Birkbeck Applied Linguistics @50

The department of Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck College, University of London, is celebrating their 50th anniversary. A range of talks and a one-day conference have been organised to make this a memorable year.
So far, the events have included talks by Peter Skehan, Jennifer Jenkins, and John O'Regan. If you could not get to London on the day in question, the good people at Birkbeck have recorded the talks and the videos are available for everyone to see. Happy 50th, Birkbeck!

Learn 2 Read 4 Life

November sees the inaugural conference for the Reading4Life organisation in Uppsala, Sweden entitled "Education for Social Justice." The name says it all, really! But, just in case you are not clear what Reading4Life might be about, here is their mission:

Reading for Life works towards the goal of democratising education so that all learners are given the best opportunities to develop cognitively, linguistically, socially and emotionally regardless of age, sex, ethnicity or social background and have available a range of options to enable them to participate fully in society.

Based on the successes of ReadingToLearn, this European organisation has already found partners in at least 8 countries, and counting.
The principles and philosophy that the organisation are based on also provide a clear picture of their understanding of learning and education:
Principles and philosophy 
Reading for Life’s work is based upon the beliefs that:

• knowledge is a social construct,
• linguistic and cognitive development are inextricably linked and dependent on social interaction,
• school learning depends on classroom interactions, so teacher–student interactions have a powerful impact on learning and the construction of learner identity,
• learning is fostered through a range of different experiences and reflection from multiple perspectives so learning occurs best in heterogeneous groups,
• powerful learning occurs by experiencing success in accomplishing challenging tasks. Therefore schools/teachers need to carefully plan how to support or “scaffold” learners so that they move through continuous cycles of success,
• language is the most important tool for learning. Therefore schools/teachers not only need to teach explicitly through language but they must also teach how language operates to make meaning in all subject areas. Therefore chlidren/students learn language, learn through language and learn about language,
• language is the most effective tool for self-expression, communication and exercising power and influence. Therefore, all children/students need to understand and learn to use language for a variety of purposes, so that everybody has equal opportunities to make an impact and influence the development of society,
• while competence in the official language of any country is an essential goal for education, all languages are important, for the individual and for society at large. Therefore, students’ knowledge of any language must be encouraged and supported by schools as well as the learning of new languages
• the role of the teacher is to scaffold student learning by modelling, guiding and joint work in students’ “Zone of Proximal Development” (Vygotsky). A socio-cultural, teaching-learning centred, model of learning supports the notion of scaffolding rather than dichotomies such as teacher-centred (traditional) or student-centred (progressive/constructivist) models of teaching and learning 
• school development is best promoted in ”learning organisations” where ideas and pedagogies are critiqued and tested in the classroom through action research. Reading for Life does not believe that school improvement will be achieved by privatisation and competition.

Just to give us a further insight into the principles of the organisation and how it operates, here are some interviews with one its main founders, Dr. David Rose

Introduction to Reading To Learn

More information on Reading to Learn

A Talk by David Rose (thanks to "Manxman" Alan Hess for sharing this)

Scrivener - Learning Teaching

Learning Teaching attempts to kill two birds with one stone - it aims to be an initial training handbook and also a guide to continuing teacher development - and it manages to do both better than many single-focussed books. The key to its success is its focus on practical advice. Throughout the different sections, it offers clear practical tips and hints on getting through a language teaching class with confidence. Highly recommended for anyone starting a certificate course in TEFL/TESOL as well as new and practising teachers. Everyone will find something of value in these pages, which are likely to become the most well-worn in any teacher's library. The newest edition (not pictured) is enhanced with samples of language classes on the accompanying DVD.

Be lazy! Copy & Paste your Goodreads reviews into your blog. I do!

Introduction to Functional Grammar - The Video

So many people attempt to study Halliday (and Matthiessen's) Introduction to Functional Grammar - or IFG. There are at least 3 great books that guide people on how to study IFG (introductions to the Introduction): Thompson, Bloor & Bloor and Martin et al. But these are all books. That's like giving someone a map to find a map. So, here's a new way of doing it - the video. Anabelle Lukin has used the SFL Video group in Vimeo to post videos of her lectures on introducing IFG. This one, for example, introduces the concept of the functional grammar:

An Introduction to Functional Grammar from Annabelle Lukin on Vimeo.

Here we have another example, this time introducing and explaining how the clause exchanges meanings between persons, enacting interpersonal meanings:

Clause as exchange part 1 from Annabelle Lukin on Vimeo.

