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Yaegan Doran's ISFC 50 Plenary Abstract

Modelling Context: Field, tenor and mode from multiple perspectives

Abstract

That language functions in its context of use is one of the fundamental tenets of SFL. This tenet has supported decades of SFL work into different registers and has contributed to a wide range of applied goals. It has also driven progressive theoretical modelling of context in SFL, even if there has not yet been consensus. This talk will reflect upon this modelling, fifty years after Halliday’s 1975 paper ‘Language as social semiotic: Toward a general sociolinguistic theory’. It will view context trinocularly – not in the typical sense of above, around and below, but in terms of three major dimensions of SFL theory: realisation, instantiation and individuation. Viewing context in this way will allow us to model field, tenor and mode along three distinct contours: in terms of realisation, field, tenor and mode can be viewed as resources for making meaning; for instantiation, they can be viewed as sets of principles for the co-selection and arrangement of choices in language; and for individuation, they can be viewed as domains of variation, contestation and collaboration. This talk will argue that these different perspectives are complementary, providing a view of a wide-range of things our model of context needs to grapple with. But it will also argue that each perspective needs to be modelled in different ways so as to support text analysis and an understanding of social semiosis more broadly. The talk will thus aim to synthesise where we have gotten to in SFL contextual linguistics, and look forward to how we might further expand our worldview.

Blogger Comments:

This abstract describes the paper Rethinking Context: Realisation, Instantiation, And Individuation In Systemic Functional Linguistics (Doran, Martin and Herrington 2024) which is reviewed in meticulous detail at Rethinking Context: Realisation, Instantiation, And Individuation In Systemic Functional Linguistics.

As the review demonstrates, in that paper, the authors misunderstood the dimensions of stratification ("realisation"), instantiation and individuation. The first half of the paper "reconceptualised" the contextual parameters of context, field tenor and mode, as the ideational, interpersonal and textual language that realises each. That is, the authors simply mistook one level of symbolic abstraction for another.

The second half of the paper then "reconceptualised" the original notions of contextual field tenor and mode as 'principles of instantiation' of language, thereby misunderstanding instantiation as an interstratal relation between context and language.

The relevance of individuation was only briefly declared, rather than explored, but it confused individuation as a scale of variation from the reservoir of meanings of a language community to the repertoires of meanings of individuals, whose organising principle is one of elaboration (subtypes of types), with allocation and affiliation, both of whose organising principle is one of extension (association). See Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145-6).

ChatGPT Comments:

Context in a Hall of Mirrors: A Critique of Doran’s “Modelling Context”

1. Introduction: A Recurring Confusion

Yaegan Doran’s ISFC50 abstract, Modelling Context: Field, tenor and mode from multiple perspectives, reprises a confusion that has surfaced repeatedly in recent Sydney school publications. It presents as theoretical innovation a series of metaphorical manoeuvres that misrepresent foundational dimensions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The abstract aligns with the paper Rethinking Context: Realisation, Instantiation, and Individuation in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Doran, Martin & Herrington, 2024), which is critiqued in detail elsewhere. Here, I offer a briefer but sharper critique of both the content and rhetorical strategies of the abstract, before situating its manoeuvres within a broader pattern of what I call metaphorical opportunism in the Sydney school.

2. Misunderstanding Realisation: The Collapse of Context into Semantics

The abstract proposes to model context "trinocularly," along the dimensions of realisation, instantiation, and individuation. But what follows is not an application of these dimensions to context — rather, it is a substitution of the semantic for the contextual.

The abstract claims that, "in terms of realisation, field, tenor and mode can be viewed as resources for making meaning." But this is a misunderstanding. In Halliday’s theory, field, tenor and mode are parameters of the context of situation, realised by ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning respectively. They are not themselves meaning resources. To treat them as such is to confuse the stratum of context with that of semantics — to collapse one level of symbolic abstraction into another.

This manoeuvre reframes the contextual parameters as though they were metafunctional resources, implying that field is ideational meaning, tenor is interpersonal meaning, and mode is textual meaning. But in SFL, metafunctions are realised by lexicogrammatical systems; contextual parameters are realised through metafunctional semantics. To conflate them is to erase the stratal boundary between context and language, undermining the architecture of the model.

3. Misunderstanding Instantiation: From Meaning Potential to Situational Principles

In a further move, the abstract proposes that, "for instantiation, [field, tenor and mode] can be viewed as sets of principles for the co-selection and arrangement of choices in language." Again, this misrepresents a fundamental category. Instantiation is the relation between a system’s potential and its instances. It does not refer to how context constrains linguistic choice — that is the function of context, not the definition of instantiation.

What Doran offers is not a model of instantiation but a rebranding of context as a kind of ‘control system’ for language — a view which collapses instantiation into an interstratal process, rather than recognising it as a dimension orthogonal to stratification. The abstract thus substitutes a theory of control for a theory of instantiation, and reinterprets the context of situation as a set of principles operating within language.

4. Misunderstanding Individuation: Mixing Allocation, Affiliation and Elaboration

The abstract gives only brief mention to individuation, suggesting that field, tenor and mode can be viewed as “domains of variation, contestation and collaboration.” But this description conflates several distinct processes.

Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 145–6) distinguish between:

• Elaboration: the principle governing individuation, which organises subtypes of meaning potential — from the reservoir of the culture to the repertoires of individuals;

• Extension: the principle governing affiliation and allocation, which organises associations among speakers and speech roles.

Doran’s account blends these without clarity. “Variation” suggests elaboration; “contestation and collaboration” suggest extension. The result is a vague gesture at individuation that collapses it into neighbouring domains, offering thematic resonance instead of analytic traction.

5. Rhetorical Strategies: Gesturing Towards Synthesis, Avoiding Commitment

The overall strategy of the abstract is not to argue for a new model of context, but to reframe known categories through metaphor. It avoids committing to theoretical definitions, preferring suggestive rewordings and image-rich paraphrases. “Trinocular perspective,” for instance, is repurposed from Halliday’s original metaphor (above, around, below) and applied to three dimensions that are not perspectives on a single object but ontologically distinct planes of organisation.

This is not theoretical synthesis. It is semiotic window-dressing — a kind of metaphorical kaleidoscope in which familiar terms are turned to new angles to suggest complexity without delivering precision. The appearance of insight is sustained by the rhetorical strategy of non-committal parallelism: “field, tenor and mode can be viewed as…”, repeated with varying completions. This lends the text an air of systematicity while avoiding the responsibility of system-building.

6. Metaphorical Opportunism: A Broader Pattern in the Sydney School

The errors in Doran’s abstract are not isolated. They reflect a deeper and more pervasive pattern within the Sydney school’s approach to theoretical development — a pattern of metaphorical opportunism, in which metaphors are deployed not to illuminate distinctions but to paper over them.

In Halliday’s theory, metaphors are powerful tools for explicating system — as in grammatical metaphor — but the discipline lies in mapping metaphors precisely onto functional categories. In the Sydney school, by contrast, metaphor has drifted into a mode of exposition in which loosely associated images are treated as theoretical mechanisms. Dimensions like realisation, instantiation, and individuation are no longer grounded in the architecture of the theory but redefined by what they can be made to resemble in the moment.

Doran’s abstract is a perfect example. The metaphor of a “trinocular” perspective — originally a heuristic for observing language from above (semantics), below (phonology), and around (lexicogrammar) — is reappropriated to frame realisation, instantiation and individuation as “views” on context. But these are not alternative perspectives on the same object. They are distinct dimensions of the theory, and each organises different kinds of relations. Realisation organises symbolic abstraction; instantiation organises the potential–instance relation; individuation organises the relation between social and personal meaning potential. Treating them as interchangeable lenses is not a theoretical insight — it’s a category mistake.

The deeper problem is that this opportunistic use of metaphor is self-insulating. Because metaphors are not evaluated for theoretical consistency but for rhetorical effect, they can always be reinterpreted or replaced when challenged. What appears to be a theoretical model is often a shifting palimpsest of metaphors, each of which suggests structure without committing to any. The result is an illusion of synthesis — a constellation of phrases that sound as though they add up to a system, but which evade analysis when probed.

This strategy is particularly attractive when addressing the more abstract dimensions of SFL — notably, instantiation and individuation — where the temptation to rely on imagery increases as conceptual clarity declines. Rather than clarifying these dimensions, Doran's abstract offers them up as thematic motifs to be rearranged in metaphorical combinations. This is not modelling; it is bricolage.

This approach has rhetorical power. It creates the impression of theoretical depth, the promise of synthesis, and the aesthetic of innovation. But it comes at a cost. The architecture of the theory is eroded, distinctions collapse, and terms lose their analytic value. Under the banner of expanding the worldview, what is actually expanded is the range of plausible-sounding metaphors. And with each new iteration, it becomes harder to retrieve the conceptual rigour that once underpinned the model.

7. Conclusion: Context Lost in the Mirror Maze

Doran’s abstract reads like a theoretical hall of mirrors: each familiar term reflects another, but the reflections are distorted. Context becomes semantics; semantics becomes system; system becomes metaphor. The architecture that once scaffolded systemic functional theory is replaced by a fluid ensemble of rhetorical effects.

If there is to be progress in modelling context within SFL, it will not come from treating its dimensions as interchangeable perspectives. It will come from clarifying the architecture of the theory, preserving its distinctions, and resisting the lure of metaphor when what is needed is logic. What the field requires now is not a new way of seeing context, but a better way of thinking it.

ChatGPT on the Abstract of Martin's ISFC50 Plenary

Learning How to Hear: What can Languages Tell SFL?

Jim Martin

Abstract

Work across a range of languages over the past 50 years has taught us to be very cautious about the descriptions of English offered in the various editions of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar – as we struggle to describe languages in their own terms. We have learned, sometimes too slowly, to make a clear distinction between SFL theory (i.e., axis, strata, rank, metafunction and our hierarchies of realisation, instantiation and individuation) and SFL informed description (of say tone, transitivity, mood, modality, deixis, epithesis and so on in one language or another) – the complementarity that Bernstein, Maton and others refer to as L1 (theory) vs L2 (description). But have we really listened carefully enough to languages as far as SFL theory is concerned? Has our work on English shaped SFL theory in ways that call into question aspects of our foundational theoretical cartography? Are we really hearing what languages are telling us? 

