Halliday’s Transdisciplinarity Meets Hasan’s Systemic Socio‑Semantic Stylistics (SSS): Exploratory Reflections

This chapter reports on ‘armchair’ research into the until now unexplored conceptual ‘fit’ between Halliday’s take on transdisciplinarity and Hasan’s descriptive and analytical framework of verbal art: SSS. It firstly addresses Halliday’s novel principle of transdisciplinarity – in deliberate dissent from inter-disciplinarity or multi-disciplinarity, as by these he understands “a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of the other”, in which the disciplines remain distinct loci of intellectual activity. For Halliday, the only real alternative is to supersede them, creating new forms of activity which are thematic rather than disciplinary in orientation. “A discipline is defined according to its content: what it is that is under investigation. […] A theme, on the other hand, is defined […] by aspect, perspective or point of view.” (2003 [1990]: 139-41). His paramount example is Applied Linguistics, as “a way of going about a whole number of different spheres of activity in which language plays some central part […] as an instrument for exploring something else”. (2009 [2006]: 114/116, our emphasis), This is where Hasan’s SSS comes in (e.g.: 1989 [1985], 2007). Illustrated aspects attesting to its being a Hallidayan transdisciplinary activity comprise: (1) her rigorous construction of a maximally appliable holistic framework, prioritising a ‘theme’: the deepest level of meaning of the literature text, symbolically articulated at a second order of meaning where the ensemble contributions of language patterning are made ‘art’ – her ‘theme’ being credibly in harmony with Halliday’s own, as both are affected by/affect multiple, multifaceted socio-semiotic concerns, and (2) her careful theorisation of how best to achieve language-in-literature literacy, empowering analysts’ and students’ critical and creative reflection on language in use – and more. The argument, in sum, is that we may candidly speak once again of ‘the meeting of [these two] like minds’ (Miller 2021). References: Halliday, M.A.K. (2003 [1990]) New ways of meaning: The challenge to applied linguistics, Journal of applied linguistics 6, 7-36. Reprinted in J.J. Webster (ed.) On Language and Linguistics. Vol. 3. Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday, 139-74. London: Continuum. Halliday, M.A.K. & Burns, A. (2009 [2006]) Applied linguistics: thematic pursuits or disciplinary moorings? A conversation between Michael Halliday and Anne Burns, Journal of applied linguistics and Professional Practice 3(1), 113-128. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v3i1.113. First published in JAL 3(1), 113-28. Hasan, R. (1989 [1985]) Linguistics, Language and Verbal Art, Geelong, Vic., Australia: Deakin University Press; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hasan, R. (2007) Private pleasure, public discourse: reflections on engaging with literature, in D.R Miller & M. Turci (eds) Language and Verbal Art Revisited: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Literature, 13-40. London: Equinox Publishing. Miller, D.R. (2021) Verbal Art and Systemic Functional Linguistics, in the series Key Concepts in Systemic Functional Linguistics, O’Grady, G., Wegener, R. and Bartlett, T. (eds). Sheffield: Equinox Publishing.