the LINC Network

The How Does Language Work? Conference will be held at Aston University, Thursday 27th June and/or Friday 28th June, 2013.

I'll be teaching there on Friday June 28th, where I will be giving a session on the noun phrase (nominal group) and focussing specifically on the role of nominalisation.

My collegues Tom Bartlett and Gerard O'Grady will also be taking part. Tom will examine the clause as a pattern of wording built around a verb and how they can be combined to expand meaning potential. Gerard will explore Halliday’s notion of “theme”.

We're really exciting about taking part in this - it looks like a great event and a great opportunity to really engage with teachers who have such an important impact on students' understanding of how language works. The aim of this conference is to help "move learners from everyday language to the academic language needed to succeed".

Here is he full list of speakers:
Professor J R Martin, University of Sydney (Australia)
Associate Professor Sue Hood, University of Technology (Australia)
Tom Bartlett, Cardiff University (UK)
Lise Fontaine, Cardiff University (UK)
Gerard O’Grady, Cardiff University (UK)
Geoff Thompson, University of Liverpool (UK)
Brian Dare, Director of Lexis Education and international consultant for language and literacy

For more information see the conference website:

The 3rd LinC Summer School will be held September 8-10 2014 at Cardiff University. Details will follow soon!

FuzzyLaw a resource for interpreters, legal professionals and others who encounter or study the law, created by my colleague Dr Frances Rock in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University.

Click here to learn more about it.

If you are interested in sharing what you think you understand about the meanings of legal terms, then maybe you'd like to take part in the research into this area. Have a look at the study page: http://flaw.cardiff.ac.uk/.

To take part, you will have to be able to confirm the following:

• English is my ‘first language’ or ‘mother tongue’; I speak English as a ‘native speaker’
• I have lived in England or Wales for at least 10 years
• I do not and never have worked directly in the criminal legal system (for example, as a police officer, solicitor or barrister)
• I do not and have never worked as an interpreter or translator
• I am not studying and have never studied language and communication nor law

3rd LinC Summer School, 2014

We're starting to plan for the next summer school, to be held in September 2014 in Cardiff. Watch this space!

I have just realised I haven't posted anything since the summer school in September. The past semester was really busy and of course before you know it, the December holidays hit and time just flies by.

The big news is that we submitted the final manuscript for our edited volume on Choice. This project has been in development for quite some time now and so it is really very satisfying to see it all come together. I'll post details below but do keep an eye out for the following publication later this year (not likely before autumn 2013):

Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice. Fontaine, L, Bartlett, T. and O'Grady, G. (eds.) Cambridge: CUP.

This volume has been motivated by the need for theoretical consistency and comprehensiveness in using the notion of choice in language. Consideration of what is perhaps the key concept in SFL has to date been piecemeal and generally implicit, concealing diverse and often incompatible assumptions. Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice brings together a variety of linguistic perspectives, informed by evolutionary theory, psychology, sociology and neuroscience, to produce a complex but unifying account of how the different senses of choice as process and as product are interdependent and how they operate at all levels of language.

Table of Contents

• Contributors
• Choice in contemporary systemic functional theory, Lise Fontaine
• Meaning as choice, MAK Halliday
• The teleological illusion in linguistic ‘drift’: choice and purpose in semantic evolution, David Butt, Kathryn Tuckwell, Alison Moore
• Choice and language variation: some theoretical reflections, Maria Freddi
• Grammatical choice and communicative motivation: A radical systemic approach , Carl Bache Semantic options and complex functions: a recursive view of choice, Lise Fontaine
• Choice and choosing in Systemic Functional Grammar: What is it and how is it done?, Robin Fawcett
• Systemic Networks, Relational Networks, and Choice, Sydney Lamb
• The twin paradoxes of unconscious choices and unintentional agents: what neurosciences say about choice and agency in action and language , Elissa Asp
• A Neurocognitive Interpretation of Systemic-Functional Choice, Jose Maria Gil
• There-constructions as a choice for coherence in the recent history of English, Ana Martínez Insua
• Picking an argument: politicians' choice of persuasive strategies, Geoff Thompson
• A dynamic view of choice in writing: composition as text evolution, Michael O'Donnell
• Choice, System, Realization: describing language as meaning potential, Ruqaiya Hasan
• ‘Choice’ in relation to context: A diachronic perspective on cultural valeur, Claire Urbach
• Material Action as Choice in Field, Wendy Bowcher
• “I’ll Manage the Context”: Context, Environment and the Potential for Institutional Change, Tom Bartlett
• Towards a Study of the Differences between Formal Written English and Informal Spoken English, Margaret Berry
• Genre-driven constraints on semantic choice, Victor Castel
• Choices in analyzing choice: Methods and techniques for register analysis, Elke Teich
• ‘Register-idiosyncratic’ evaluative choice in Congressional debate: a corpus-assisted comparative study, Donna Miller and Jane Johnson
• Not exactly black letter law: emergent choices and textual symbolic design in Athenian legal-political oratory, Astika Kappagoda
• Interlanguage lexicogrammatical fossilization or not? That’s an SFL-related question from the viewpoint of choice, Pedro Henrique Lima Praxedes Filho
• References