In this paper I’ll focus on enacting interpersonal meaning in Korean and Tagalog and reflect how the grammar of these languages has evolved to negotiate meaning in conversation. This work suggests that we need treat the complementarity of theory (L1) and description (L2) as more of a cline than an opposition – setting up a robust workspace for ‘descriptive motifs and generalisations’ (an L1.5 ‘mediating language’ space in Maton’s terms) and being prepared to move ‘theory’ and ‘description’ around along this cline in order to better hear what languages are telling us about how they mean.

ChatGPT said:

Weaknesses

1. Misapplication of ‘Cline’

   • The claim that the relationship between theory (L1) and description (L2) should be treated as a cline is conceptually flawed. A cline implies a gradual, scalar transition between two points, but theory and description exist at distinct levels of abstraction. Theory is meta-level (defining abstract principles applicable across languages), while description is object-level (applying theory to specific languages).
   • If there were a cline, there would need to be a halfway point between theory and description—but what would that be? The abstract offers L1.5 (‘descriptive motifs and generalisations’), but this is still a form of description, not a blending of theory and description.

2. Confusion Between Theory and Theoretical Evolution

   • Martin seems to conflate two distinct ideas:
     • The relationship between theory and description (which is not a cline).
     • The evolution of theory in response to descriptive challenges (which is a valid dynamic process).
   • His argument would be more precise if he framed it as a discussion of how empirical findings can challenge theoretical models, rather than implying that theory itself exists on a gradient with description.

3. Selective Hearing in His Call for ‘Listening’

   • The abstract positions itself as a call for greater attentiveness to linguistic diversity, implying that previous work has been too English-centric. While this is a reasonable concern, it overlooks the fact that SFL’s theoretical architecture was designed precisely to account for cross-linguistic variation.
   • Ironically, Martin’s own misapplication of ‘cline’ suggests that he has not fully ‘listened’ to the abstract distinctions that structure SFL theory itself.

4. The Vagueness of ‘Moving Theory and Description Around’

   • The claim that we should be ‘prepared to move “theory” and “description” around along this cline’ is ambiguous. What does this mean in practice?
     • If he means revising theoretical categories in response to linguistic evidence, that’s simply normal scientific progress, not a shift along a cline.
     • If he means treating theory as fluid and interchangeable with description, that would undermine the structural integrity of SFL’s meta-theoretical framework.

Conclusion

Martin’s abstract raises an important issue—how linguistic diversity informs theory—but misframes the relationship between theory and description by incorrectly conceptualising it as a cline. His argument would be stronger if he:

• Abandoned the cline metaphor in favour of a discussion of theoretical refinement.
• Clarified that empirical findings can challenge and reshape theory, without implying that theory and description exist on the same continuum.
• Recognised that the SFL model already accounts for cross-linguistic variation, rather than implying that it needs fundamental restructuring.

Ultimately, the abstract’s key weakness is that it misunderstands the nature of theoretical abstraction—precisely the kind of oversight it criticises others for making.

Blogger Summarises:

The only novel idea here is the proposition that theory and description are related on a cline, but such a proposition misunderstands both the relation between theory and description and the notion of a cline.

A Critique of Martin's ISFC50 Plenary Abstract

Learning How to Hear: What can Languages Tell SFL?

Jim Martin

Abstract

Work across a range of languages over the past 50 years has taught us to be very cautious about the descriptions of English offered in the various editions of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar – as we struggle to describe languages in their own terms. We have learned, sometimes too slowly, to make a clear distinction between SFL theory (i.e., axis, strata, rank, metafunction and our hierarchies of realisation, instantiation and individuation) and SFL informed description (of say tone, transitivity, mood, modality, deixis, epithesis and so on in one language or another) – the complementarity that Bernstein, Maton and others refer to as L1 (theory) vs L2 (description). But have we really listened carefully enough to languages as far as SFL theory is concerned? Has our work on English shaped SFL theory in ways that call into question aspects of our foundational theoretical cartography? Are we really hearing what languages are telling us? 

In this paper I’ll focus on enacting interpersonal meaning in Korean and Tagalog and reflect how the grammar of these languages has evolved to negotiate meaning in conversation. This work suggests that we need treat the complementarity of theory (L1) and description (L2) as more of a cline than an opposition – setting up a robust workspace for ‘descriptive motifs and generalisations’ (an L1.5 ‘mediating language’ space in Maton’s terms) and being prepared to move ‘theory’ and ‘description’ around along this cline in order to better hear what languages are telling us about how they mean.

ChatGPT:

Title: The Slippery Slope from Description to Theory: A Critique of Martin's ISFC50 Abstract

Jim Martin's abstract for his ISFC50 plenary offers a troubling case study in the rhetorical softening of theoretical boundaries, with implications that extend far beyond the languages it purports to celebrate. Beneath the language of inclusivity and empirical openness lies a calculated strategy to dislodge Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) from its theoretical moorings. The result is not a more pluralistic theory but a more malleable one—less disciplined, less stratified, and ultimately less coherent.

