Webster presents an edited collection of works by British linguist, M. A. K. Halliday, written between the 1970s and 1990s, and based on Halliday's intensive study as a participant-observer of his own son, Nigel, and his developing language skills.

Part 1 Infancy and protolanguage Editor's Introduction 1 Representing the child as semiotic being: meaning and moving in the earliest months of life 2 Learning how to mean 3 Early language learning: a sociolinguistic approach 4 A sociosemiotic perspective on language development 5 One child's protolanguage 6 Meaning and the construction of reality in early childhood 7 The ontogenesis of dialogue Part 2 Transition from child tongue to mother tongue Editor's Introduction 8 Into the adult language 9 On the development of texture in child language 10 The contribution of developmental linguistics to the interpretation of language as a system 11 On the transition from child tongue to mother tongue 12 Language as code and language as behaviour: a systemic-functional interpretation of the nature and ontogenesis of dialogue 13 The place of dialogue in childen's construction of meaning Part 3 Early language and learning Editor's Introduction 14 Relevant models of language 15 The social context of language development 16 Three aspects of children's language development: learning language, learning through language, learning about language 17 Towards a language-based theory of learning 18 Grammar and the construction of educational knowledge

'These four volumes (4,5,6 and 7) venture into remarkably diverse fields. How one man could master the minutiae of all these areas of linguistic research is a matter for wonder and admiration. As a linguistic polymath, Halliday far outstrips all contemporaries...One need look for no further explanation of Halliday's current stature as doyen of British linguistics. The publication of Halliday's complete papers is an important contribution to scholarly documentation.' 

The Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday is a series that brings together Halliday's publications in many branches of linguistics, both theoretical and applied (a distinction which he himself rejects), including grammar and semantics, discourse analysis and stylistics, phonology, sociolinguistics, computational linguistics, language education, and child language development.