This volume brings together fourteen papers by scholars from Europe and Australia, working within or close to the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) tradition. Twelve are revised versions of papers presented at the 18th Eurointernational SFL Conference in Gorizia, Italy, 2006. The year marked half a century since the publication of Michael Halliday’s 1956 description of modern Chinese grammar, widely considered as the ‘beginning’ of SFL. The conference location in Gorizia was also significant, on a border recently opened up (2004) as part of the EU enlargement process. This spatio-temporal coincidence inspired the theme of the conference, Thresholds and Potentialities of Systemic Functional Linguistics, conceived as a venue for re-affirming some of SFL’s past achievements and for reflecting on future directions it might take. Applying tried and tested tools to new contexts, the selected contributions presented here reflect this emphasis on continuity and change in SFL.