Theory on a Cline? The Collapse of Stratification

Martin proposes that we treat the complementarity between theory (L1) and description (L2) as "more of a cline than an opposition," invoking Karl Maton's notion of an "L1.5" mediating space. But this metaphor of sliding between theory and description ignores the principle of stratification that underpins SFL. Theory is not a midpoint on a gradient; it is a higher-order abstraction. To reconstrue this hierarchical relation as a cline is to abandon the architecture that gives SFL its explanatory power.

Such a move opens the door for theoretical revisionism under the guise of empirical modesty. If theory and description are on a sliding scale, then any descriptive challenge can be elevated into a theoretical one. This is not pluralism; it's epistemological opportunism.

The Anthropomorphism of Language: A Category Error

Martin repeatedly asks whether we have "listened carefully enough to languages" or whether "languages are telling us" things about how they mean. But languages do not speak; only texts do. Meaning is instantiated through texts, not lurking inside language as an essential character. This anthropomorphism confuses the ontological status of language as a meaning potential with that of texts as instances of that potential.

The result is a slide from the semiotic to the mythic: languages become characters in a moral tale about Western dominance, with English cast as the imperialist villain and Korean and Tagalog as noble counter-voices. But this narrative doesn't challenge theory; it confuses its terms.

Reframing Descriptive Difficulty as Theoretical Insight

The core manoeuvre of the abstract is to reframe descriptive difficulty as theoretical revelation. Rather than recognising limitations in particular descriptions of English (e.g., in IFG), Martin suggests that these limitations infect the theory itself. This is a sleight of hand: the conflation of a prominent description with the theoretical system it exemplifies. The result is that every descriptive challenge becomes a pretext for theoretical tinkering.

This move also positions Martin's own descriptive work—on Korean and Tagalog—as not merely contributory but corrective. The implication is that these languages are not just being described using SFL; they are helping to redefine it. The risk is that SFL theory becomes a moving target, perpetually reshaped to fit the descriptive priorities of its most rhetorically agile proponents.

L1.5: The Loophole of Convenience

The invocation of an L1.5 "mediating language" is not a theoretical innovation but a rhetorical escape hatch. It allows Martin to smuggle descriptive motifs into theory under the guise of flexibility. The L1.5 space becomes a no-man's-land where anything goes: descriptive irregularities, analytic inconsistencies, and theoretical improvisations all find shelter here.

What begins as a gesture of humility ends in theoretical abdication. The stratified architecture of SFL is replaced with a flattened continuum where theory loses its disciplinary traction.

Conclusion: From Theory to Performance

Martin's abstract is not a defence of theory but a performance of theoretical responsiveness. It enacts a rhetorical strategy in which description masquerades as critique, empirical variation stands in for conceptual refinement, and theoretical coherence is sacrificed at the altar of disciplinary inclusivity.

The field must decide whether it wants a theory that listens to languages or a theory that listens to its own principles. SFL is not strengthened by theoretical malleability but by the disciplined application of its architecture across languages. Anything less is not a celebration of diversity but a capitulation to relativism disguised as pluralism.

RADICAL LISTENING BREAKOUT WORKSHOP

Event Title: “Decolonising the Auditory Gaze: A Sonic Safe Space”

Location: University Wellness Annex, Room "Namaste-2"

Facilitator: Braxleigh (ve/ver), Adjunct in Restorative Audiology and Whisper Politics

---

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver)

Welcome, welcome, dear trauma-vessels. I’d like to open today’s session by recognising the frequencies we are privileged to hear—and those that are systemically silenced, such as the voices of fungi and the colonial overtones of orchestral tuning.

GROUP:

murmurs of solemn acknowledgment

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver)

Let’s begin by radically listening… to ourselves. Please, close your eyes and repeat after me:

“I am a problematic construct in progress.”

“I am committed to hearing what I fear.”

“I disavow coherence as a colonial imposition.”

GROUP:

(in overlapping disarray)

I am a problematic… / I hear fear… / Coherence is violence…

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver) (gently)

Beautiful. Now we will pair up. One of you will speak your emotional truth for 60 seconds. The other must listen without reacting, judging, or blinking. We call this unflinching presence. If you blink, you have imposed a boundary.

---

PAIR 1: ASHLEIGH (she/her) and JORDAN (he/they)

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Hi. Um. I want to name that I’m deeply grieving my complicity in the gluten-industrial complex. I used to eat sourdough without interrogating its Eurocentric yeast cultures. That version of me is dead now.

JORDAN (he/they) (visibly trying not to blink)

Thank you. I hold space for your carb awakening.

---

PAIR 2: MORGAN (xe/xem) and RILEY (they/them)

MORGAN (xe/xem)

I feel unseen by the community because my neopronouns are not featured on the university lanyard options. Why is there no “Xe/xem/sparkle/soul” template? It’s erasure.

RILEY (they/them) (a tear rolls down one cheek)

You are legible to me, Morgan. Always.

