Update: room, time, starting date

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who have subscribed to the blog. I know some of you want only to follow this course at a distance – no problem and you are most welcome. For those who want to participate actively, I am keen to set up ‘student’ blogs – so you can write up responses to discussion, readings, problems in your own work, etc.

Please let me know if you want a blog – I hope those who are blogging will also read each other’s blogs and help create an online community. The more you are able to discuss and debate the ideas, the more we will all get out of this experience.

The first face to face meeting will be August 9th, at Sydney University in the Transient Building, room 204, from 2pm to 3.45 (I know some of you at least will go on to attend the 4pm-5.30pm linguistics talk that is held regularly in the linguistics department at Sydney University). My course will run over 12 weeks, with a pause for the mid-semester break. As flagged, there will not be face to face sessions every week – but I’m still working on the outline, and will let you know as soon as I have a draft.

So, thanks again for your interest, and I’ll be in touch with more details on course content as soon as I can.

Warm wishes

Annabelle

 

Living language

The notion of “context” has been central to the architecture of Halliday’s account of, as he puts it, “how language works”. A notion of context is present in Halliday’s earliest accounts of what grammar is, and  the way in which its description should be approached. At the same time, the relations of situation and culture are central to his conception of language as an open dynamic system, as a “vast, open-ended system of meaning potential, constantly renewing itself in interaction with its ecosocial environment” (Halliday 2003). Hasan argues that in such a conception of language, context cannot be an “a-theoretical appendage which functions as a dis­ambiguator of ambiguous sentences” (Hasan 2009). Instead, in SFL context (of situation and culture) is a concept crucial at every vantage point in the theory, to the dimensions of realization and instantion, to metafunction, and to Halliday’s conception of the strata in language. Since Halliday’s linguistics has had its focus on meaning, it should be noted that context is central to his conception of a “functional semantics” (e.g. 1984[2002]).

Drawing on Halliday’s foundation, Hasan has, more than any other linguist in the SFL tradition, explored, probed and interrogated the conception of context in the systemic functional model. Her writings on the matter are considerable (Volume 4 of her Collected Papers is dedicated to the SFL conception of context). Hasan’s probings of the concept can best be summarized as arguments in response to her deceptively simple question:

“given that speaking is done with reference to the contexts of social living, what if anything does this signify for the relations of language and culture?” (Hasan 1999).

The focus in this course is understand, as clearly as possible, the conception of context in the Halliday/Hasan tradition – how it emerged, the key influences, the assumptions entailed in it, and its implications for applications of SFL to many and varied contexts of study.