The 2nd LinC Summer School and Workshop 2012

It's the final day of the summer school and although we are all tired, it's been great!

The introductory course has covered the three main strands of meaning in the SFL framework. We have had people come from all over the world and it's been a great opportunity for us all to learn from each other. The introductory course was taught by our resident SFLers: me (Lise Fontaine), Tom Bartlett and Gerard O'Grady. In addition to the basics of functional grammar, we also offered an introductory workshop on using the UAM CorpusTool.

The applied course focussed on education, including classroom discourse and literacy.

On Monday morning, Sheena Gardner gave a lecture and workshop on exploring university student writing through the BAWE corpus. Participants were given an opportunity to explore the BAWE corpus. Then on Monday afternoon, Geoff Thompson explored how interpersonal choices contribute to the construction of the reader-in-the-text in UK newspaper editorials. The workshop looked at how some of the interpersonal resources are deployed in specific text types, showing how they are used to engage readers and encourage affiliation with the opinions expressed.

Izaskun Elorza and Blanca García-Riaza from Salamanca looked at teaching ‘reported speech’ on Tuesday morning. Their emphasis was on how a systemic approach may help overcome the still existing bridge between a purely formal approach and the well-established communicative approach to the teaching of languages. Claire Acevedo introduced the Reading to Learn literacy acceleration program, which uses Systemic Functional Linguistics in education to dramatically accelerate literacy and learning.

this morning, Mick O'Donnell showed how to use the UAM CorpusTool to analyse classroom discourse, covering the basics of how to use the software and showing us how to get more out of it with some of the advanced features. This afternoon Margaret Berry will lead discussions of practical applications of SFL in education.

I'd like to give huge thanks to our volunteer helpers: Rowan Campbell, Katy Jones and Jaspal Singh. We'd have been completely lost without their contributions.

Watch this space to find out more about our next summer school!

As part of the research seminar series presented by the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, Dr Paul Tench will be presenting his work on developing alphabets for unwritten languages.

The talk will take place on 25th April 2012 at 2.15pm in room 3.58 of the Humanities Building at Cardiff University.

Dr Paul Tench will explain the technique used by the charity "The Seed Company" to facilitate the development of an alphabet by the speakers of unwritten languages, with special reference to recent experience in Zambia's remote Western Province. The linguist facilitates, but the community decides.

For more information about Paul's work, please his video account on his work on the new Zambian alphabet: Cardiff linguist Paul Tench helps new Zambian alphabet (BBC Wales).

This post is an update on the summer school programme for both the introductory and applied courses. An outline of both courses is given below followed by funding opportunities for attending the summer school.

Instructors

Sheena Gardner, Geoff Thompson, Mick O’Donnell, Izaskun Elorza, Blanca García-Riaza, Claire Acevedo, Margaret Berry, Alan Hess, Lise Fontaine, Tom Bartlett and Gerard O’Grady

Provisional Programme

Introductory Course - click here for session descriptions
The Introductory Course in SFL will introduce participants to the basics of SFL with a particular focus on clausal analysis. There will be sessions on each of the three metafunctions - the experiential, the interpersonal and the textual - as well as sessions discussing how the metafunctions combine to make multi-stranded meaning and on potential applications of the approach. The programme is set up to provided a paired lecture and workshop dedicated to each topic, which provides the opportunity to gain hands-on practical experience in analysing grammar. The programme also introduces the UAM CorpusTool for those who are interested in learning to use it.