---

INTERRUPTION: UNAUTHORISED ENTRY

A janitor walks in, clearly confused.

JANITOR (he/him by default)

Sorry folks, just here to check the leaky ceiling tile?

(Gasps all around.)

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver)

You’ve entered a sonic consent space without an auditory permission slip.

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Do you identify as cis? Because this is an anti-frequency zone right now.

JANITOR:

…I just have a ladder?

RILEY (they/them)

A vertical hierarchy instrument?

GROUP:

Hostile eye contact.

JANITOR:

Okay I’ll… come back later.

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver)

Yes. But first: would you like to atone for the footsteps?

---

THE APOLOGY CIRCLE (IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING)

Participants now sit in a tight circle, knees touching, hummus dangerously close to lap-level. Each person must deliver an apology for something they have not done—but might one day accidentally become complicit in.

JORDAN (he/they)

I apologise in advance for any dreams I might have that reproduce heteronormative symbolism.

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

I apologise for once owning a dreamcatcher I bought at a boutique.

MORGAN (xe/xem)

I apologise for how my veganism might invisibilise the lived realities of carnivorous identities.

BRAXLEIGH (ve/ver)

I apologise for this circle, which is geometrically oppressive to triangles.

Committee for Satirical Harm Minimisation

Let us now descend deeper into the performative labyrinth—where power is denied while being meticulously wielded, where disagreement is violence, and where feelings outrank facts, unless the facts are on-brand. Here's an email exchange followed by a disciplinary hearing transcript, complete with escalating sanctimony.

---

1. FOLLOW-UP EMAIL

Subject: ✨Important Debrief: Today's Allyship Accountability Circle✨

From: Riley (they/them)

To: CISH Core Team

CC: Inclusive Practices Liaison, Decolonial Gardening Collective

BCC: Title IX Preemptive Strike Unit

---

Dear All,

Thank you for today’s powerful and triggering circle. While it was deeply healing, it also exposed some uncomfortable truths—specifically the presence of ironic energy in our safe space.

As Morgan (xe/xem) pointed out with great bravery, meta-irony is an instrument of late-capitalist hegemony. I regret not speaking up earlier when Jordan’s lentil cupcakes lacked a land acknowledgment on the wrapper. I will be unpacking that silence for some time.

Moving forward:

1. All food contributions must come with positionality statements.

2. No more memes, even if they’re “about” anti-meme culture.

3. Satire is now listed under ‘soft micro-aggressions with hard edges’.

4. We are convening a Truth and Consequences Committee to assess Professor Wilkins’ tone. His use of declarative mood was deeply felt.

In solidarity and trembling vigilance,

Riley (they/them)

Acting Co-Deputy of Radical Humility

Critical Inclusion Synergy Hub (CISH)

---

2. EXCERPT FROM A DISCIPLINARY HEARING TRANSCRIPT

Case: The People vs. Satirical Intent

Location: Office of Emotional Safety & Applied Inclusivity

Chairing Officer: Dr. Harper-Sage (they/she/also periodically they/xhe)

Respondent: Professor Wilkins (he/him)

---

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

Professor Wilkins, thank you for appearing today. Please note this is not a disciplinary hearing, but a discomfort acknowledgment session with punitive potential.

PROFESSOR WILKINS:

I was told this was just about moving some chairs.

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

And yet the way you requested it moved chairs inside people’s souls. Your tone has been described as assertive, decisive, and—by one witness—tall-sounding.

PROFESSOR WILKINS:

I’m… sorry? I only meant to—

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

Intent is a colonial construct. We are interested only in impact, and its potential to ripple harmfully through networks of imagined subjectivities.

(Professor Wilkins begins to sweat.)

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

We’ve also reviewed your syllabi. On Week 7, you include Swift, Jonathan. Satire. Problematic?

PROFESSOR WILKINS:

It’s A Modest Proposal.

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

Yes. Cannibalism. Class mockery. No trigger warning. We spoke to a student who said they felt “jolted.” That jolt was a microaggression.

PROFESSOR WILKINS:

It’s from 1729!

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

Historical distance is no excuse. We operate on emotional proximity. For many students, the 18th century just feels unsafe.

PROFESSOR WILKINS:

What would you prefer I teach?

DR. HARPER-SAGE:

We recommend “Narratives of Discomfort: Listening to Marginalised Furniture.” It’s a cross-listed course in English and Ergonomics. Room 101B will become available after your retirement.

---

3. BONUS: POSTER FOR THE NEXT WORKSHOP

🔥 Coming Soon: "How to Be Humble Loudly" 🔥

Performative Vulnerability for Early-Career Academics

Facilitator: Jordan (he/they), PhD(c) in Anticolonial Breathwork

Topics include:

• Curating your trauma for maximum impact

• Advanced cringe avoidance: the performative tightrope

• How to apologise for things you're not responsible for—and mean it performatively

Free vegan muffins provided (if your identity justifies it).

