Review of Hasan, Ruqaiya [J. Webster, Ed.], Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and Sociolinguistics (The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Vol. 2)

The prolific and influential writings of Emeritus Professor Ruqaiya Hasan over more than three decades have been very significant in the field of systemic functional linguistics and beyond, particularly in the areas of research concerned with child language development, cohesion and stylistics, semantics, and context. Her papers are now being collected together in a series of volumes commendably edited by Jonathan Webster (who also edited the recent ten volume series of the Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday published by Continuum). Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics is the second volume in this seven volume series (volumes 3-7 are to appear gradually throughout 2011, according to the publisher Equinox’s website).