North American Systemic
Functional Linguistics Association
NA-SFLA Newsletter #6
May 17, 2003
Editors: Gulbahar Beckett
and Nan Fries
NA-SFLA WEB SITE <http://www.yorku.ca/cummings/nasfla>
1. NA-SFLA at AAAL Review [Report by Gulbahar Beckett
and Nan Fries]
North American Systemic Functional Linguistics Association
Cracker Barrel,
dinner & panel
On Monday March 24, Bernard Mohan, NA-SFLA Chair,
organized a Cracker Barrel
for NA-SFLA members and friends who attended the
American Association of
Applied Linguistics (AAAL) annual meeting held on March
22-25 in Arlington,
Virginia. Between 5:15-7:15 p.m, the Cracker Barrel attracted
about 60
people. It was a pleasure to see our regular members and
friends. Attendees
had lovely chats and discussions on topics of their interest
such as Genre,
language and education, and ape language. About 30
participants stayed for
dinner — the tenth annual SFLA/AAAL dinner. Our guest of
honour was Wilga
Rivers, Professor Emerita of Romance Languages and
Literatures at Harvard
University.
Professor Rivers is internationally recognized for her work
on the
psychological and linguistic aspects of language
teaching. She is the author
or co-author of 13 books and about 80 articles on various
aspects of language
teaching. She is the recipient of numerous foreign language
awards and the
most distinguished leadership award of the American Council
on the Teaching
of Foreign Languages. We were honoured to have Professor
Rivers join us for
dinner.
The NA-SFLA panel (Scollon, Mohan and Royce) was very
well attended including
in the audience Deborah Tannen, and Chuck and Marjorie
Goodwin.
2. LSA/NA-SFLA update [July 25-27] SEE NA-SFLA WEB
SITE FOR INFORMATION.
The LSA/North American Systemic Functional Linguistics
Association
Mini-conference will be hosted at LSA Summer Institute at
Michigan State
University in East Lansing, Michigan.
The May 1 deadline for abstracts has been extended to June 1.
LSA Summer Institute web site <lsa2003.lin.msu.edu/index.html>
Two additional notes: [1] for those attending the Pragmatics
conference in
Toronto, our Mini-Conference will be convenient by train
from Toronto. [2]
THE LSA/NA-SFLA MINI-CONFERENCE IS FREE AND
THERE IS NO NEED TO REGISTER. HOWEVER, IF YOU LET US KNOW THAT YOU ARE
COMING IT IS EASIER TO PREPARE THE RIGHT NUMBER OF HANDOUTS. Since we have
no fee, you will have to get your own coffee.
Unofficial headquarters: Super 8 Hotel.
We will be posting abstracts and a tentative schedule on the
NA-SFLA web site
soon.
Tentative list of titles:
***********************
Free,
No Registration necessary,
Open to the Public
*************************
FRIDAY, JULY 25 [EDUCATION DAY]
Morning: Opening welcome/organizing remarks: Nan Fries,
VP, NA-SFLA
CHAIR: Peter Fries, Conference
Convenor
9am
1. Peter Fries [Introduction to Systemic Functional
Linguistics]
[Fries1ph@cmich.edu] [one hour]
10am
2. Robyn Woodward-Kron [Disciplinary learning through
writing: An
investigation into the writing of undergraduate Education
students]
[robynwk@hotmail.com] [one hour]
11am
3. Carolyn Hartnett [Meaning First: A Functional Approach
to Written
Composition] [HARTNETT@compuserve.com] [one
hour]
2 hour lunch break [noon-2]
NA-SFLA executive committee meeting
Afternoon: [2-5]
COLLOQUIUM ON EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS OF
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
[from University of California, Davis]
CHAIR, Jay Lemke
[jaylemke@umich.edu]
(3 hours)
1. SFL as a resource for advanced literacy development
(Introduction to
session)
Cecilia Colombi and Mary Schleppegrell
Part I: SFL in investigations of English
2. Investigating academic English
development
Mary Schleppegrell, Linguistics Department, UC
Davis
<mjschleppegrell@ucdavis.edu>
3. Nominalization in Generation 1.5 academic
writing
Jennifer Guzman, Linguistics Department, UC Davis
<jrguzman@ucdavis.edu>
4. Teaching ergative verbs to advanced learners of
English
Miram Bormann, Linguistics Department, UC Davis
<mbormann@ucdavis.edu>
5. The writing development of recent immigrant
students
Ann Go, School of Education, UC Davis
<algo@ucdavis.edu>
Part 2: SFL in investigations of Spanish
6. Describing academic Spanish with SFL
Cecilia Colombi, Spanish Department, UC
Davis
7. How Chilean history textbooks construct causality:
ideological implications
Teresa Oteiza-Silva, Spanish Department, UC Davis
<tmoteizasilva@ucdavis.edu>
8. Developing oral academic language: The case of Spanish
in the US
Mariana Achugar, School for International Training,
Brattleboro, VT
<Mariana.Achugar@sit.edu>
9. Cuando: In search of incipient academic writing in Spanish
bilingual
children
Laura Dubcovsky, Spanish Department, UC Davis
<ledubcovsky@ucdavis.edu>
**********************
SATURDAY, JULY 26
A day of papers showing the variety of work done within the
Systemic
Functional model.
