Systemic functional linguistics and code theory

No theory is an island. In the case of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), its most long-standing and intense relationship has been with code theory, a sociological framework originated by Basil Bernstein that has recently been developed into Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton 2014b). From their beginnings, scholars developing these approaches have engaged in exchanges over a wide range of issues, sparking advances in both frameworks, posing questions to each other and providing fresh insights on persistent concerns. Indeed, in recent years, this dialogue has intensified as SFL and LCT have become increasingly used together in joint analyses of shared data (Martin and Maton 2013; Vidal Lizama 2014; Hood 2016). These genuinely interdisciplinary projects are leading to a growing number of fundamental innovations in both approaches and the emergence of a generation of scholars who are theoretically ‘bilingual’. With such intertwined biographies, then, to understand SFL, one must understand its exchanges with code theory.