This volume contains 17 papers, including a new piece which offers Halliday's own perspective on language and linguistic theory as covered in his collected works. Topics covered include basic concepts such as structure and category, as well as issues surrounding the study of linguistics.

Introduction: A Personal Perspective by M.A.K. Halliday / Section One: Early Papers on Basic Concepts / 1. Some Aspects of Systematic Description and Comparison in Grammatical Analysis / 2. Categories of the Theory of Grammar / 3. Class in Relation to the Axes of Chain and Choice in Language / 4. Some Notes on "Deep" Grammar / 5. The Concept of Rank: A Reply / Appendix to Section One / Section Two: Word-Clause-Text / 6. Lexis as a Linguistic Level / 7. Language Structure and Language Function / 8. Modes of Meaning and Modes of Expression: Types of Grammatical Structure and Their Determination by Different Semantic Functions / 9. Text Semantics and Clause Grammar: How is a Text Like a Clause? / 10. Dimensions of Discourse Analysis: Grammar / Section Three: Construing and Enacting / 11. On the Ineffability of Grammatical Categories / 12. Spoken and Written Modes of Meaning / 13. How Do You Mean? / 14. Grammar and Daily Life: Concurrence and Complementarity / 15. On Grammar and Grammatics

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.