The document provides an overview of the 41st International Systemic Functional Congress held in Mendoza, Argentina, focusing on the theme of systemic functional linguistics and its applications in education. It outlines key topics such as language education, child language development, and discourse analysis, along with presentations from various plenary speakers. The document also discusses the interplay of language and identity in discourse, particularly in the context of political rhetoric following significant events like 9/11.

1. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS
1
41st INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL CONGRESS
X LATIN-AMERICAN SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL CONGRESS
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CUYO, FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS,
MENDOZA, ARGENTINA

2. TODAY
ISFL CONGRESS: theme,
speakers.
VISION OF LANGUAGE.
“HEROES & VILLAINS”.
CONCLUSIONS. 2

3. THE CONGRESS ITSELF
 Systemic Functional Linguistics and Language
Education:
Novel applications of well-established and
evolving lines of enquiry to language education
theory and practice
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4. THE CONGRESS ITSELF
 MAIN THEMES OF THE CONFERENCE
 Language education and language in education
 Child language development
 Language typology
 SFL and translation studies
 Multilinguistic studies
 Register and genre theory
 (Critical) discourse analysis
 Multimodality and multimodal literacy
 Appraisal
 Language and knowledge
 Computational linguistics
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5. PLENARY SPEAKERS
 Ann Borsinger
 Cecilia Colombi
 Susan Hood
 James Martin
 Karl Maton
 Teresa Oteíza
 Caroline Coffin
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6. PLENARY LECTURES
 COFFIN , CAROLINE (The Open University, UK)
A LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL SEMIOTIC APPROACH
TO TEACHING AND LEARNING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION.
 approach put forward: LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL
SEMIOTIC (LASS) to teaching and learning.
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LEARNING LANGUAGE, LEARNING THROUGH
LANGUAGE & LEARNING ABOUT LANGUAGE
(Halliday, 2004/1980)

7. PLENARY LECTURES
 Susan Hood ( Australia)
THE LECTURING BODY AND LEARNING TO
MEAN IN THE UNCOMMON-SENSE WAY OF
DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES.
 the opportunity for students to participate in live
lectures- declining.
 Discourse dichotomising : the old as bad with the
new as good.
 Body language of lecturers- interaction. 7

8. PLENARY LECTURES
 Len, Unsworth.
 ELEVATING EMPATHY IN ANIMATED MOVIE
ADAPTATIONS OF PICTURE BOOKS:
EXPLORING MEDIA-SPECIFIC ORIENTATIONS
TO FOCALIZATION, SOCIAL DISTANCE AND
ATTITUDE.
 Interaction of social distance, horizontal, vertical
angle – a means of inscribing the audience
viewpoint.
8

9. PLENARY LECTURES
 MARY MACKEN-HORARIK (Australia)
DEVELOPING A GRAMMATICS “GOOD ENOUGH”
FOR SCHOOL ENGLISH: four proposals and
some data.
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10. MARY MACKEN-HORARIK
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11. 11
MARY MACKEN-HORARIK

12. JIM MARTIN
 University of Sidney.
REVISITING FIELD: “ SEMANTIC DENSITY” IN
ANCIENT HISTORY AND BIOLOGY DISCOURSE.
 “semantic gravity”, “contextual dependency”
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13. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
 HALLIDAY
 Functional →in the sense that it is designed to
account for how the language is used:
everything in it can be explained by reference to
how language is used.
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14. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
THE FUNDAMENTAL
COMPONENTS OF
MEANING: are functional
components.
All languages are
organized around two
main kinds of meaning,
two “METAFUNCTIONS”
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FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

15. METAFUNCTIONS
 they are the manifestations in the linguistic system
of the two very general purposes which underlie all
uses of language:
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 THE IDEATIONAL or “reflective”: TO UNDERSTAND THE
ENVIRONMENT.
 THE INTERPERSONAL or “active”: TO ACT ON THE
OTHERS IN THE ENVIRONMENT.
 Combined with these is a third
metafunctional component: THE TEXTUAL:
which breathes relevance into the other two.