Here is a full list of the Vimeo videos in this series:

Chapters 1&2
An introduction to An Introduction to Functional Grammar

A map of language: basic concepts for the study of language

Five principles of constituency

Understanding the clause

Chapter 3
Clause as message PART 1

Clause as message PART 2

Chapters 4 & 10
Clause as exchange PART 1

Clause as exchange PART 2

Chapter 5
Clause as representation PART 1

Clause as representation PART 2

Chapter 6
Below the clause: groups and phrases

Chapter 7
Above the clause PART 1/2

Above the clause PART 2/2

By the way,don't forget to order your copy of the new version of IFG - Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar (HIFG??) - by Halliday & Matthiessen, now in its 4th edition.

And, finally, just for a laugh, here is one more video to help you learn Systemic Functional Grammar - the SFG Rap!! Take it away...

Meanwhile in Bologna - ESFLCW 23

A fantastic array of papers were lined up for the "limited-places only" 23rd European Systemic Functional Conference and Workshop in the beautiful setting of the University Residential Center of Bertinoro, hosted by the Center for Linguistic-Cultural Studies (CeSLiC), University of Bologna from 9th - 11th July.. I only wish I could have been there but you cannot be too greedy! 

I sincerely hope that there is a publication in the near future around the theme of "Permeable contexts and hybrid discourses". In the meantime we have videos of the three plenary speakers: Srikant Sarangi on Hybridity-types, role-sets and professional practice, Caroline Coffin on Re-orienting semantic dispositions: the role of hybrid discourses and Geoff Thompson on Hybridisation: how language users graft new discourses on old root stock.

ISFC 39 - Boldly Going

I was fortunate enough to attend ISFC 39, hosted by UTS. The 39th International Systemic Functional Congress was held at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), 16-20 July, 2012. The plenary talks were bold, innovative and inspiring, and none were presented by the SFL 'old guard;' the organisers were brave enough to give the opportunity to 'The Next Generation' of SFL researchers. The event was also attended by the 'legends' of the discipline: Halliday, Hasan and Martin amongst others. I met lots of very nice people that had previously been just names in books, such as David Rose, Mary Macken-Horarik, Terry Royce, Geoff Williams and Alison Moore (no relation!). I was introduced, formally, to Legitimation Code Theory, an update of Bernstein's code theory, by Karl Maton, dazzled, furiously, by Chris Cleirigh's rough ride over semiotics, biology and evolution, and inspired, sublimely, by Shooshi Dreyfus' linguistic analysis of her severely disabled son's communication patterns. The programme was packed with interesting talks full of insight. I learned about the grammaticalisation of movement, the pedagogic cycle that inspires the reading-to-learn programme and its application in new second language contexts, and the importance of the concept of recontextualisation, to name just a few. Finally, there were so many new publications by authors present at the conference that an extra date had to be added to launch all of the books (thanks to Pauline Jones' great organisational skills).


I was also lucky enough to attend two very different pre-congress institutes (courses related to SFL matters). The first was a 'traditional' tutorial-style hands-on attempt by Jim Martin to help the rest of us construct our own system networks. He advocates a 'gently does it' approach, limiting grammatical features and only bringing in new ones when you can account for all of the others. The second was a much freer discussion-based course on the concept and use of Register in SFL, led by Annabelle Lukin (yes, she of the Vimeo SFL group fame - the same). She kindly shared all that she could on a dedicated website and made it clear that we were there together not to find answers but to start asking the right questions. Thanks to Annabelle and ISFC39 I have a much better understanding of David Butt and the work that he and his colleagues have achieved.

Please download the ISFC39 Proceedings, carefully edited by John Knox. (My paper is also available on the academia.edu site.) It is packed full of fascinating insights on a range of SFL topics covering a variety of modalities and languages. As soon as there are any videos of the plenary talks made available I will add a new post.

What is Genre?

Every so often it happens that various people working independently converge on a single idea. This happened about 20 years ago when 'Genre' became a key term in applied linguistics. To celebrate this event,  Carleton University in Canada organised Genre 2012: Rethinking Genre 20 Years Later to "continue the tradition and scholarly conversation that originated with the first international colloquium on Genre Studies, “Rethinking Genre,” held at Carleton University in 1992." The programme shows a wide range of high quality papers from across the globe, and an edited collection is anticipated. Thankfully the organisers had the foresight to video the plenary speakers, including Jim Martin (evidently a regular visitor to Carleton). What becomes apparent quite quickly while watching these videos is that everyone has very diverse views on what genre means in applied linguistics. To Swales, Hyland and Bhatia it is an approach to English for Specific Purposes, for Martin it is an abstraction of text structure, while for Bazerman it is a new way to present rhetoric in writing courses. While the first two may share some common theoretical background, the third approach is very distinct, rooted as it is not in linguistics but language studies.

