This book showcases interviews with nine women who have made pioneering contributions to social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics (SFL), highlighting how these women have taken the discipline into new and innovative directions, and the enduring impact of their work.

The volume features interviews with a generation of scholars inspired by the prominent linguists Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in Sydney, reflecting on their achievements in the advancement of theory, knowledge, and practical application as well as the establishment of research centers in different parts of the world. A consistent interview format helps to illustrate the different directions the work of these scholars has taken and their different takes on key concepts to the discipline such as register, genre, text and context, and multimodality. Taken together, the interviews offer insights into key strands of social semiotic and SFL scholarship and give inspiration toward moving the field into new theoretical and applied directions.

Reflecting on the groundbreaking work of renowned women scholars in social semiotics and SFL and their continued global impact, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in these fields, as well as those in the areas of language pedagogy, literacy, and multimodality.