Mike asked:
"To me the question often returns to "how can xmca be a medium that allows us to get all the help we, collectively, need and can get?"
In this context of bridging CHAT and SFL, it's a great research question to which I've given a little thought before responding. A grand Utopian "let's all work together scheme" is, IMHO, as daunting as any. xmca has had periods of intense communication, has been a way to share half-baked ideas, has certainly mediated professional development (speaking personally), and has served for posting jobs, conferences, promoting one's work, etc, and lately, for discussion of literature. Until now the readings have been essentially one at a time. If we wish to see what the SFL and CHAT can have to do with each other, I'd like to suggest reading two papers, side by side. To take up the lead by Phil, a text is also an instantiation of the semiotic potential of language, an instantiation of the possibilities in its meanings. What I think we want to do, in broad answer to the broad research question, is to bring the meanings in CHAT in relationship to those of SFL. We can do so !
by writ
ing about them, together. More specifically, we can discuss two papers at a time, in which there may be possible relationships. Two that I'd like to suggest below lean a little more towards Halliday's work, with the understanding that this is a Vygotsky list of whose writings many more subscribers are familiar. I have both articlwes in PDF form, should we decide to pursue this path.
(1) Wells, G. (1994). The Complementary Contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky to a "Language-Based Theory of Learning." Linguistics and Education, 6, 41-90.
(2) Halliday, M. A. K. (1993). Towards a Language-Based Theory of Learning. Linguistics and Education, 5, 93- 116.
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