16. WHY SYSTEMIC ?
SYSTEMIC THEORY: a theory of MEANING AS
CHOICE, by which a language, or any other
semiotic system, is interpreted as networks of
interlocking options: “either this , or that, or the
other”. Whatever is chosen in one system
becomes the way into a set of choices in another.
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES EXPLAINED AS THE
REALIZATION OF SEMANTIC PATTERNS.
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17. TODAY
 ISFL CONGRESS: theme, speakers.
 VISION OF LANGUAGE.
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18. FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE
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 Form – Use
 →Communication:
communicative competence,
participants, context.
 Language: sentences,
structures→ printed text,
speech.
iceberg
• Ideology.
• Power.
• Identities.
- LANGUAGE
↔CONTEXT.
- LANGUAGE ↔SOCIETY.

19. THE HOW
 Critical Discourse Analysis - CDA.
 Language social practice.
 Use intention.
 Visible connections.
 Constructive effect of discourse.
 Specific discursive acts ↔ socio-cultural
context.
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20. THE HOW
SFL
DISCOURSE
HISTORICAL
APPROACH
20

21. TODAY
ISFL CONGRESS: theme,
speakers.
VISION OF LANGUAGE.
“HEROES & VILLAINS”.
21

22. CONSTRUCTIVE DISCOURSE
 Wodak (1999): discourses - identities → four social
macrofuntions:
 production.
 construction.
 maintenance.
 transformation and destruction.
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23. DISCOURSE HISTORICAL APPROACH
 Socio-historical context.
 Content: analysis of discursive construction of
identities.
 Strategies:
- macro: construction & destruction.
- micro strategies: positive self-representation.
 Negative: the others
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24. 24
Destroying to construct Shared culture (bonds, ties)-
 Macro strategies
construction →micro
strategies→ destruction
→”we” – distancing &
exclusion of the other.
 “Us” & “ The others”
constitute a standardised
relational couple : use one of
the pair – invoking the other
(Leudar 2004).
togetherness
- Images: “ a language that
evokes in the reader’s
mind a physical sensation
produced by one of the
senses “. (Kirszner
&Mandell 1994,p. 654).-
- Shared History, common
origin.

25. CONTEXT OF CULTURE
Each text has its
environment; the
“context of situation”
in Manilowski’s terms
the overall language
system has its
environment,“Context
of culture”.
The context of
culture
determines the
nature of the
code.
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26. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
HEROES & VILLAINS :
THEIR DISCURSIVE
CONSTRUCTION BY BUSH
AFTER 9/11
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27. THE CITY UPON THE HILL
“For we must consider that we shall be as
a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people
are upon us. So that if we shall deal
falsely with our God in this work we
have undertaken… we shall be made a
story and a by-word throughout the
world" (John Winthrop 1630, p. 47)
 Light, example for the rest of the world.
 Common past, construction a present & political futures.
 Cultural shared values & ideologies → national unity
→legitimization.
 Internal Cohesion →external threat→ enemy.
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28. USE OF SYMBOLS “LIGHT" &
“DARKNESS"
LIGHT
(the Americans)
DARKNESS
(the enemy)
The way to defeat that ideology
is with an ideology of light.
They’ve got an ideology, but it’s
and ideology that is dark and
dismal.
The day they feared has
arrived. And with it has come a
moment of great clarity.
This enemy plots in shadows.
We’ re the brightest beacon for
freedom and opportunity in the
world. And no one will keep
that light from shining.
The darkness of terror will be
defeated.
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29. CONCLUSIONS
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 Analysis of processes of
construction.
 National identity ↔ enemy’s
identity.
 “US ” vs “ THEM”.
 Equilibrium/ desequilibrium.
 Construction/confrontation.
QUESTIONS.
 To strenghthen national
identity?
 Audience?
 Legitimization?

30. 30
FOR LISTENING!