This is the eleventh volume in Professor M.A.K. Halliday's Collected Works. Taken together, they have shown the sizeable international interest across a number of disciplines in the systemic functional linguistics framework. It is applicable to all aspects of the study of language especially meaning in context and language acquisition. This volume further discusses Halliday's notion of 'appliable linguistics'.

Halliday's powerful theoretical approach to the study of language has contributed significantly not only to advances in our knowledge of how language works but also how linguistic insights may be practically applied across a wide spectrum of social concerns.