A few weeks late, in a busy transitional time for me ... but foreign
language and ESL teaching do have some progressive voices not too far
removed from the SFL and LSV traditions ... Diane Larsen-Freeman has
recently come here to U of Michigan and has a lot of interesting ideas ....
likewise Claire Kramsch at UC Berkeley. There is also a group at UC Davis
around Mary Schleppegrell, though I think their approach is a bit less
radical theoretically.
On the earlier point about genre as straightjacket, I think there are both
pedagogical and theoretical issues at stake. There is some point in letting
students, esp. those outside the elites, know just what the expectations
are for writing the genres of power in any field. Genre creativity is NOT
valued in many non-humanistic fields.
On the other hand, a dynamical approach to genre-referencing
textproduction, in which choices are made in contexts that change as the
text unfolds (logogenesis in SFL parlance), helps us understand better how
we can both make choices about meaning and wording and still wind up
producing texts that will be seen as characteristic of our cultural and
historical era, and often of specific genres as well.
Genre innovation is often just genre mixing (as Derrida pointed out some
time ago). That is, our sense of what sorts of texts hand together
coherently is strongly influenced by the available repertory of genres in
the community, and we probably need to recognize some sort of genre
intertextuality as we make sense of even a relatively innovative text-type.
You may be familiar with the old distinction in post-structuralism between
rule-governed and rule-referencing (Bourdieu did not use the terms, but
certainly played a part in creating the idea in his critiques of
Levi-Strauss). Genre texts play within, play with, and play against the
norms of one or more genres. As you say, Bakhtin works in this same spirit.
What varies across institutions is the latitude that is allowed or valued.
Even technical reports may play around a little bit, and scientific
articles a bit more, but far less than literary genres do.
Part of the competence that new initiates into a community need to acquire
is knowing both the rules/expectations of various genres, and also the
dimensions and degrees of latitude that are acceptable.
Sociologists have often noted that high status writers/actors exercise
greater latitude in relation to social norms, so there are important
aspects of power relationships in this domain as well. Logogenesis is
always also part of the negotiation of the future of a community.
Thanks for raising these important issues ......
JAY.
At 11:27 AM 10/4/2002 +0700, you wrote:
>Thanks, Mike. The neglected world of foreign language teaching and research
>in a foreign country has left some very big gaps and is currently lagging
>behind any major paradigm shifts that may be emerging in other educational
>contexts (at least that's my experience in Thailand over the past 8 years).
>I am convinced that sfl/chat theory can be applied to help develop FL
>teaching of English here. Unfortunately the 600,000 Thai teachers of English
>get precious little support from the authorities, apart from meaningless top
>down reforms, like the current *standards based curriculum* that is being
>introduced, with all the imported parlance accompanying it. Our local
>organisation (Thailand TESOL) has made that the theme of our annual
>international seminar next January, and I know of at least two speakers (as
>well as myself) who will be using Vygotskian/Brunerian/SFL points of
>departure. As a friend and colleague of mine who is interested in Theravadda
>Buddhism (which is the dominant religion in Thailand) claims, there are some
>interesting connections between the Vygotskian school of thought and the
>works of Buddha that are 'taught' in schools and temples.
>
>By the way, is there any more news on the on-line seminar?
>
>Phil
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
>To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 3:24 AM
>Subject: sfl/chat
>
>
>
>Phil-- As Jay says, there is an intersection of halliday/vygotksy, and, i
>would
>add, a pretty big intersection, so you should consider yourself as enriching
>the discussion, not hijacking it!
>mike
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
610 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke
---------------------------
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