• Introduction to SFL (Lise Fontaine)
• Experiential Meaning (Tom Bartlett)
• Experiential Meaning workshop (Tom Bartlett)
• Interpersonal Meaning (Geoff Thompson and Lise Fontaine)
• Workshop on Interpersonal Meaning, introducing the UAM CorpusTool (Mick O'Donnell and Lise Fontaine)
• Textual and information Meaning (Gerard O'Grady)
• Workshop on Textual and information Meaning (Gerard O'Grady)
• Summary Session: the full analysis and applications (Tom Bartlett and Gerard O'Grady)

Applied Course - click here for session descriptions
The applied course assumes a good foundation in SFL and is suited for people interested in applying SFL to educational settings. The sessions in the applied course are varied, providing a range of knowledge and experience in applying SFL to educational settings.

• Exploring university student writing through the BAWE corpus (Sheena Gardner)
• Teaching ‘reported speech’: From a formal to a systemic approach (Izaskun Elorza and Blanca García-Riaza)
• Interpersonal choices in the construction of the reader-in-the-text (Geoff Thompson) Classroom discourse analysis (Mick O'Donnell)
• Analysis using the UAM CorpusTool (Mick O'Donnell)
• The Reading to Learn literacy acceleration program (Claire Acevedo)
• Integrating SFL in education: presentations and open discussion (Alan Hess and Margaret Berry)

Funding Opportunities

The funding for staff or students from eligible institutions outside Europe is now up to a maximum of £1200. Funding for staff or students from eligible institutions inside Europe remains up to a maximum of £700. Summer School registration costs of £120 will be paid from the bursaries. Eligible institutions are those from institutions in the Banco de Santander universities network.
For more information, please consult this following website.

Those eligible for the funding should send a CV and covering letter, stating how much funding is being sought and how this money will be used. Please email your application us here.

Good news from CUP, Analysing English Grammar should be on shelves in October 2012 or soon after. The description of the book is given below along with the contents.

Analysing English Grammar (CUP)

A practical step-by-step introduction to the analysis of English grammar, this book leaves the reader confident to tackle the challenges analyzing grammar may pose. The first textbook to take an integrated approach to function and structure in grammatical analysis, it allows students to build experience, skills and confidence in working with grammar. The innovative, hybrid approach combines an introduction to systemic functional theory with a solid grounding in grammatical structure. The book approaches grammar in an incremental way, enabling students to develop grammatical skill in stages. It is of particular value to those starting to work with functional grammar but it is also relevant for experienced readers who are interested in developing a more systematic approach to grammatical analysis.

• The first textbook to take an integrated approach to function and structure in grammatical analysis
• Includes a range of interesting worked examples and exercises to engage the student
  
• Useful summaries and further reading sections are included at the end of each chapter

Contents

1. Introduction to functional grammatical analysis
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Analyzing grammar within a functional framework
1.3 An overview of systemic functional linguistics
1.4 The goal of grammatical analysis
1.5 Exercises
1.6 Further Reading

2 The units of language analysis
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The clause: elements and units
2.3 Word and group classes
2.4 An initial view of the clause: representing functions and structures
2.5 Summary
2.6 Exercises
2.7 Further Reading

3 The grammar of things: the nominal group
3.1 Introduction to referring expressions
3.2 The nominal group
3.3 Tests for recognizing nominal group boundaries
3.4 Worked example of the nominal group analysis
3.5 Exercises
3.6 Further Reading

4 Representing experience
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Analysing experiential meaning
4.3 Tests for analysing processes, participants and circumstances
4.4 Functional-structural view of the experiential strand of meaning
4.5 Summary
4.6 Exercises
4.7 Further Reading

5 Orienting Language
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Goals and limitations of the chapter
5.3 The role of subject and its place in the clause
5.4 The Finite element
5.5 Modality
5.6 Polarity
5.7 An interpersonal view of the clause
5.8 Mood
5.9 Summary
5.10 Exercises
5.11 Further Reading

6 Organizing Language
6.1 Introduction
6.2 A Textual view of the clause
6.3 Theme and Mood
6.4 Types of Theme
6.5 Thematic constructions
6.6 Analysing Theme
6.7 Texture
6.8 Summary
6.9 Exercises
6.10 Further reading

7 From text to clause
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Textual Themes and clause boundaries
7.3 Combining clauses
7.4 Identifying clause boundaries
7.5 Summary
7.6 Exercises
7.7 Further Reading

8 Guidelines for grammatical analysis
8.1 A focus on written texts
8.2 Summary of grammatical tests
8.4 Summary
8.5 Exercises
8.6 Further Reading