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

Everett Update

Dan Everett's been busy of late. He has been involved in a documentary about his beloved Pirahã, and has a new book out. The documentary is called "The Grammar of Happiness" and the book is called "Language The Cultural Tool." Naturally, all this activity is firmly directed against the school of Chomsky and against Pinker's multi-million best-sellers. Everett appears intent intent on publicly discrediting the generativist/minimalist school. 

Trailer for "The Grammar of Happiness"

The debate rages on about whether the Pirahã language has recursion or not (and if it does not, does it really matter), but just to stoke the fires  higher, Everett has published a new book, called "Language The Cultural Tool." Yes, that's right. You would be hard pushed to pick a phrase that more succinctly says "No. Syntax is not autonomous." For years, generativists have been misrepresenting the ideas of Whorf and Sapir, not least in combining them into a mythical Whorf-Sapir hypothesis that simply does not exist. I hope that Everett is able to bring the debate back onto neutral ground and really tackle the question of how our language construes our perception of the world. For all his image as a 'radical' or 'the U.S. dissident', Chomsky's linguistics is deeply ideologically conservative (Chris Knight explains this very well in Weekly Worker 655, 656 and 657). Maintaining that you do not need to analyse language linguistically in order to identify its power structures, or that habitual language use does not blind one to the legitimacy of incumbent power structures, contributes to the obscuring of the ideological role of language.

You can find reviews of the new book from New York Times and The Guardian, among others.

On a separate but related note, I was on DubaiEye's 'Talking of Books' programme on June 9th, where I  championed Everett's earlier popular book "Don't Sleep there are Snakes" (reviewed in an earlier blog). You can hear most of that segment of the show on Grooveshark.

Bring Hope to the Bonobos - Again

The Great Ape Trust desperately needs your help to keep their research and the apes alive. Donate to bonobohope.org if you love language, animals or Des Moines, Iowa. Hey, Bill Bryson, I think that must mean you. Anybody have his number?? Join me, Bill Greaves and Peter Gabriel in trying to keep Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's great work going. We do not want another Nim!

More Video links: 

BBC: Super Smart Animals (Great Ape Trust segment starts at time 50:20) 
Oprah Show: Kanzi the talking Ape 
Anderson Cooper (CNN): Anderson as the Easter Bunny (with Kanzi) 
60 Minutes (in Australia): Talk to the Animals

And the latest appeal from Sue & The trust:

Update: I am very happy to report that this year's Target has been achieved. 

Michael Halliday @ Connecting Paths, Nov.2010

Thanks again to Annabelle Lukin for posting this video to the Vimeo SFL Linguists Group. In this talk, Michael Halliday draws various links from SFL to Sydney Lamb's linguistic theories, including stratificational linguistics, and points out that the differences between their approaches are mostly a result of their different  research areas rather than a difference in their views on language.

Other talks from the same Connecting Paths Symposium are also available from Annabelle's vimeo page, including the talks by Ruqaiya Hasan, Jim Martin and Sydney Lamb. Congratulations to City University of Hong Kong and to Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou for hosting such an interesting forum and for making it accessible to the rest of us.

Lessons Worth Sharing - TedEd

Those lovely people at TED have come up with a new idea they call TedEd. Just like the RSAnimate videos by CognitiveMedia (see the Ian McGilchrist post), they want to combine great talks with great pictures on a video, but they know they can't stop there. Each video is accompanied by quick quiz questions, open ended questions and resources.

Watch the Video - The folks at TEDEd explain it very clearly!

Again, though that is not enough. You can also "Flip" the video - which means you can customise the 'package' to suit your class. You can edit the title, the quiz and "think deeper" questions and the resources. And, but, that's not all. You can then "flip" any YouTube video and make it into a TedEd format video lesson.

So here's my flipping attempt - a short video from YouTube on the history of writing with some questions, some resources and a research project. Here's another flipping attempt. This one uses a video about Everett's claims about Pirahã.

