近年来，语言学研究发展迅猛，新成果不断涌现。鉴于此，上海外语教育出版社邀请语言学界知名专家从约翰·本杰明斯出版公司(John Benjamins Publishing Company)等国际著名出版社推出的多种语言学期刊中精选最具代表性或前沿意义的优秀论文，按主题编为不同分册，并撰写中文导读，组成“语言学国际学术期刊论文选”丛书，以帮助读者了解语言学领域最新成果和发展动态，促进语言学研究的发展。
《语言的功能》(Functions of Language)是国际功能语言学界公认的重要期刊，主要刊发功能语言学领域不同流派的优秀论文，促进各流派之间的合作和交流。本书精选了10篇近十几年来在该期刊发表的文章，按主题分为理论探讨、评价意义研究、跨语言研究3个部分，旨在方便读者全面了解国际功能语言学研究热点话题、研究前沿及其走向，为国内功能语言学研究者带来参考和启发。

Extending the description of process type within the system of
transitivity in delicacy based on Levinian verb classes
Issues in developing unified systems for contextual Field and
Mode
Systemic Functional Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics and
Psycholinguistics: Opportunities for dialogue
‘An increasingly familiar tragedy': Evaluative collocation and
conflation
Changing stories: Achieving a change of state in suspect and
witness knowledge through evaluation in police interviews with
suspects and witnesses
The evaluation of status in multi-modal texts
Voice in Chinese: A systemic functional perspective
Grammatical metaphor in Chinese. A corpus based study
Theme unit analysis: A systemic functional treatment of textual
meanings in Japanese
A systemic typology of existential and possessive constructions