Blurb:

In the present chapter, we attempt to position Halliday’s work in relation to two contexts of intellectual climate in the field of linguistics: first the context of mid-twentieth century when his interest in linguistics took its initial shape and direction; secondly, the context of today’s linguistics, when it may be justifiably claimed that Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) – the model, he and his colleagues have been developing to explain how and why language works – is one of the most well-tried, comprehensive and competent, judged by any such criteria as those of observational, descriptive and/or explanatory adequacy.