Christian Matthiessen @ Register & Context 2012

In this talk from the Register and Context Symposium 2012, Christian Matthiessen offers, among other things, his 'wheel of register' which relates the field mode and tenor of different written and spoken genres. The link to the symposium also offers a wide range of resources and links to other videos.

Part 1 of the talk (Video 1 is an introduction by Annabelle)

Part 2 of the talk

Always a pleasure to hear you talk, Christian, and thanks so much to Annabelle Lukin for organising the symposium and for making the talks available at the time and through the SFL group on Vimeo. Also available from the Vimeo site are videos featuring Ruqaiya Hasan and there's more to come. If you are interested in these and similar videos, Annabelle requests that you  join the group so we can see how much interest there is.

Fry's Planet Word on DVD - A Brief Review

As with any 'popularisation' of a subject, academics can easily take a swipe at mass media explanations of their subject. In this review I will try to avoid taking cheap shots (unless the temptation is too great) and attempt to keep an open mind on how well Fry has done in representing the subject of linguistics to the general public as, I believe, this was his intention. I will review each episode and then finish with an overview.

Episode 1 - Babel
...And he's off: in no time at all, we are sent from Stephen Fry's comfy documentary-world study to Kenya to meet the Turkana, back to the London suburbs to meet a typical toddler, Ruby, and off to Leipzig (twice). Before you can say hello in 25 languages, we are already pondering a wide range of linguistic dilemmas. We also catch glimpses of Nim Chimpsky and the famous chattering YouTube twins. To help us out, we visit a range of experts. If I could have anyone in the world to talk about state of the art theories of language development, I would have one person at the top of my wishlist: Michael Tomasello. He adds much-needed balance both to the academic study of language development and the programme itself. Then, very quickly we are back on the slippery search for the language gene, aka FOXP2, and only just understand that this really cannot be the whole answer.
While we do not learn very much about Stephen Fry's brain scans in an fMRI, we do learn that the people he chose from UCL have a very balanced, realistic view of what they are able to achieve with these tools. I suppose if you are going to prepare a documentary on language, you have to include Stephen Pinker, if only because more Joe Publics have read his books than any others on language. Thankfully, Pinker does not get it all his own way. At the end of the episode, we have been given a fairly good overall picture of language development and been introduced to  issues of language versus animal communication, language proliferation, decay and death, and the long, long way we still have to go to even start to understand language. All the time, no matter what you may think of the presenter, Fry clearly enjoys language and relishes the challenge of circumscribing the subject. As an introduction of language study to the completely uninitiated, this is a good start.


Episode 2 - Identity

This episode deals with the typically sociolinguistic topics of accent, language decay and identity.
We start with an investigation of the myriad accents of Yorkshire, guided by a poet from Barnsley, we give Fry a few moments to exhibit his control of accents on an 'accent forecast of the UK' made to resemble a BBC weather forecast, and then we land in Newcastle, where we hear 'chirpy' Geordie call centre operatives and their PR manager. Then we're whisked over to Connemara where we hear some Irish (or Irish Gaelic if you prefer) and find out how the young and older feel about their language which was brought back from the brink of extinction. At this point we do touch on the serious issue of language decay, identity and "linguicide", with a cheap swipe at L'Académie française for being so imperial for so long. We also look at the re-birth of Hebrew, where we at last meet a linguist (only the 2nd in this programme) whose thesis is that Hebrew still retains large parts of Yiddish. (I do not know if Fry is Jewish, but in this episode he goes out of his way to be nice to them in London, New York and Jerusalem.) Finally we compare how Irish, Breton, Basque, Hebrew, Oc and Turkana resist the threat of Globish (that's global English).

One other point of interest in the programme is the debate around how far your culture affects your language, and vice versa, with Stanford Russian linguist Lera Boroditsky discussing how masculine and feminine nouns in gendered languages affect the way that some speakers describe objects that carry different genders in different languages. Fry later admits to supporting the Chomskian line, that all languages are ultimately similar and so, after allowing such a poor misrepresentation, does a double disservice to the so-called Sapir-Whorif hypothesis.
After the Frying start of episode 1, episode 2 is very disappointing. I do not think that this is due to my personal lack of interest in the issue of Identity (which I think covers a multitude of academic sins), but because the head count of experts - famous or otherwise - is much lower in this episode, and Fry's inexhaustible enthusiasm is an insufficient replacement for real facts.


