Michael Halliday: Functionality

“The interpersonal function [of language] is the function “to establish, maintain, and specify relations between members of societies””

Michael Halliday

Source: 1970s and later, Cohesion in English (English Language), 1976, p. xix cited in: Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen (2010) Discourses in Interaction. p. 118.

“The grammatical system has … a functional input and a structural output; it provides the mechanism for different functions to be combined in one utterance”

Michael Halliday

Source: 1970s and later, Explorations in the functions of language, 1973, p. 35 cited in: Terence Odlin (1994) Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar. p. 193.

“In the relative orientation of different social groups towards the various functions of language in given contexts and towards the different areas of meaning that may be explored within a given function”

Michael Halliday

Source: 1970s and later, Explorations in the functions of language, 1973, p. xiv cited in: Piet Van de Craen (2007) Van Brussel gesproken. p. 118.

“… language has evolved in the service of particular human needs … what is really significant is that this functional principle is carried over and built into the grammar, so that the internal organization of the grammar system is also functional in character.”

Michael Halliday

Source: 1970s and later, Learning How to Mean--Explorations in the Development of Language, 1975, p. 16 cited in Constant Leung, Brian V. Street (2012) English a Changing Medium for Education. p. 5.

“[The construal of context as a semiotic construct accompanies the construal of language as a metafunctionally organized system because of the realizational relationship between the two. And it is this relationship which helps to explain how language is learned:]
It is this that enables, and disposes, the child to learn the lexicogrammar: since the system is organized along functional lines, it relates closely to what the child can see language doing as he observes it going on around him.”

Michael Halliday

Source: 1970s and later, Learning How to Mean--Explorations in the Development of Language, 1975, p. 122 cited in: M.A.K. Halliday, Jonathan Webster (2006) The Language of Early Childhood. p. 289.

Learning , Help

“A child learning his [her] mother tongue is learning how to name; he [she] is building up a meaning potential in respect of a limited number of social functions. These functions [instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, and imaginative] constitute the semiotic environment of a very small child, and may be thought of as universals of human culture”

Michael Halliday

Michael Halliday (1978, p. 121) as cited in: Harry Daniels, Michael Cole, James V. Wertsch (2007) The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky. p. 148.
1970s and later

Imagination , Learning , Universe , Personality

“Saussure took the sign as the organizing concept for linguistic structure, using it to express the conventional nature of language in the phrase "l'arbitraire du signe". This has the effect of highlighting what is, in fact, the one point of arbitrariness in the system, namely the phonological shape of words, and hence allows the non-arbitrariness of the rest to emerge with greater clarity. An example of something that is distinctly non-arbitrary is the way different kinds of meaning in language are expressed by different kinds of grammatical structure, as appears when linguistic structure is interpreted in functional terms.”

Michael Halliday

Michael Halliday (1977). "Ideas about Language" Reprinted in Volume 3 of MAK Halliday's Collected Works. Edited by J.J. Webster. London: Continuum. p113.
1970s and later

Way , Nature , Appearance