Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Chapter 6: The Grammarian's Dream: Lexis as Most Delicate Grammar [1987]
Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Ruqaiya Hasan† [+]
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
Description
Halliday’s quote ‘The grammarian’s dream is … to turn the whole of linguistic form into grammar, hoping to show that lexis can be defined as “most delicate grammar” ’ (1961: 267) is the basis for arguing for an uninterrupted continuity between grammar and lexis. Realizing the grammarian’s dream of lexis as “most delicate grammar” requires extending the delicacy of each of the four lexicogrammatical networks, each specified by one of the four metafunctions – experiential, logical, interpersonal and textual – so as to turn it into a device for the description and generation of units of form called “lexical item”.