"Everyone will come away from this reading and re-reading of Michael Halliday's writings on language and society with a different insight: for me it is two matters; every person's capacity for creativity in exploiting meaning potential, and the central importance of establishing a unifying system able not only to capture form but to relate it consequentially and functionally to our understandings of social life." Chris Candlin, Senior Research Professor, Macquarie University, Australia '...a major enterprise comparable to a grand retrospective of the painting of some prominent artist of a distinctive school.' Roy Harris, Times Literary Supplement"