"Whither the Theory? A Plenary by Professor Jim Softshoe"
A dramatised reconstruction of a plenary at ISFC50, translated from the original Academic.
[The lights dim. A slide appears, reading “Listening to Languages: A Journey of Humble Domination.” The speaker ascends the stage, surrounded by an aura of gently flickering modal verbs.]
We’ve learned so much over the past fifty years. Mostly that Halliday didn’t know what he was doing. But gently. Gently, friends. No need to panic. Let me explain.
Halliday, bless him, gave us a theory. A big one. One with rank and axis and metafunctions and other impressive nouns. But what he didn’t realise — and I say this with the utmost reverence as I roll him gently under the bus — is that he gave us a description. A description of English. And as we’ve tried to describe other languages, like Korean and Tagalog and Klingon, we’ve realised something very profound: Halliday was too certain. Too systemic. Not enough… motif.
[He paces. Slowly. Like instantiation unfolding in real time.]
So I propose we replace our metaphor of stratification with a new one. A cline. A soft, gentle cline. Between theory and description. Not a hierarchy, not a stratified system, but a flowing interpretive smoothie, lightly blended in the thermomix of discourse semantics.
We need to listen, friends. Really listen. Not just to language, but to the subtle hum of theoretical infrastructure begging to be dismantled and reassembled by me. Because who better to redesign the architecture than the person standing on the roof, shouting, “The roof is the floor now!”
[A pause. He gestures skyward. The metaphor escapes.]
Some call it L1 and L2. Theory and description. But what if I told you… there was more? What if I told you… we’ve been living in L1.5 this whole time?
[Muffled gasps from the audience. Someone drops a metafunction.]
In L1.5, theory and description are no longer fixed points. They drift. They mingle. They cross-fertilise. They swipe right on each other. It’s not incestuous, it’s intradisciplinary. Every time I fail to model something, theory adapts. And every time theory fails to adapt, I relabel it as “just description.” This is the beauty of the cline. The cline forgives. The cline forgets.
[He brings up a slide labelled “THEORY.” It dissolves into a mist of ‘perhapses’ and ‘it depends.’]
Let me be clear: I’m not critiquing theory. I’m merely suggesting it needs to be reconstituted every time I describe something. Is that not the ultimate humility? To reauthor the foundations so that my description may rest ever more lightly upon them?
[Audience nods. One delegate weeps softly into a book of prepositions.]
In closing: I invite you to join me in the L1.5 workspace — a theoretical Airbnb where everything is provisional, except my authority to rearrange the furniture. Let’s abandon the hierarchy of strata and embrace the supple cline, where every theory is a question and every question leads conveniently back to me.
Thank you. And remember: the real theory… was the description we made along the way.
[The applause is thunderous. Somewhere, Halliday’s ghost facepalms softly.]
