Muere Halliday

Dear AEDEAN members:

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Prof. M.A.K Halliday. Michael Halliday died at the age of 93 on 15th April 2018 at the Uniting Wesley Heights Nursing Home in Manly, Sydney, Australia. He was at UCL from 1963 and 1971, first as the Director of the Communication Research Centre (1963-1965) and then as a Professor of Linguistics (1965-1971). After short stays in the US and Britain, he moved to Australia, where he founded the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney in 1976 and retired there in 1987.

Michael Halliday specialized in Chinese Linguistics and English Linguistics and did research on discourse analysis, intonation and grammar, among other fields, but he changed the study of Linguistics with the development of the theory of language known as Systemic Functional Linguistics, according to which language is a social semiotic system. Michael Halliday is well-known for the publication of An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985), which has become a reference book of Linguistics. All his work has had a significant impact on sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and language teaching and learning.

Cristina Suárez-Gómez, on behalf of the Executive Board

—oOo—