Teaching of Systemic Functional Linguistics: North America

CANADA

University of British Columbia

Department of Language & Literacy Education

Geoff Williams  (Head of Dept.)

Geoff is a major figure in Language Education from an SFL approach. He is teaching a course called Researching Language Use in Education: Systemic Functional Perspectives (course code: LLED 601A), which is at the doctoral level.

Department of English

Dr Jessica De Villiers
Dr Janet Giltrow

Glendon College, York University, Toronto

Department of English

Jim Benson (semi-retired)
Bill Greaves (semi-retired)
Michael Cummings (semi-retired)

Glendon College as been one of the world centres of SFL, and the main base in North America. Michael Gregory was a major developer of SFL theory, especially in the area of register, phasal analysis, etc. He retired in 1997.

Jim Benson, Bill Greaves and Michael Cummings are all major Systemicists. As of July 2006, all three will be 'retired'. However all three will be teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Relevant courses for 2007-2008 are given below:

Graduate Courses

Undergraduate Courses

Supervision of Ph.D.s

Benson, Greaves and Cumming are all available to supervise Ph.D.s in SFL. Their topics of expertise are:

Saint Mary's University, Halifax

Elissa Asp (Chair of English)

EA: I teach undergraduate courses in Modern English (one semester, introductory level) Discourse Analysis (year long, upper level course) Language, Gender and Power (half course, upper level).

I also teach courses on the The Development of English Prose Style from 1500 (one semester, intro) The History of English (year long, upper level) Language and Gender (one semester, intro) which have considerable S-F content. And I supervise directed readings and theses in s-f frameworks. Since it's me, students are obviously getting a mix of stuff from a variety of frameworks including my own: I've written the core descriptive framework that I use in all courses (including a roughed-in grammar for Early Modern English. This work is explicitly functional, but lexicalist and syntagmatic in orientation. I use systems in local environments where appropriate and as summaries of relationships like speech function options. That's probably more info than you need. But let me add that I am more than willing to act as a supervisor/reader/external for graduate students if anybody has need and my background seems appropriate. Even the most sophisticated undergraduate students are not stimulating in the way that graduate students can be.

Contact:

Elissa Asp,
Chair of English,
Saint Mary's University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H C3C
e-mail: elissa.asp@stmarys.ca

Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia)

Department of Linguistics

Maite Taboada (mtaboada@sfu.ca)

Maite teaches a course in Discourse Analysis (Ling 480) (details here). The course provides an introduction to the analysis of discourse and dialogue, and an overview of the phenomena included in the study of discourse and dialogue, from linguistic, psycholinguistic and computational points of view. Next scheduled for September 2008.

Maite is also available to supervise doctoral students, her specialisations being: discourse analysis, computational linguistics, theories of reference, cohesion, Rhetorical Structure Theory, Appraisal, Spanish.

University of Victoria, British Columbia

Gordon Fulton (fulton@uvvm.bitnet)

University of Waterloo, Ontario

Glenn Stillar

 Description: Glenn Stillar has been in the English Department for three years. The undergraduate programme has two streams--a 'traditional' literary stream (students must take two linguistics courses) and a rhetoric and professional writing stream (same linguistics requirements, but more 'language' courses involved). Also, there is an M.A. and Ph.D. programme in language and professional writing. When GS came, there was no sfg or related theory activity. Since then, he has spent most of his time teaching versions of social-functional language description. Not 'purely' sfg because it combines many strands (Firthian, Whorfian, Gregorian, Hallidayan, Martinique, Lemkean, Stillarian, and so on--whatever works).

USA

Carnegie Mellon, Pitsburgh

Mariana Achugar, (Discourse Analysis- Spanish)

Central Michigan University

Bill Spruiell
Beth Samuelson

Peter Fries, a major Systemicist who developed much of the area of Theme, taught here until 2004, but is now retired. Two of the current staff, Bill Spruiell and Beth Samuelson, are very much influenced by SFL and sympathetic to SFL concerns. Bill used IFG as the textbook for a course in grammar for teachers last semester. However, none of our courses (other than an occasional special topics course) is devoted specifically to SFL. The CMU program is specifically a MA in TESOL. They have no PhD program in English.

 Course Description: http://www.cst.cmich.edu/units/eng/.

Georgetown University, Washington,D.C.

Heidi Byrnes

Heidi teaches Language Education with an SFL perspective within the German Department.

Mansfield University

Linda Rashidi (lrashidi@mnsfld.edu) 

LR will be teaching English Grammar Fall semester (2000) at Mansfield University  using Bloor and Bloor as the main text.

Marshall University, West Virginia

English Department

Dr. Hong, Hyo-Chang/Bob (hong@marshall.edu)

Dr. Hong teaches an SFL course:

Dr Hong is available to supervise Ph.D. students, his area of interest is: Old English Discourse Analysis, with special interest in genres in Old English, and their lexico-grammatical realization.
 

Purdue University

Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction

Dr. Beverly Cox
Dr. Luciana C. de Oliveira (luciana@purdue.edu)

The Literacy & Language program at Purdue offers various graduate degree programs: MSEd, EdS, and PhD. Some of the courses with SFL content include:

Beverly Cox says: "Like some others I am not sure what qualifies as teaching courses in SFG but I do include it in my courses at Purdue in Language and Literacy for graduate students. We also have a small group of graduate students who are interested in u sing it in their research. I am just finishing a course in Emergent Literacy which has had a pretty good dose of SFG and I always touch on it in Foundations of Literacy, as well. I have also included it in our seminar on home, school and culture interfaces related to language/literacy."

University of California: Davis

Spanish Department

Maria Cecilia Colombi (Associate Professor, Designated Emphasis on SLA, chair)

Cecilia Colombi regularly teaches graduate courses on SFG in Spanish in the department.

Contact:

Maria Cecilia Colombi
Spanish Department
University of California
Davis,Ca 95616
fax: 530-752-2184
wk.  530-752-1244

University of Florida

Zhihui Fang (College of Education)  (zfang@coe.ufl.edu)

Prof. Fang teaches some courses at undergraduate and graduate levels with primarily SFL content, including:

For the course in Content Area Reading, he uses a newly released book:

Fang, Z., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2008). Reading in Secondary Content Areas: A Language-Based Pedagogy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

The book shows middle and secondary school teachers of science, history, mathematics, and language arts how to use functional grammar analysis to talk with students about texts.

Prof. Fang is available for supervision of Masters and Doctoral students in SFL topics. His research specialties include: emergent literacy, content area literacy.

University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)

Christine Pappas [education]
Adam Makkai

 Christine Pappas teaches some Systemics in the Dept. of Education.

 Adam Makkai has been teaching Systemic Functionalism TOGETHER WITH Stratificational Grammar ala Lamb, as Halliday and Lamb have always agreed on most things. To this he adds Tagmemics a la Pike, He calls himself an ECOLINGUIST.

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Mary Schleppegrell (School of Education)
Jay Lemke (School of Education)

The University of Michigan now has a very interesting program, housed in the School of Education but with support from a number of other parts of the university which is heavily SFL in orientation.