useful introductions to Hallidayan grammar for educational purposes include:

Geoff Thompson, 1996, Introducing Functional Grammar,. pub: Arnold (recently
revised I think)

Butt, Fahey, Spinks, Yallop (1997) Using Functional Grammar: An Explorer's
Guide (NCELTR -- a publ. co. in the US distributes it...)

Linda Gerot's excellent intro's, which I can't find at-hand to site.

For more info, including access to  bibliographies:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/jpolias/sfl/

There does seem to be antagonism towards SFL -- One reason may be
personalities involved, but it also concerns translatability. Many Europeans
are apparently conversant in multiple linguistic theories (and languages for
that matter) and value SFL. Here in the states, perhaps because of the
strong formalist tradition, but also for reasons I don't fully understand,
there is so little knowledge and interest in SFL generally speaking that
it's hard to mine it for USEFUL purposes. Many brilliant insights into
language are available from the literature, though.

Judy

p.s., i'm now only an occasional visitor to ATEG but plan to catch up
eventually especially after noticing this thread.
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jeff Wiemelt
  Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:46 AM
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Subject: Re: new query


  Craig, I've always tried to keep up with Halliday's work and would
appreciate it if you could run down the title for his recent book on the
grammar of speech you mentioned. Do you mean Spoken and Written Language
(OUP, 1989--originally a 1986 Deakin book, I believe)? My quick search of
Oxford (and Amazon) catalogues turned up nothing.

  By the way, anyone interested in getting a quick grounding in Halliday's
approach should check out the novice-friendly Oxford/Deakin 1989 series,
which includes Spoken and Written Language. Other contributing authors
include, R. Hasan, G. Kress, D. Butler, C. Painter, J. Lemke, J.R. Martin,
and a couple others--a who's who of systemic-functional grammar. I'd
recommend starting with Halliday & Hasan's Language, Context, and Text,
which lays out the basic functional premises of the approach.

  Concerning the linguistic "turf wars"--probably not an apt
characterization anymore as it seems most linguists have given up the idea
of deciding who's right, or who's approach is more useful--have you seen
Newmeyer's recent book on formal-functional theory? I just had a quick look
myself. It seems Newmeyer wants to respond to criticisms that his earlier
histories just neglected functional linguistics entirely. Funny thing is,
the new treatment still neglects Halliday's influential tradtion entirely.
That's at least 50 years of research, an enormous body of published
scholarship, and a good bit of related British and Australian educational
reform to ignore. So maybe the battle's just moved underground for now--a
"sub-turf war" of sorts.

  Jeff
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Craig Hancock
    To: [log in to unmask]
    Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 9:00 AM
    Subject: new query


    Johanna,
         Thanks for your delightful and comprehensive defense of the need
for freedom in linguistic inquiry.  I worry about the situation we poor
front line teachers find ourselves in -- the old grammar long ago obsolete,
and the new grammar building complexity at an alarming rate.  We're damned
if we teach it and damned if we don't.  It's hard to make it user friendly
without finding out almost daily there's so much more work in the field to
get to know.
        I'm a writing teacher by trade & training, working primarily (these
past sixteen years) with Educational Opportunity Program students, charged
with helping them adjust to the demands of the university as readers and
writers.  A high percentage are ESL.  The competing schools of influence on
me coming in -- one that tells me to largely ignore grammar and one that
tells me to insist on rigorous prescriptive standards -- have proven totally
impractical.  So I have gone to school as best I can.  In addition to
courses aimed at bringing nontraditional freshmen up to university speed
(our students have been outperforming other students, by the way, for the
last few years), I have been teaching a one semester introduction to grammar
(sophomore level.)  Because the texts were inadequate, I have been writing
my own.  It is, I hope, a successful synthesis of composition theory,
traditional grammar, and the linguistic grammars I have been able to draw
from -- structural grammar, generative (transformational) grammar, and
functional grammar in particular.  It differs from traditional grammars in
being knowledge based (not an attempt to directly change behavior, but to
deepen understanding.)  It differs from most linguistic approaches by
including a chapter on writing (including the punctuation system) and
reading (the grammatical analysis of text.)  The goal, I guess, is to build
an understanding of language and begin putting it to practical use.  I have
taught it twice and a colleague has graciously and heroically taught it
once, and various revisions have been focused on making it more teachable,
the biggest enemy being the arbitrary length of the college semester system.
I will teach the newest version this spring. It's a very difficult and
demanding approach, but students seem to like it.  I would love to market
it, though I worry about whether there's an editor out there who would have
the slightest idea what I am talking about and don't know if there are
potential teachers who would take the time to learn enough to teach it.
         The functional grammar I am asking about comes to me by way of
M.A.K. Halliday.  Quite specifically, An Introduction to Functional Grammar,
second edition. (He also has a delightful short book on the grammar of
speech.)  I don't have it right in front of me, but I think Oxford
University Press with a very recent copyright.  Since I have been learning
it on my own, I am probably not the best person to try a definitive
description, but he describes it himself as a natural, sytemic, semantically
leaning grammar.  He tends to see the grammar as a  system of functions
rather than forms (though it is decisively a grammar.)  More than any other
grammar I have been exposed to, it seems deeply cognitive in its approach.
Since attention is paid to message structure and exchange functions (as well
as representation), it is highly rhetorical as well. I find it very useful
as an interpretive grammar, and in practical application for writing.  It
seems highly compatible with a writer's sensibility, the feeling that form
responds  to the pressure of meaning (and that meaning is interactive and
contextual).  As a natural grammar, of course, it tries to describe the
grammar that is there (rather than impose one), and as a sytemic grammar, it
tries to account for all aspects of language and to see those aspects as
part of an interacting system. Am I right in thinking that American
linguistics tends to separate syntax from semantics and from pragmatics?
Halliday seems to see and present them as integrated.
         And am I also right in thinking now that we have three separate
grammars competing under the rubric of functional?  I like the idea that we
should feel free (and all be enriched) to develop unique approaches.  Will
we be able to talk to each other during the process?  Could ATEG be that
forum?

    Craig