Lunch will be noon- 2:00 PM
AAAL planning committee meeting
[not in order yet]
CHAIR: Carolyn Hartnett, Secretary, NA-SFLA [morning]
and Michael Cummings,
Webmaster, NA-SFLA [afternoon]
1. Asp [What DA can tell us about AD: What a functional
discourse analysis of
patients with Alzheimer's type dementia can tell us about
language and
cognition] [elissa.asp@ns.sympatico.ca] [one
hour]
2. Cummings [Detecting stylistic variation from genre
analysis]
[mcummings@glendon.yorku.ca] [one
hour]
3. Fries [What makes a text coherent?] [fries1ph@cmich.edu] [one hour]
4. Iwamoto [Multi-stratal analysis of paragraphs in a dialogue ]
[kazu_
iwamoto@hotmail.com] [one hour]
5. Lemke [Systems and gradients: describing the language of
degree]
[jaylemke@umich.edu] [one hour]
?McCauley [Tattletales]
[lennox@yorku.ca]
7. ?Mohan [Developmental grammar of causal explanations
in science]
[bernard.mohan@ubc.ca] [one hour]
6. Spruiell [Metafunctional Shift and the Signification of
Thou]
[sprui1wc@cmich.edu] [one hour]
?Williamson [Multimodality] [rwilliam@ccs.carleton.ca]
8. Young, R [An invitation to AILA in Madison, 2005] AILA
will meet in the US
for the first time. Richard Young, convenor, will discuss his
plans for the
conference. [rfyoung@facstaff.wisc.edu] [15
MINUTES]
********************
SUNDAY [APE DAY], JULY 27
9: 00 AM -
noon
Morning: CHAIR: Bernie Mohan, President, NA-SFLA
Benson and Greaves [Multi-Stratal Analysis of
Bonobo-Human Discourse]
[Greaves@gl.yorku.ca]
2 hour lunch break [noon-2]
2 PM - 5 PM
Nan Fries [Films of encultured apes: Kanzi [bonobo], Koko
[gorilla], Washoe
[chimp] and Chantek [orangutang]]
3. New and improved web site for
NA-SFLA
Thanks for bibliographies posted on web site. Please send
more on anything
that interests you.
The following bibliographies have been
posted:
Benson, James and William Greaves. Ape-human discourse
related checklist.
Iwamoto, Kazuyoshi. Bibliography on
phonology
Royce, Terry.
Resources on MultiModality
Schleppegrell, Mary.
Functional grammar in content area teaching
Taboada, Maite. Bibliography on SFL (Systemic Functional
Linguistics) work
Discourse Analysis
Taboada, Maite. Bibliography on SFL (Systemic Functional
Linguistics) work in
Artificial Intelligence/Computational
Linguistics
Jay Lemke has an extensive and interesting website, and
particularly mentions
the following portions as potentially of
interest.
1. Biblio of my own publications,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/bibliogr.htm
2. Biblio on methods of discourse analysis,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/meth-bib.htm
3. Biblio on discourse & multimedia analysis,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/courses/DA_MxM/DA_MxM_biblio.htm
4. Pragmatics Conference [systemic and systemic friendly
folks speaking
include -- Geluykens, Gruber, Lemke, Macauley, Malcolm,
Stainton, Taboada,
Ventola ,Williamson,] Toronto, July 13-18 (Sounds like party time -- a
famous Benson Barbeque)
5. TESOL stories
There was a panel on Functional Linguistics, (including Systemic
linguistics) [panel Nunan, Larson-Freeman, Burns and
McCarthy--Hammond
substituted for McCarthy] in room for under 200. So many people came to
listen that they had to move to a huge auditorium. May have
had as many as
1,000 in audience. Mary Schleppegrell reports the same for
her paper.
