International Systemic Functional Linguistics Association
Minutes of Annual General Meeting
23 July 1997
York Hall of Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada
Present
F Alsadequi, E Asp, E Aspeslagh, S Ayano, A Baldry, D Banks, W
Bowcher, D Butt, P Chaban, C Chapelle, H Chen, Y Chen, J Cooper, M
Crawford, M Cummings, E Davies, G Diaz- Santos, J Diamondstone, W
Downes, R Fawcett, J Fine, G Forey, B Forson, N Fries, P Fries, S
Gardner, N Geslin, J Gilbert, W Greaves, M Halliday, L Hand, M Haneda,
C Hartnett, R Hasan, K Hisao, M Janta-Polczynski, M Jordan, M
Keshavarz, K Love, J Martins Santos-Neto, R Martinec, M Maxwell, B
Mohan, M Molenaar, G Netto, M O'Donnell, M O'Toole, L Rashidi, C=7F
Render, T Royce, T Sardinha, J Schulz, S Sen, M Shimazumi, B Spruiell,
E Steiner, G Stillar, M Taboada, R Tannock, P Tench, A Thwaite, C
Torsello, H Tsukada, G Tucker, R Veltman, P White, B Winser, S
Wortham, X Xiong, L Young
1. Chairperson's remarks
Michael Halliday expressed great thanks to Congress Convenors
Bill Greaves and Jim Benson. Appreciation was expressed also for the
office staff of Sarah Moore, Nan Fries, and Jenn Moore.
2. Election of new office bearer
To replace resigning membership secretary Dirk Noel, Erich
Steiner moved and Robin Fawcett seconded the nomination of Nan
Fries. Approval was unanimous. She agreed to hold the office for one
year.
3. Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes are posted on the wall in the office. Barn Borson
moved approval, Lynne Young seconded, and the vote was unanimous.
4. Business arising from the minutes
There was unanimous approval of a motion made by Linda Hand and
seconded by Jonathan Fine to continue the motion passed at last year's
meeting to update the membership list.
5. Treasurer's report
Caroline Stainton had sent a statement showing a current balance
of 1,729.68 Pounds Sterling. Last year's balance was
1,688.55. Interest of 26.00 was added on 30 June 1996 and 14.73 on 31
December 1996. Mick O'Donnell moved approval, Gordon Tucker seconded,
and the measure passed.
6. Upcoming conferences
The 25th International Systemic Functional Congress at the
University of Wales in Cardiff, UK, 13-18 July 1988. The theme will be
Modeling Language in Use. The Pre-Congress Institute 6-10 July will
be taught by Michael Halliday, assisted by Ruqaiya Hasan, on the topic
of "Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar in the Framework of
an Overall Model of Language." The congress will be organized by Robin
Fawcett, Paul Tench, and Gordon Tucker. They will send out a memo in
October.
The Tenth Euro-International Systemic Functional Workshop will
meet at the University of Liverpool, UK, 22-25 July 1998 to explore
Interpersonal Meanings and Systems. The mailing list will include
persons who contact E-ISFW10, Applied English Language Studies Unit,
Department of English Language and Literature, University of
Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK, email: geoff9@liverpool.ac.uk,
phone: +44 151 2770, fax:+44 151 794 2739. Information will be
available also on the Systemic Web page maintained by Geoff Thompson:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~geoff9/systemic.html.
The 26th International Systemic Functional Congress will meet in
Singapore, 26-30 July 1999. The organizer is Joe Foley.
AILA will meet in Tokyo 2-9 August 1999. For details, see
http://www.langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jacet/AILA99.
ISFC plans to meet in Melbourne in 2000, organized by Fran
Christie, and in 2001 probably at Carleton University in Ottawa,
Canada, organized by Lynne Young.
Details about ISFC meetings and minutes will be available on
Sysfling and on the Web at
http://www.wagsoft.com/Systemics/index.html. Bill
Greaves expressed the organization's appreciation of Mick O'Donnell's
work keeping up the page.
Wendy Bowcher announced the Japan Association of Systemic
Functional Linguistics Autumn Conference in Hind, Tokyo, 26-7 October
1997. Information is available at
http://www.u~gakugei.ac.jp/~bowcher/index.html.
7. Book Announcements
The following books were listed as by members or of interest to
them: Genre and institutions by Christie and Macklin, Part two by
Eggins, Intonation by Tench, Teaching by Melrose, Language of
displayed art by O'Toole, Ways of saying and meaning by Hasan,
Language in context and register by Kerry and edited by David Bleich,
Communication in artificial intelligence by Samson (in Fawcett's Open
Linguistic series), Educating Eve (a reply to Pincher) by Samson,
Reading images by Kress, On Subject and Theme by Hasan and Fries (now
in paper), Functional descriptions by Hasan, English and Spanish by
Downing, Lexical cartography by Matthiessen, Meanings and messages:
language guidelines for museum exhibitions by Ferguson, MacLulich, and
Ravelli, and the journal of Linguistics and Education edited by Lemke.
Robin Fawcett invited discussions with him on publications,
especially those concerning papers on particular themes, such as
semiotic systems of natural language and interpersonal systems.
There is interest in publications on semiosis in language and
other modalities and on analysis of discourse in a functional
perspective. Submissions should be double-spaced single- sided sheets
and a 3.5" floppy PC disk, preferably windows. For information contact
Dr. Glenn Stillar, Rhetoric and Professional Writing Programs,
Department of English, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada, N2L 3G1, e-mail gstillar@watarts.uwaterloo.ca.
8. Any other business
William Greaves moved that a bank account be established in North
America to receive any surplus funds generated by Congresses held in
North America. These funds shall be available for seed money for other
ISFC's, such seed money to be repaid if the Congresses break even. The
North American S-F linguists shall appoint a Treasurer each who will
take responsibility for the account and report on it each year to the
AGM of the Association. Michael Cummings seconded the motion, and it
passed unanimously.
Peter Fries moved that Bill Greaves be made treasurer of the
account. Saughita Sen seconded the motion, which also passed
unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Hartnett, Recording Secretary