There are no important differences between Martin’s, Halliday’s and Hasan’s approaches in SFL. Halliday’s major contribution was developing SFL theory in the process of describing lexicogrammar and intonation through the 1960-70s. He and Hasan used the work on lexicogrammar to describe structures of discourse as ‘cohesion’ in 1976. Hasan was also trained as a sociologist. She and Halliday both used the work on lexicogrammar to interpret aspects of social contexts in their later work.Martin used Halliday’s and Hasan’s work on lexicogrammar and discourse to describe discourse semantic systems. His foundational English Text (1992) explains carefully how this work builds on their research. It should be read closely by anyone interested in SFL.Martin also extended SFL theory to social context, describing field, tenor and mode as semiotic systems, realised in language, and genre as a semiotic system realised in field, tenor and mode. This work has been widely applied to research in education and other fields.Martin and colleagues then built on Kress and van Leeuwen’s work on images to describe other modalities as semiotic systems. Martin and colleagues have also integrated Halliday’s, Hasan’s and others’ research on ‘users’ and ‘uses’ of language, as individuation and instantiation.Work on individuation helps to understand various alignments within the SFL community in terms of affiliation, or bonding around icons. As the founder of the field, Halliday has been iconised, so that SFL work beyond his was sometimes seen as too different and less legitimate. This is not the view of younger generations.Measured objectively, by far the most influential figures in SFL have been Halliday with [almost 200,000] citations, and Martin with almost 100,000 citations. Other leaders in SFL have only a fraction of these followers.
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[1] This is very misleading indeed, because there are very many important irreconcilable differences, all deriving from Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's theory. See some of the evidence at:
[2] This is potentially misleading. Halliday's "major contribution" was to actually formulate SFL theory, developing it, in the 1970s, from his 1960s theory, Scale & Category Grammar. The integration of all the dimensions that the theory assigns to language is Halliday's work. Without Halliday, SFL Theory does not exist; without Martin, it does.
[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Hasan (1976) theorises the lexicogrammatical systems of cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction. Later, Martin (1992) rebranded his misunderstandings of their non-structural systems as his structural systems of discourse semantics. See the evidence at Review of Martin (1992).
[9] For some of the misunderstandings in Martin's work on pictorial semiosis, see here (Working With Discourse) and here (Deploying Functional Grammar). For theoretical and ethical problems with "Martin's" work on "paralanguage", see Martin's Model Of Paralanguage.
[10] To be clear, Martin does not understand instantiation; evidence here, here and here. And as previously explained, Martin's model of individuation incongruously maps a meronymic taxonomy (affiliation) onto a hyponymic taxonomy (individuation). See the previous post David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation.
[11] See The Tactics Of The Disciplinarian Head Of The Martin Faith Community.
[12] To be clear, here Rose implies that Martin's work has been rejected because it is too different or less legitimate, rather than because it is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and itself. See also The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.
[13] To be clear, here Rose is talking of Martin's former and current students.
[14] To be clear, this confuses quantity (citations) with quality (theoretical integrity). The most reliable interpreter of Halliday, by far, is Christian Matthiessen. A meticulous review of his 700+ page book, Lexicogrammatical Cartography, warranted only 41 critiques.