Standing room only. Mary's students report that most
functional papers filled
rooms. Hummm. Maybe NA-SFLA should submit a panel for
TESOL next year?
6. Our condolences to Bernie, NA-SFLA chair, for his
loss. Marilyn, his
wife, has recently passed away.
7. New URL for the current issue of NETWORK [a systemic
newsletter]
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/nlp/network/newsletter/newsletter.htm
8. Member news: Madeline Yeomans got tenure. Amy Cecilia
Rigg will start work
at Eastern New Mexico University in the fall. She is finishing
her
dissertation.
9. New PhD
dissertation: (Congratulations, Robyn)
DISCIPLINARY LEARNING THROUGH WRITING: AN
INVESTIGATION INTO THE WRITING OF
UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
STUDENTS
Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong,
Australia
Robyn Woodward-Kron:
robynwk@hotmail.com
The aim of this study into tertiary students' academic writing
was to provide
a comprehensive account of the ways in which students learn
specialist
knowledge through language, particularly the written mode.
The study also
aimed to describe and map the changes which occur in
students' writing as
their disciplinary knowledge increases, as well as to provide
a better
understanding of how students learn to write in a disciplinary
context.
By investigating the relation between disciplinary writing and
the learning
of specialist knowledge this thesis has attempted to lay the
groundwork for a
linguistic theory of learning in disciplinary contexts focussing
on the
written mode. As such it should extend systemically oriented
understandings
of language as a resource for thinking and learning in
childhood and
adolescence into the adult domain. A more comprehensive
description of the
study's findings and implications is provided in the
dissertation's abstract.
Although the study was undertaken in Australia, Robyn
moved to southwestern
Ontario during the final phase of her study. She concedes that
a long
Canadian winter was a significant factor in reducing
distractions and helping
to bring her doctoral studies to
completion.
ABSTRACT
For many academics and students the role of language,
particularly writing,
in constructing knowledge and in 'learning to mean' in a
disciplinary
context remains unexamined. This thesis investigates the ways
in which
undergraduate students learn specialist knowledge through
writing. The
disciplinary context of the study is pre-service primary teacher
education in
a Faculty of Education at one Australian university. Systemic
functional
linguistics and genre theory provide the theoretical framework
for the study
as well as the main analytical tools. The research
methodology is an
integrated one, drawing on discourse analytical and linguistic
approaches as
well as a small amount of ethnographic
data.
The findings of the research relate to two areas. The first area
is the
nature of learning to mean in a specialist disciplinary context.
In this
study, the tutors' written feedback on the students' assignments
appeared to
play only a minor role in the students' socialisation into the
discursive
practices of the discipline. On the other hand, the students'
introductory
textbook was seen to play a major role in shunting the
students from
commonsense understandings of child development to more
uncommonsense
disciplinary ones. The second area is the relation between
disciplinary
learning and writing. At the level of genre through the writing
of
Expositions, Discussions and Evaluative Accounts, the
pre-service education
students developed several thinking and learning processes.
These included
developing a logical argument based on evidence, engaging
with recent
research and assessing the implications of research and
theories for the
classroom. The findings also showed that Micro-genres
functioned as 'textual
learning bridges'. These textual learning bridges allow the
student, for
example, to review, explain or clarify his or her understanding
of a
particular concept or phenomenon. The investigation at clause
level into the
ideational meanings in the students' texts showed that the
processes of
naming, defining, taxonomising, reasoning, reporting
knowledge claims and
engaging with disciplinary knowledge were the main means
through which the
students built up their own semiotic map of the discipline.
The study's findings have the potential to inform the
development of
functionally oriented writing pedagogies as well as the
thematisation of the
role of language for thinking and learning in pre-service
teacher education.
It is hoped that such a strategy would not only aid the students'
writing and
learning of specialist knowledge at university but also assist
them in their
future role as classroom practitioners.