MIcheal Halliday

Halliday identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years. For Halliday, children are motivated to develop language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. The first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social needs. Halliday calls them instrumental, regulatory, interactional, and personal functions.

• Instrumental: This is when the child uses language to express their needs (e.g. "Want juice")
• Regulatory: This is where language is used to tell others what to do (e.g. "Go away")
• Interactional: Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (e.g. "Love you, Mummy")
• Personal: This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions, and individual identity (e.g. "Me good girl")

The next three functions are heuristic, imaginative, and representational, all helping the child to come to terms with his or her environment.

• Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (e.g. 'What the tractor doing?')
• Imaginative: Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment.
• Representational: The use of language to convey facts and information.