Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th Edition)
Marilyn Lewis · rEFLections · 2014
One might think that a volume of this size and stature could not sell in large numbers and yet this fourth edition in just under thirty years speaks for its popularity.The original author's name remains part of the title, although the updating has been done by Matthiessen.The links between Halliday (who started an introduction to the grammar of four and a half and Matthiessen's nearly three.The book is a link between practical and theoretical grammar or, as described in its publicity, it makes connections between grammar, meaning and discourse.One question in the mind of potential buyers could be how far it differs from the third edition which, like this one, was written more as a reference book than as the text book offered in the The architecture of language, which introduces a feature using the variables of the context as a basis for classifying texts.Rather than attempting a chapter by chapter description, this review will mention a few of the book's features, illustrating each from a range of chapters.