9 There and back again: interpreting the analysis
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Patterns of meaning in text
9.3 Final remarks
9.4 Exercises
9.5 Further reading

10 Answers to exercises

A comparison of the interpersonal metafunction in English and Slovenian

On Tuesday, February 14th, at 1.10pm in room 3.62, we're holding a postgrad research seminar. Monika Kavalir is visiting us from Slovenia for one week and she is working on the contribution that the Interpersonal Metafunction makes at the level below the clause, specifically exploring the hypothesis that adjectives can be used either absolutely or relatively in all three degrees in English and Slovenian. She will be presenting her work to us, which will be followed by discussion. This is a very friendly and casual session, please do join us if you are interested in the interpersonal functions of language and/or descriptions of non-English languages. If you have any questions, you can email me.

We will be running a one-day workshop in Corpus Linguistics on February 3rd 2012 for all postgraduate students, researchers and staff who are interested. The event is free but spaces are limited. You will be required to register for each event to secure a place and you can do this using this link.

Morning workshop:

AntConc: Emma Moreton (Coventry) will explain how AntConc can be used in your own research with your own corpus/corpora. It is a simple concordance program for Windows, Macintosh OS X, and Linux but it's quite powerful. We will show you how to build your own corpus and use the features in the software to obtain concordances and collocations. Emma will demonstrate how she is using it in her PhD research.
If you want to attend and use this workshop to try AntConc on your own data, you will need to bring your own laptop and your own data. However we can provide sample data for you to use.

Afternoon workshop:

UAM CorpusTool: Geoff Thompson (Liverpool) will lead an introductory workshop on using the UAM CorpusTool. This is a really nice project package - quite easy to use and is an excellent resource. It lets you manage your research project , coding your analysis at whatever level you need (discourse, text, sentence, group, word, etc.) and it includes a nice and useful statistical package. It's theory neutral but is generally used by those working within Systemic Functional Linguistics. This workshop will take place in a computer training room so no need for your own computer although you are welcome to use your own if you prefer.

AntConc and CorpusTool are both available for free and while they do very different things, they complement each other very nicely.

Outline of the day's events:

10.30 - 12.30: Introduction to AntConc
Emma Moreton (Coventry) and Lise Fontaine (Cardiff)
room 2.03 (Humanities Building)

14.00 - 17.00: the UAM CorpusTool
Geoff Thompson (Liverpool) and Lise Fontaine (Cardiff)
Training Room 2 (Julian Hodge Building)

Contact me, if you have any questions.

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Just came across this on the Motivated Grammar blog and it's a nice discussion of some of the things were were discussing at our recent LinC seminar on selection. Read the blog entry at Motivated Grammar for some discussion of expressions such as 'a number of' and 'amount of'.

LinC is hosting the following research seminar on November 21st 2012 at 4pm in room 3.58 (Humanities Building, Cardiff University):

Investigating ideologies in Canadian corpora:

Using systemic functional grammar in cross-linguistic corpus-assisted discourse studies

Rachelle Freake, Queen Mary, University of London

This paper presents findings on language ideologies in French and English Canadian newspapers. French and English have important functions in Canada where they are not only official languages but also serve as markers of social difference (Bouchard, 2002; Heller, 1999; Oakes & Warren, 2007). Throughout Canadian history, beliefs and understandings of language have come to be shared across social groups, ingrained in ways of life, and significant symbols of the nation (Karim, 1993; Kymlicka, 2004; Resnick, 1994). Here, systematically shared naturalized beliefs about language shall be understood as “language ideologies”, and these are often manifested in discourse (Blommaert, 1999; Boudreau & Dubois, 2007; Woolard, 1998). Since language ideologies are socially shared, they tend to differ between social groups. When groups are largely monolingual, ideologies may be unique to speakers of a single language. Since the vast majority of Canadians speak only one of Canada’s two official languages, it is unclear whether French speakers and English speakers share language ideologies even if they ostensibly share the same society (i.e., Canada). To ascertain whether French and English speakers’ language ideologies differ, a cross-linguistic analysis is required. Since newspapers serve as a rich site for studies of language ideologies (DiGiacomo, 1999; Johnson and Ensslin, 2007), this paper takes French and English newspapers as data. The aim, then, is to highlight some of the similarities and differences between language ideologies in French and English Canada and to demonstrate how specific methods can help in this endeavour.

