Cognitive Linguistics and Social Interaction: Towards an Integrated Model of a Systemic Functional Grammar and the Other Components of a Communicating Mind

Description

EDITOR'S PREFACE Linguists and applied linguists today are increasingly recognising that we cannot get a full view of the complexities of language unless we are willing to admit ideas from outside the narrow confines of 'core' linguistics, particularly if our aim is to solve practical problems of language acquisition and use. Robin Fawcett's book, which includes completely re-written versions of two of his most important papers on linguistic theory, not only acknowledges the help of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic studies, but fuses them in a most original manner into a comprehensive model of basic language strategies. In the first part he develops the component parts of a 'holistic' framework in terms of a semantically-based functional theory, which is then illustrated in the second part in terms of the cognitive and situational factors that must enter into the generation of a sentence. As the author's preface and biographical appendix explain, his thinking owes much to the 'systemic' linguistics of Michael Halliday. Today, systemic theory is one of the most viable -- and applicable -- alternatives to Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar, and Robin Fawcett's book provides -- though in theoretical rather than applicational terms -- a good understanding of the insights to be gained from a systemic functional approach to explaining language. Reinhard R.K. Hartmann Exeter Linguistic Studies