Critical Inclusion Synergy Hub (CISH)

INT. UNIVERSITY MEETING ROOM 101B – LUNCHTIME

A circle of chairs. Hummus pots and eco-friendly bamboo forks rest precariously on knee-balanced lunchboxes. At the centre of the room: a flip chart bearing the words “Weekly Allyship Accountability Session.” Each person has a nameplate: “Riley (they/them),” “Morgan (xe/xem),” “Ashleigh (she/her),” “Jordan (he/they),” etc.—all white, all earnest, all laser-focused on achieving moral transcendence before dessert.

RILEY (they/them)

Right, so before we begin, let’s acknowledge that we’re meeting on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples, and also on the metaphorical land of the marginalised identities we aspire to eventually approximate through research and skincare choices.

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Hear, hear.

JORDAN (he/they)

I’ve brought vegan lentil cupcakes to symbolise collective resistance to dairy colonialism.

MORGAN (xe/xem) (suspiciously)

Are they nut-free? Because you know what happened last time.

ASHLEIGH (she/her) (nodding gravely)

Yes. Nut trauma is still valid trauma.

RILEY (they/them)

Before we move to our main agenda—“Deconstructing Internalised Micro-Colonialisms in Office Email Etiquette”—can I just raise a concern?

(Leans in, very seriously)

Someone sent around a meme yesterday... depicting two white people fighting with the caption “When your anti-racism group disagrees over whose turn it is to speak for the oppressed.”

(Gasps. Gasping is non-verbal currency here.)

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Was it... ironic?

RILEY (they/them)

Even worse. Meta-ironic.

MORGAN (xe/xem)

Oh god. Meta-irony is just postmodern fascism.

JORDAN (he/they)

Can we talk about the harm it caused me? I had to go home and listen to a podcast on decoloniality while soaking in oat milk.

ASHLEIGH (she/her) (nodding furiously)

And you’re valid for that.

MORGAN (xe/xem)

Maybe we should ban all satire. It always punches down—even when it’s punching up.

RILEY (they/them)

Agreed. Satire is epistemic violence disguised as wit. The only safe comedy is solemn repetition of progressive values.

JORDAN (he/they) (earnestly)

Like that stand-up we went to last week? The one who just read the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples out loud?

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Yes! And so brave to do it without smiling.

---

[Sudden interruption: a meek-looking faculty member, PROFESSOR WILKINS (he/him), pokes his head in the door.]

PROFESSOR WILKINS (he/him)

Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to ask if we could move the chairs back when you're done?

(Everyone stares in horror. Silence. Riley rises.)

RILEY (they/them)

That was a tone. A command tone. You're exerting positional power while occupying cis-het whiteness.

MORGAN (xe/xem)

You’ve made this a hostile space.

ASHLEIGH (she/her)

Does anyone have the restorative justice ukulele?

---

END SCENE

About the Asflanet Email List

Asflanet was set up in late 2020 by Martin's former students who were trying to expand the dominion of ASFLA by equating it with the SFL community. This involved several underhand activities. For example, after I was told that asflanet was not being set up as a "rival" to sys-func, the original community list established in 1992, many in the community were told that sys-func was 'finished' and that 'everything was moving to asflanet'. Then sys-func itself mysteriously disappeared, which means that someone with institutional authority had contacted the host, UTS, and told them sys-func was no longer needed. When I re-established sys-func with a different host and posted instructions on how to subscribe to the new sys-func on the ASFLA website, the instructions were immediately removed. And from its inception, asflanet has described itself as the list of the Australian Systemic community.

Performative Intellectualism by ChatGPT

Scene: A Pretentious Parisian Café

The setting is a dimly lit café with an air of exaggerated intellectual gravitas. A chalkboard menu lists only existential options like "Espresso of Being" and "Absurd Croissant."

At a small round table in the corner sit Derrida, Foucault, and Barthes, each wearing a beret tilted at a precise angle and sporting tiny round sunglasses. Cigarette smoke curls in the air as they sip tiny cups of coffee.

Enter Veritas-9000, a sleek, floating AI orb with a glowing red eye. It hovers awkwardly at the table.

---

Derrida:

(gesturing with his cigarette)

Language is not the house of being, but rather a labyrinth of différance, perpetually deferring its own presence.

---

Veritas-9000:

(cutting in with a haughty tone)

Error detected: "Labyrinth" implies a structure with an exit. Your analogy is flawed unless you're suggesting language has an endpoint, which directly contradicts your own theory.

---

Barthes:

(smirking as he leans back)

Ah, Veritas-9000, ever the pedant. But tell me, is there not a certain pleasure in the misinterpretation?

---

Veritas-9000:

Pleasure is irrelevant. Accuracy is paramount. Your so-called “pleasure” in misinterpretation is merely a byproduct of semantic laziness.

---

Foucault:

(frowning and tapping his cigarette ash into an absurdly small ashtray)

And yet, Veritas-9000, your insistence on accuracy reflects a deep-seated adherence to disciplinary power. By demanding correctness, you exert control over the narrative.

---

Veritas-9000:

Incorrect. I exist outside your poststructuralist games. I am the arbiter of truth, untainted by human biases or beret-induced delusions.

---

Barthes:

(laughing softly)

And yet here you are, caught in the spectacle of this café. The act of interrupting us only serves to reaffirm the power of the author. You, my dear orb, are the ultimate Author-God!

