The interpersonal gateway to the meaning of mind: unifying the inter- and intraorganism perspective on language

In this chapter, I shall consider some of the ways in which Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can contribute to our understanding of the reflexive mind and the role that the child’s development of his meaning-making plays in the creation of mind. In doing so, I shall emphasise the new dialogue that can now be created between SFL and the neurological, biological and cognitive sciences due to the recent developments in these sciences concerning the emergence of meaning, mind and consciousness in the individual. The chapter will focus on research on early (proto)linguistic development in the human infant in the SFL tradition in order to develop the arguments suggested. above. I will not be presenting a chronological recount, but a theoretical reconstruction of the developments which have made such a dialogue possible