ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores three problems that frustrate a re-imagined grammar in school English and the author's intention to address these through functional grammatics. It offers an elaborated response to these problems through a functional grammatics in two domains of practice – narrative and persuasion. A compass is a traditional tool for finding direction in unfamiliar territory. Perhaps more appropriate in a global age might be a global positioning system (GPS). The principle of metafunctions was central to work with narrative and persuasion. The notion of choice is crucial to school English and has been important to our exploration of meaning-making systems. With the tumultuous changes occurring in the wider communicational environment, there is no way that any toolkit can encompass the interpretive, explanatory or theoretical work needed in the field of semiotics.