Cross-linguistic corpus-assisted discourse studies (Baker et al., 2008; Freake et al., 2011) is a methodological approach that combines corpus linguistics tools, analysis, and theory with discourse analytic tools, analysis and theory. Both of these components have strong links to systemic functional grammar (see e.g. Eggins, 2004; Halliday & Matthieson, 2004; Hunston & Thompson, 2006; Martin, 2009; Young & Harrison, 2004), and thus the method used here, too, combines corpus linguistics and discourse analysis in a Hallidayan approach. Data are drawn from 17 Canadian newspapers (12 in English; 5 in French) over a three-week period in 2009 for a total of over 7.5 million words in English and 3.5 million words in French. The method proves to be useful in the study of language ideologies in Canada for many reasons. As discussed in other research (e.g. Baker et al., 2008), the flexibility and triangulation of the combined quantitative and qualitative approach allows for increased objectivity, larger data samples, and the examination of both minority and majority trends. The addition of a cross-linguistic component further enhances the comparative and contrastive capability of the approach (cf. Johansson, 2007; Partington, 2010). Finally, grounding both of the methodological components (i.e. discourse and corpus) in a systemic functional approach ensures a shared theoretical foundation for the findings. Results from this study suggest that French and English speakers draw on some similar and some divergent language ideologies. While language ideologies in French newspapers suggest integrative evaluations of French and instrumental evaluations of English, in English, newspapers suggest only instrumental understandings of the English and French languages. These overall different evaluations of Canadian official languages may have implications for conceptualizations of and consensus on Canadian nationhood.

English determiners and the concept of 'selection'

We will be holding an informal LinC event on Thursday October 27th at 11.15 am in room 3.66. It will be an informal lunch-time discussion of English determiners and the concept of 'selection'. We will be discussing/debating Fawcett's (2007) paper entitled: Modelling ‘selection’ between referents in the English nominal group: an essay in scientific inquiry in linguistics. I've copied the abstract for the paper below. If anyone is interested in joining us, please let me know and I'll send you a copy of the paper so that it can be read in advance of the meeting. If you do want to join us, bring your own lunch!

Modelling ‘selection’ between referents in the English nominal group: an essay in scientific inquiry in linguistics
In Butler, C.S., Hidalgo Downing, R., and Lavid, J., (eds.) 2007. Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse: In Honour of Angela Downing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This paper addresses two issues, one descriptive and one methodological. It offers a description of part of the English nominal group (aka noun phrase) that greatly extends the traditional concept of the ‘determiner’. More specifically, it describes an integrated semantics and functional syntax for the quantifying and deictic determiners, based on the concept of ‘selection’. This approach has the advantage over standard representations that, when analyzing (1) five books, (2) those books and (3) five of those books, the words five, those and books expound the same element in each case. The paper then shows how this approach can be extended to eight other determiners and their associated uses of of (and, incidentally, the structure for its remaining uses). But there is equal emphasis on the methodology used to establish which of three possible types of structures should be used to model such examples, and the paper concludes by suggesting that the ultimate criteria are those of elegance in the operation of the grammar.

The research network for Linguistics in Cardiff is pleased to announce the 2nd LinC Summer school and Workshop in Systemic Functional Linguistics

Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales
September 3 – 5, 2012

Systemic Functional Linguistics and the classroom

The goal of the summer school is to offer research and training in both understanding the Systemic Functional Linguistic theory of language and applying it to educational settings. The summer school will run two parallel courses: introduction and applied.

The introduction to SFL course is ideal for people with little or no experience of SFL or those who want a refresher course. The applied course assumes a good foundation in SFL and is suited for people interested in applying SFL to educational settings. Both are suitable for professionals, students, and researchers who have an interest in learning more about Systemic Functional Linguistics and its applications.

Provisional programme to include:
Functional grammar; Phonology and intonation; Text analysis; UAM CorpusTool; Teaching writing through SFL; Use of corpora in teaching; Classroom discourse; SFL in language learning.

Instructors: Sheena Gardner, Geoff Thompson, Mick O’Donnell, Tom Bartlett, Gerard O’Grady and Lise Fontaine.

Registration is open now: Places are limited. Registration fee is £120 for the full three days.

Call for Poster Presentations
Participants at the summer school are encouraged to submit an abstract for a Poster Presentation. Accepted proposals will be presented at a poster session during the summer school. Deadline for proposal submissions is May 1st, 2012. Send abstracts of 500 words to linc-network@cf.ac.uk.

For more information: http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/linc