Episode 3 - Uses and Abuses

The primary aim of this episode appears to be to cram in as many words that are normally banned on the BBC as possible. It does quite a good job with copious fucks, plenty of bollocks and a smattering of cunts. In terms of academic head counts, this episode does a much better job than number 2, except Stephen Pinker crops up a number of times spouting off on subjects that he really has no expertise in - a role in which he has become quite an expert!
Although  Fry's approach could easily be dismissed by people working in the fields of sociolinguistics and humor studies (which he refers to as rather humorless), we must never forget that this is a television programme.
An experiment involving the actor Brian Blessed and a large tub of icy water is particularly unscientific, but it makes good television and is slightly related to more serious research. Admittedly this episode does descend into a promo-video for Fry's favourite issues (Judaism, homosexuality, racism etc.), but generally it also makes a point; although Fry & co. smatter their speech with expletives, none of them can bring themselves to say nigger in any form other than "the n-word." So, even for people who can cuss and swear willy-nilly, there are still some taboo words. Stephen K. Amos manages, just, but explains that it still retains an insulting meaning for him due to personal experiences. Hardly scientific. An improvement on episode 2, but still not as accurate or rigorous as episode 1.


Episode 4 - Spreading the Word
Episode 4 is all about writing, and is of a much higher standard than the previous 2 episodes. Although I would not agree with all that we see in this episode, I would say that Fry and his team have done a better job of researching the key issues in writing. We have a wide range of suitable experts from typesetters in Norwich to the inventor of Pinyin in Beijing.
When Fry wants to learn about the origins of writing he finds an expert in cuneiform in the British museum, who shows him how it is done, and even poses in front of THE Rosetta Stone (best not to ask why it's in the British Museum, though!!). He is back in Jerusalem to look at, be told off for touching, and witness digital imaging techniques for restoring the "Dead Sea Scrolls."
He also manages to trace the connection between printing, the Age of Reason and wikipedia - not bad for a TV show! He visits the Bodleian library at Oxford University to examine how they are keeping abreast of the digital age and in Harvard's library meets someone who points out that new media do not need to replace previous formats - that the iPad / Kindle etc. are not likely to replace the book, but both will develop alongside each other just as radio did not replace newspapers and was not replaced by TV.
As with other episodes Fry adds his own pet theories, likes and dislikes but he also places developments such as printing in a social context, providing a good balance of enthusiasm and restraint on a subject that easily leads to hyperbole. I also support his call to support the libraries of the U.K. and the world, no matter what formats are being preserved - buildings dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge through reading are the bedrock of civilizations!


Episode 5 - The Power and The Glory

So in the ultimate episode we learn that the ultimate purpose of language is...

literature. 

Fry explains why he loves a range of writers, from Joyce to Wodehouse to Orwell, heaping the greatest praise on Shakespeare - he even manages to find a French actor to admit that he would rather play Shakespeare than any of the lesser French playwrights. Fry just could not resist one last jab at the French before the series finishes. Some old friends are back, such as Brian Blessed and the Turkana villagers, as well as some new faces, including David Tenant giving us some of his take on Hamlet.

The episode is just as busy and full of locations, interviews and Fry's opinions as the others, but offers no new information on linguistics or even language studies. For this reason it is the most disappointing episode - at least episode 2 was related to aspects of sociolinguistics and the hot topic of identity. All of the science disappears and we left with the absolute relativism of everyone's opinion is just as good as each other, which is clearly not the case. Just ask a Cambridge Don!


Episodes 1-5 - Planet Word

All in all, Planet Word is very uneven. It manages to combine wit and fact, controversy and error. At times, it is highly perceptive and at others completely misleading. To be fair, this is TV. It is not intended to be lectures 1-5 in a course in linguistics. Evaluating the series from an academic perspective is completely unfair. Whatever Fry offers, it must work well on the screen - hence the frequent scene changes (often for no reason), cuts to the fake study for a talk-to-camera and a heavy dependence on interviews with experts (used in the loosest sense where Stephen Pinker is concerned).
What we need most from this series, perhaps, is for the general public to gain some understanding of language studies or even be inspired to look further into the subject, especially if they are young and are considering what to study at university. I believe Fry has succeeded to some extent in providing a TV series that engages with its audience, entertains and informs. A wide range of linguistic issues, perspectives and facts are offered with a minimum of effort on the part of the viewer - no mean feat. Only the last episode could be considered misleading. Certainly I do not agree with a lot of what he claims throughout the series, but this is his show not mine!

