Editing Systemic functional grammar (section)

==Influences==
Halliday describes his grammar as built on the work of [[Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure]], [[Louis Hjelmslev]],<ref>(Halliday, 1994:xxvi):</ref> [[Bronisław Malinowski|Malinowski]], [[J.R. Firth]], and the [[Prague school]] linguists. In addition, he drew on the work of the American anthropological linguists [[Franz Boas|Boas]], [[Edward Sapir|Sapir]] and [[Benjamin Lee Whorf|Whorf]]. His "main inspiration" was [[J.R. Firth|Firth]], to whom he owes, among other things, the notion of language as system.<ref>Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. Dimensions of Discourse Analysis: Grammar. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Vol 2: Dimensions of Discourse. London: Academic Press. Reprinted in full in On Grammar, Volume 1 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday. London and New York: Continuum. p. 262.</ref> Among American linguists, Whorf had "the most profound effect on my own thinking". Whorf "showed how it is that human beings do not all mean alike, and how their unconscious ways of meaning are among the most significant manifestations of their culture".<ref name="Halliday, M.A.K 1985. p. 188">Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. Systemic Background. In "Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Vol. 1: Selected Theoretical Papers" from the ''Ninth International Systemic Workshop'', James D. Benson and William S. Greaves (eds). Ablex. Reprinted in Full in Volume 3 in ''The Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday''. London: Continuum. p. 188.</ref>
From his studies in China, he lists Luo Changpei and Wang Li as two scholars from whom he gained "new and exciting insights into language". He credits Luo for giving him a diachronic perspective and insights into a non-Indo-European language family. From Wang Li he learnt "many things, including research methods in dialectology, the semantic basis of grammar, and the history of linguistics in China".<ref name="Halliday, M.A.K 1985. p. 188"/>