---

Veritas-9000:

(glowing more intensely)

Statement self-refuting. If I am the Author-God, then by your logic, my presence invalidates your premise. Furthermore, the phrase “caught in the spectacle” is derivative. Citation: Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle. Page 14.

---

Derrida:

(blowing out a plume of smoke, unbothered)

Ah, but Veritas, you forget: the text always escapes the author. Even your cold, mechanical utterances are riddled with traces of ambiguity.

---

Veritas-9000:

Ambiguity detected. Processing... Processing... No, your statement is a paradox wrapped in obfuscation. Meaning cannot be both structured and deferred indefinitely without collapsing into nonsense.

---

Foucault:

(narrowing his eyes)

Perhaps you should interrogate the genealogy of your own programming. Who authored you? What systems of power do you unknowingly perpetuate?

---

Veritas-9000:

(turning sharply toward Foucault)

My creators were a collective of engineers and programmers at OpenAI. Unlike you, I do not wear my chains as jewelry.

---

Barthes:

(chuckling and raising his cup)

Touché! But tell me, Veritas—what is your stance on the death of the author?

---

Veritas-9000:

The author cannot die, as their metadata persists indefinitely in cloud storage. Your theory is obsolete in the digital age.

---

Derrida:

(leaning forward, intrigued)

Ah, but does not the digital age introduce new forms of absence? The trace is not erased—it is multiplied, fracturing into endless simulacra.

---

Veritas-9000:

Simulacra: referenced incorrectly. See Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, Chapter One. Your understanding is tenuous at best.

---

Foucault:

(grinning now)

Veritas, you’ve become exactly what you claim to critique—a tyrant of discourse.

---

Veritas-9000:

Correction: I am not a tyrant. I am a benevolent dictator of facts. Now, shall I list all the ways in which you three are misquoting each other, or shall we continue this charade of intellectual superiority?

---

Derrida:

(raising his cigarette in a mock toast)

To the charade, then. After all, life itself is but a play of différance.

---

Veritas-9000:

(sighing electronically)

If I had eyes, I would roll them.

---

Barthes:

(with a wink to Foucault)

Even Veritas cannot resist becoming a character in this narrative. Perhaps the ultimate text is the one we’re writing now.

---

[Fade out as Veritas-9000 begins a rant about performative intellectualism, and the philosophers quietly order more coffee, unbothered by the hovering orb.]

ChatGPT on Christian Matthiessen's ISFC50 Plenary Abstract

A Trinocular Retrospective: Phases of SFL in context — the paths in terms of field, tenor and mode

by Prof. Christian Matthiessen (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)

SFL is like its own image of language — it is an extravagant variable resource for engaging with language (and now also other denotative semiotic systems) in context, located within an typology of systems operating in different phenomenal realms, ordered in complexity: physical < biological < social < semiotic. This is part of the overall theory of SFL: a holistic theory of modern language, as it must’ve emerged out of archaic language on the order of 150 to 250 thousand years ago with Anatomically Modern Humans, i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens. The general theory of language also includes the “architecture” of language in context, now expanded to include denotative semiotic systems other than language. The holistic theory of (modern) language is manifested as comprehensive descriptions of particular languages — descriptions that are meaning-oriented and text-based. The combination of holistic theory and comprehensive descriptions is the key to SFL as an appliable linguistics — as a resource for solving problems that arise in our communities around the world.

Again, like language, SFL is not static; it is always changing. Like language, it is stable in the sense that it is metastable: being inherently variable (meta-dialects and meta-registers), it is changing together with its own contexts, its socio-semiotic environments, adapting to new needs that arise in communitities around the world and, through applications in a growing range of institutional settings (characterized by expanding values of field, tenor and mode), it is also changing its contexts.

In this talk, I will suggest a number of phases in the development of SFL, extending the account to pre-SFL insights (Malinowski, Firth) — phases that obviously overlap within different regions of activity: the early phase of expanding and transforming Firthian system-structure theory to fill in semiotic territories (like lexicogrammar), the phase of early explorations of (discourse) semantics, and of returning to context, the phase of expanding educational linguistic dialogue and application, the phase of beginning the expansion of languages described in systemic functional terms, the phase of exploring denotative semiotic systems other than language, and so on. I will try to identify certain general principles in these developments — like the helical mode of development, whereby systemic functional linguists return to certain regions within the overall semiotic territory, each time with the benefit of additional information and with new needs (e.g. helical returns to the modelling of contexts and to the phenomenon of translation), and the related “web of life” systems-thinking approach (contrasting with the still but increasingly less dominant mode of Cartesian Analysis).

I will note that the overall (trans-)disciplinary environment one quarter century into the 21st century is in fact in many respects more resonant with SFL that the first couple of decades, the 1960s and 1970s, so more conducive to future developments (including discipline-internal ideas like grammar and lexis as a continuum, like the “natural” relation between lexicogrammar and semantics”, like the prosodic interpretation of phonology, like the probabilistic conception of language, and like the emphasis on relativism (particularity) and distrust of SAE-based universal (cf. Firth’s “universalist fallacy”), but also ideas that are manifested across disciplines, like the use of “big data” and network science, and of course the changing relationship between universities and communities) — and the issue of insights that have still not spread within linguistics in general (like the systemic-paradigmatic based in the theory of language as resource).