Find yourself a copy of the DVD, or even pick up the book, and see if you could find better ways to make linguistics appeal to more people who have never considered studying language before. It will not improve the programme but it may just help you, if you are a lover of language, to explain your interest to others. Spread the word - Planet Word.

Vygotskian Psychology - A Documentary

This is a link to a documentary about Vygotsky's psychological theories in the Soviet Union according to the people who were there at the time. A lot of the talk is about Vygotsky and Leontev as people and academics, but there is also a fair amount of discussion about their theory of psychology and its relation to Marxism. The film lasts 1 hour 45 minutes and was made by Mark Rozin in 1992.

This is a very rare film, and may lack any sign of pizzaz, but the people interviewed and the ideas discussed are worth the time and concentration.

Acknowledgement:  Thanks to Phil Chappell for posting the link to sys-func

New App - BOOK

In true over-the-top-hype, keep-it-clean, condescending Apple style, this short video introduces you to....

   

...the BOOK.

And this one re-imagines the IT helpdesk for the new invention of the book, when it was a new invention. Here we see the equivalent of "have you tried turning it on and off again?"

In both cases, we are shown up to be the IT-lap-it-up dogs that we have become. Just because Steve Jobs breathed on it at one time our awe is supposed to be inspired. Get a grip, peoples!!!

Matt Creates RogersCreations

Stephen Fry pronounces persistently on his pet peeve - the pedants of proper language - while his words weave their witty way across the screen to converge into the single word 'language.'

Matt Rogers of RogersCreations put this together using some basic Adobe applications (so once again iphone & ipad users are screwed). You can also download a static pdf version of the final product. Although the visualisation is not as sophisticated as other posts featured (see the last post or click on 'visualisation'), it seems to work and keeps the viewer focussed on the message, rather than detracting from it. Another example he offers was prepared for Al Jazeera and uses a short extract of an interview with the great Youssou N'Dour: Youssou N'Dour - Frames - Al Jazeera English. This one has a much wider range of backgrounds and 'tricks.'

Iain McGilchrist - The Divided Brain

This video provides an up-to-date discussion of what happens in the hemispheres of the brain. It quickly rejects the old emotional-rational, language-mathematical & other divisions, but explains just what happens in the two halves, and why.

RSA Animate - The Divided Brain from The RSA on Vimeo.

(If the video fails, use this link)

This is another RSAanimate video produced by the excellent Cognitive Media team, who also produce A0 size digital files and prints of the final version of the talk. There are many other similar videos, but for content and visuals this is my favourite so far. You can also download an iphone* or android app from RSA that grants you access to the animated talks, the original lectures of these and more talks, and much more.

* Not that you would know what this post is about on your iphone because it does not support flash video.

Life, the Universe and Everything by Antonio Damasio

Far too often discussions of consciousness are based on speculation and the desire to make presumed facts fit an ideology - yes, I am talking about you Mr. Chomsky. At other times we are fortunate to find people that start with identifiable facts and then attempt to explain them. In this fascinating TED talk Antonio Damasio lets us in on his latest understanding of the human brain, the human mind and the centrality of the self in generating a consciousness. Hold on tight as he covers a very wide range of topics in under 19 minutes, but at the end of the ride I feel much closer to an understanding of what we are.

This talk develops Damasio's earlier theories and is in line with what we know about brains from Edelman, about evolution from Deacon and about language from Halliday. The talk is based loosely on Damasio's latest book "Self Comes to Mind" which is reviewed in Constructivist Foundations 7:1.

ISFC38 Plenary - Jim Martin Speaks Out

The 38^th International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC 38) in Lisbon, Portugal may not have been the most well-attended event, but it certainly produced some interesting talks. It was also interesting for including a number of non-systemic linguists as plenary speakers who were employed well for summarising, responding to and engaging with the plenary speakers. (While ISFC 37 had non-systemicists they were generally not linguists.)

The good news is that the influential and often controversial Jim Martin was given a microphone that actually worked. (Unfortunately for him, he had to hold it throughout the talk.) This means we can see and hear him from here.

His talk is "Modelling Context: Matter as Meaning" and attacks the issue of how SFL deals with context. Although SFL considers that it accounts for context better than most linguistic theories, this talk points out that SFL still has a long way to go before it can consider that it has a satisfactory description of the 'interface' between language and context.

Thanks to Carlos A. M. Gouveia & his team for making these videos available. I will (as with last year's videos) review and post them when I get the chance.