Sunday 2 April 2017

Misrepresenting Halliday's 1961 Grammar As Syntax

Fawcett (2010: 10):
We shall begin, in Chapter 2, with a summary of Halliday's seminal paper "Categories of the theory of grammar" (1961/76) — which is itself essentially a theory of syntax. After outlining Halliday's overall model of language as it was in 1961, I shall summarise the seven main concepts in what was at that time an exciting new theory of syntax (or "grammar", as Halliday would term it). However, during the sixties Halliday developed what was essentially a theory of syntax into the rich theory of language as a whole that is known today as Systemic Functional Grammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously demonstrated, and as the title suggests, the theory of grammar in Halliday (1961) goes well beyond mere syntax.  The reason this repeated misrepresentation is worth noting again is that it strategically serves Fawcett's position.

[2] Trivially, to be clear, the theory of language is Systemic Functional Linguistics, whereas Systemic Functional Grammar is the theory of grammar.

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