
Association (2008–2012) and as chair of the European Systemic
Functional Linguistics Association (2004–2006). In 2003, he took up the
role of co-editor of the journal Functions of Language (John Benjamins). His
publications include Reporting (1994), later reprinted in a Chinese–
English bilingual edition (2000), Introducing Functional Grammar (3rd
edition, 2014), and many journal articles, chapters, and edited volumes
on topics such as conjunction, Theme, Transitivity, interaction in
discourse, and evaluation. With Susan Hunston, he co-edited Evaluation in
Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse (2000) and System and
Corpus: Exploring Connections (2006). Other co-edited volumes include
Evaluation in Context, with L. Alba Juez (2014); Text-Type and Texture,
with G. Forey (2009), and Patterns of Text: In Honour of Michael Hoey,
with M. Scott (2001). A corpus-based study entitled Conjunctive
Relations in Discourse: A Tri-functional Study of Six English Registers will be
published in 2019.
Jonathan J. Webster was Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation
and Linguistics at City University of Hong Kong for more than ten years.
He is currently Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent
Applications of Language Studies, which has the unique advantage of
being the only research centre worldwide bearing the name of this
distinguished, globally renowned scholar in linguistics, M. A. K. Halliday.
The Centre is committed to doing appliable linguistic research, including
corpus linguistics, discourse studies, visual analytics for texts, language
learning, linguistic studies of world languages and minority languages,
and translation.
He has actively contributed to studies in language and linguistics
through his role as editor of the collected works of several leading
scholars, including M. A. K. Halliday, R. Hasan, S. Lamb, and B. B. Kachru.
He recently authored Understanding Verbal Art: A Functional Linguistic
Approach (2015), and co-authored with M. A. K. Halliday Text Linguistics:
The How and Why of Meaning (2014).
Since 2005, Jonathan has served as the founding Editor of Linguistics and
the Human Sciences, a journal devoted to exploring the relationships
between linguistics and other areas of scholarly concern, including but
not limited to history, sociology, politics, archaeology, religious studies,
translation, and the study of art. He is also one of the founding Editors –
along with Professor Huang Guowen and Professor He Wei – of the
Journal of World Languages, and is the Managing Editor of WORD, the
journal of the International Linguistics Association, headquartered in
New York and published since 1945.

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Peter Wignell is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education,

Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, Australia. Peter’s current
research interests are in Systemic Functional Linguistics, especially in its
application to the analysis of multimodal texts. His research has also
focused on the role of language in the construction of specialized
knowledge.
Geoff Williams is an Honorary Professor in the School of Education and
Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia and an Emeritus Professor of
Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia,
Canada. His research interests include child language development, child
literacy education, and semantic variation. He recently contributed a
paper on empirical work on Hasan’s concept of ‘reflection literacy’ to
Society in Language, Language in Society: Essays in Honour of Ruqaiya Hasan,
edited by W. L. Bowcher and J. Y. Liang (2016).
Michele Zappavigna is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at
the University of New South Wales. Her major research interest is in
ambient affiliation and social media. Recent books in this area include
Discourse of Twitter and Social Media (2012), Researching the Language of Social
Media, (with R. Page, J. Unger, and D. Barton) (2014), and Searchable Talk:
Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse (2018).

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Preface

This volume has been several years in the making. It was first conceived of
in 2013, when Cambridge University Press approached Lise Fontaine with
the possibility of including a Handbook on Systemic Functional Linguistics as
part of its series of Handbooks on Language and Linguistics. Recognizing
this as a wonderful opportunity, Lise, Geoff Thompson, and Wendy
Bowcher discussed the possibility of co-editing the volume. It was decided
that Geoff would take the lead, and in consultation with various scholars,
including Michael Halliday, he developed the conceptual framework for the
book – a volume with a comprehensive, somewhat historical but also
forward-looking overview of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Later, after
Geoff’s untimely death, David Schönthal was invited to join the editorial
team. As editors, we encouraged contributors to include both theoretical
and practical details where possible – the latter noted by Halliday in
personal correspondence as being an important part of the character of a
‘handbook’. Finding contributors to this volume was difficult, but in a
positive way, as there are so many scholars around the world with expertise
in the various areas covered who could have been approached. The final
line-up, we feel, offers a wide scope of perspectives from a range of estab-
lished and emerging scholars, some expert in more than the field of
research which they have written about in this volume. We would like to
take a moment here to thank all our contributors for the effort and
expertise they have brought to this collection. Readers will notice that at
the beginning of some of the chapters there is a note of tribute to several
scholars who have passed away since the volume’s inception: Chapter 4
pays tribute to Geoff Thompson (see also the tribute to Geoff at the
beginning of this volume), Chapter 7 to Bill Greaves, Chapter 23 to Johna-
than Fine, and Chapter 26 to Ruqaiya Hasan. We felt it was important to
include these tributes – to Geoff himself as the person who really got this
project off the ground, and to Geoff and all the other scholars who have
been such an important influence not only in the development of the

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xxx PREFACE

theory and practice of Systemic Functional Linguistics evident throughout

the book, but in their commitment to furthering the field through their
encouragement, generosity, and dedication to mentoring SFL scholars
around the world. In the final stages of preparing the manuscript, we
became aware that Emeritus Professor Michael Halliday, the founder of
Systemic Functional Linguistics did not have long to live. It was not long
after we had submitted the manuscript that he passed away, on 15 April
2018. It is a great privilege and honour to have included in the volume
Chapter 24 ‘Language and Science, Language in Science, and Linguistics as
Science’, which he co-authored with David Butt. After enquiring as to
whether this was the last work that Michael Halliday penned, David Butt
kindly offered to write a brief note on the nature of the co-authorship of
this chapter. This note is presented at the end of Chapter 24.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Mr Xie Xiao (Orlando) for his help in preparing some of
the figures included in this volume. We would also like to thank Lucy
Chrispin, Xiaoguang Nie (Tana), Junyu Zhang, and Qianqian Zhang for their
assistance during the preparation of the index.

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