Analysing Casual Conversation

This is what great linguistic analysis looks like. Eggins & Slade took a seemingly impossible object of analysis and through careful application of key principles reveal significant insights into the apparently random phenomenon of conversation. Synthesising insights from conversation analysis into a systemic functional framework they introduce us through sympathetic prose to a model that will inform the linguistic analysis of conversation for years to come.

Another lazy Goodreads steal.

What's the Point?

"What’s the point? The role of punctuation in realising information structure in written English" has been published online here in Functional Linguistics.
I would like to reproduce the acknowledgements section here:
This article is dedicated to the memory of Geoff Thompson who supervised the PhD thesis from which this paper is derived. Needless to say, the ideas in this paper would not have been realised without his support and encouragement. Sincere thanks are also due to Professors Michael Hoey, David Vernon and Cathy Burnett for further inspiration, discussion and comment, to colleagues past and present at Khalifa and Sheffield Hallam universities, and to the reviewers for Functional Linguistics, although any remaining errors in the paper are entirely my responsibility.

IJLS Special Issues

Two special issues of the International Journal of Language Studies focusing on Systemic Functional Linguistics have recently been published.

Volume 10 no.2 is entitled "Systemic Functional Linguistics and (Critical) Discourse Analysis"

http://www.ijls.net/pages/volume/vol10no2.html 

It features the following papers:

• Teresa OTEIZA & Claudio PINUER: Appraisal framework and critical discourse studies: A joint approach to the study of historical memories from an intermodal perspective

• Felipe Leandro de JESUS, Debora de Carvalho FIGUEIREDO & Fabio Santiago NASCIMENTO: Screening the unspeakable: The representation of gender/sex roles and same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain

• Viviane HEBERLE & Marcos MORGADO: Discussing the representation of immigrants: An integrated view from SFL, CDA and Multimodality

• Hector J. MCQUEEN: Exploring the intonation of appraised items in one speech by Obama: The case of prominence

• Lucia Ines RIVAS & Miriam Patricia GERMANI: Analysing correlations between generic patterns and prosodic realizations in interviews in English

• Tazanfal TEHSEEM: Investigating character construal of rape victims in Pakistani news reporting

Volume 10 no.3 is entitled "Systemic Functional Linguistics and Education"
http://www.ijls.net/pages/volume/vol10no3.html
It features the following papers:

• Lucia ZUPPA & Susana REZZANO: The construction of the role of the teachers in academic articles on ICT and education

• Susan HOOD & Jo LANDER: Technologies, modes and pedagogic potential in live versus online lectures 

• Mark Shiu-kee SHUM, Dan SHI & Chung-pui TAI: The effectiveness of using 'reading to learn, learning to write' pedagogy in teaching Chinese to non-Chinese speaking students in Hong Kong

• Mary MACKEN-HORARIK & Carmel SANDIFORD: Diagnosing development: A grammatics for tracking student progress in narrative composition

• Maria Susana GONZALEZ: Discussion and challenge: Linguistic resources

Both of these issues are available for FREE from the IJLS Academia page.

GoAnimate! Star Trek & Information Structure

I prepared this for IFSC39 as part of my presentation. Well, it's their fault. If you are going to give your conference the title of "To Boldly Go" you are asking for it.

TOS_Information by NickMoore on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

I am expecting a few spare Aussie trekkies on the first day, at least!
And the presentation is here:

ISFC39: Going Beyond Speech To Seek Out New Information In Writing & Other Modalities on Prezi