The complementary contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky to a “language-based theory of learning”

Abstract

There can hardly be a topic of greater interest to readers of this journal than the one announced in the title of Halliday’s recent article: “Towards a languagebased theory of learning” (hereafter, LTL).i It is also a topic that is of particular educational importance at this time when, fired by the symbolic significance of the approaching start of a new century, reformers plan major changes in the content of the school curriculum and in the manner in which it is to be enacted. For curricular reform is very much a matter of social semiotics and, whether explicitly recognized or not, any particular policy proposal is necessarily based on assumptions about the relationship between language and learning. In discussing plans for change, therefore, it behooves those of us who believe language to have a central and unique role in learning-both in school and out-to make our beliefs clear and explicit and to provide warrant for them that is based not just on the evidence of good practice but also in a coherent body of theory and research. In this context, Halliday’s article is particularly timely. In its opening paragraph, it is also explicit in stating the premises on which such a theory must be built.