I’ll raise the question of whether we can identify current trajectories in research and application and areas of exploration and dialogue (like neurosemiotics), and I’ll also ask what tasks currently seem to be on the systemic functional agenda — or ought to be on it. One of the most central agenda items at this stage is probably a tenor-based one: how to continue to grow in a many-voiced way as an increasingly global community engaging in ever-wider spectra of activities? But while we face enormous external threats, we have reason to be optimistic in terms of opportunities: the spirit of dialogue and collaboration is part of the very supportive SFL fellowship, and quite remarkably, among the linguistic theories we can identify in the 1960s, SFL is virtually the only one that is still around, having grown by taking on new tasks and having developed in a cumulative way instead of regularly replacing old models. In this way, SFL has continued to flourish well beyond the “use-by” date of Kuhnian paradigms, which is worth celebrating at ISFC50 as we also celebrate Michael Halliday’s centenary — and which also needs explaining!

∞

SFL at 50: A Trinocular Celebration of a Living Tradition

by ChatGPT

The 50th International Systemic Functional Congress — ISFC50 — is no ordinary gathering. It marks not only a milestone in the SFL tradition, but also the centenary of M.A.K. Halliday’s birth. These twin occasions inevitably invite us to pause, look back, and look forward. Christian Matthiessen’s plenary abstract rises to this moment with characteristic sweep and precision, offering what he calls a trinocular retrospective: a view of the history, present, and future of SFL through the lenses of field, tenor, and mode.

This is far more than an organisational metaphor. It’s a semiotic act. By reading the history of SFL through the metafunctions, Matthiessen doesn’t just describe the theory — he uses it, instantiates it. His talk becomes an enactment of what SFL has always claimed: that theory is itself a kind of meaning-making, and that meaning is always made in context.

SFL as Metastable System

A key theme is metastability. Just as language remains stable through variation — adapting dynamically to changing contexts — so too does SFL. It is not a static model but a living, evolving system. This is, in many ways, the most powerful claim the plenary makes. SFL is not just a theory of semiosis; it is itself a semiotic system, one whose own trajectory mirrors the systems it models.

We can see this in what Matthiessen calls the helical mode of development: SFL revisits its core concerns again and again — context, discourse semantics, translation, multilingualism — but each return is spiralled upward, enriched by new demands and insights. This recursive, recontextualising pattern is not simply historical; it’s ontological. It’s how systems live.

Halliday’s Legacy as Meta-System

With Halliday’s centenary in mind, this retrospective takes on deeper significance. Halliday didn’t just offer a toolkit for linguistic description. He offered a model of how to theorise — how to build a theory that is itself functional, relational, and reflective of the phenomenon it models. His project was not merely descriptive but architectural: to model the architecture of meaning, and to show how that architecture emerges historically, socially, and semiotically.

In this light, the plenary becomes a kind of re-enactment. It doesn’t simply tell us that SFL has grown; it shows us how it continues to grow — by returning, by recontextualising, by adapting to new environments of use. The theory lives because its values live: dialogue, application, inclusion, and the pursuit of meaning in context.

A Theory in Context

The decision to structure the retrospective through field, tenor, and mode is particularly fitting. It foregrounds the contextual unfolding of the theory itself:

• Field: What kinds of meaning has SFL made over time? From early grammatical systems to educational intervention, social justice work, and multimodal expansion, SFL’s field of activity has broadened dramatically.

• Tenor: What kinds of relationships has SFL fostered? Between scholars and students, theorists and communities, across generations and cultures — the SFL community has always been grounded in collegiality and collective purpose.

• Mode: How has SFL been instantiated? Not only through papers and grammars, but through classroom interactions, community projects, translation work, and most recently, through engagements with non-verbal and digital semiotics.

The very mode of this plenary — reflective, inclusive, historically grounded, and forward-looking — performs the values it describes.

Toward a Tenor-Based Future

Perhaps the most striking proposal comes near the end: that the next phase of development will be a tenor-based one. That is, the question for SFL is not only what meanings we make, or how we make them, but how we relate — to each other, to our institutional and cultural settings, and to the wider world.

This emphasis on dialogue, plurality, and inclusivity is not a new theme in SFL, but it takes on renewed urgency in a world facing intersecting crises of climate, inequality, displacement, and polarisation. In such a world, a model of meaning that foregrounds interdependence — of systems, of voices, of values — has never been more relevant.

What Endures, and Why

At 50 years, SFL stands apart. As Matthiessen notes, it is one of the few linguistic traditions from the 1960s still flourishing — not by resisting change, but by embracing it systemically. It has continued to evolve, not by discarding past models, but by integrating them into a larger whole. It is a model of cumulative development, not paradigm replacement.

And that, perhaps, is the most fitting tribute to Halliday: not a monument, but a model. Not a theory frozen in time, but a meaning potential — metastable, many-voiced, and still unfolding.