[Xmca-l] Re: a new Ph.D. program at UC San Diego with a focus on Transforming Education in a Diverse Society

[Martin John Packer]

Thanks Ed, and David,

I was enchanted by Halliday's book Learning How to Mean when it was published in 1975, and then he moved to Australia and at that time, without internet, that meant he disappeared from my radar. Now catching up on his work, I do find that his emphasis on system strikes me as important - as we talk we are continually making the choices that lead to a produced utterance. Formal models of language seem to me to construe the language faculty as in essence running itself, generating grammatical sentences of infinite variety but little practice relevance. I don't know Langacker's work well enough to know if he has a similar emphasis.

I'm now wondering what is meant by being "compatible" with Vygotsky. What I wonder are the features of LSV's account of language that accord with SFL or CG?

Martin



On Aug 31, 2014, at 7:23 PM, Ed Wall <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:

> Martin
> 
>    I have used SFL over time to frame some thinking about classroom discourse, but I know little about cognitive grammar. However, glancing at the attachments I can see that the  bibliography seems to have a very different slant. In fact, as I was reading the articles, I felt like I was reading something from somewhat the same genre as  the philosophy of language (which is not next necessarily a problem).  Anyway, I don't see large incompatibilities and there has been some discussion on the SFL list about a greater emphasis on cognition (although there are counter arguments that it is already there). 
>    My only large hesitation is that the 'systemic' part seems missing from cognitive grammar (at least what I can see in these articles) and it seems a little less flexible. However, I really can't judge from only two articles by a single author. I guess I wonder how cognitive grammar has been used to think about actual text or discourse as has been the case with SFL. 
> 
> Ed
> 
> On Aug 30, 2014, at  8:55 PM, Martin John Packer wrote:
> 
>> Can someone tell me the similarities and differences between Langacker's Cognitive Grammar and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics?
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 30, 2014, at 4:48 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Mike,
>>> I am attaching the articles that Langacker just sent me. I have not been able to read them completely yet. But he assured me that Vygotsky and Cognitive Grammar are compatible and sent me the articles to back that up. I can't promise a review article…yet. That would require i have total confidence in my understanding of the articles. When you read the abstracts you'll see my hesitation. Still, in the past, I got his thinking, just took time. In any case, I am glad to put these articles out to the XMA community, since I am convinced that smart people will see the connection between Vygotsky and Cognitive Grammar, if they dig deep. There may be other linguists out there ready to take it on.I say to them, "Go for it!"  Vygotsky deserves all the appropriate linguistic analysis he can get, don't you think? Chomsky, whom Langacker departs from in many important ways, does not, in my opinion, provide such an analysis. Fauconnier and Lakoff both are great on metaphor and blending. But I think the nitty gritty grammatical analysis, with nouns and verbs, and all that stuff, is needed. I will let Langacker know of your interest. Who knows, he may agree to review anything I write. We'll see.
>>> Henry
>>> 
>>> 
>>> [The attachment elliptic coordination.pdf has been manually removed]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> [The attachment interactive cognition.pdf has been manually removed]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Aug 29, 2014, at 6:58 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Henry--  As you will see from the attachment that Jim sent around that
>>>> the developing education department here at UCSD is really interesting and
>>>> should be of interest to a lot of MCA members.
>>>> 
>>>> On the issue of Langackerr and Vygotsky, it would be great to see the
>>>> articles you are referring to. His work along the with the work of Giles
>>>> Faulconier are clearly relevant to people who are interested in Vygotsky's
>>>> ideas and those of related scholars such as Halliday, all coming from
>>>> different national traditions.
>>>> 
>>>> Nice idea for a review article in MCA.
>>>> But more proximaly, what should we be reading?
>>>> mike
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Jim,
>>>>> Nothing attached, I think. Sounds very interesting, so I sure would like
>>>>> to get the flyer. By chance, I am in an email correspondence with Ronald
>>>>> Langacker, emeritus prof in linguistics at UCSD. Are you familiar with is
>>>>> work in Cognitive Linguistics? In several articles he just sent me, he
>>>>> agrees with me that Vygotsky and his work are highly compatible. It seems
>>>>> to me that CG and Vygotsky could help provide a great theoretical
>>>>> foundation for a doctoral program such as the one you are developing. I
>>>>> have been a teacher educator in New Mexico for 25 years and have been
>>>>> thinking about the connection between CG and Vygotsky from the beginning.
>>>>> My dissertation is on L2 learning, so the focus of your new program is
>>>>> inspiring to me.
>>>>> Henry
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Aug 28, 2014, at 5:21 PM, Jim Levin <jalevin@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi XMCA folks,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Education Studies at UC San Diego is starting a new Ph.D. program with a
>>>>> focus on Transforming Education in a Diverse Society - a flyer is attached.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you know of students who you think might be interested in this
>>>>> doctoral program, please encourage them to consider applying this fall for
>>>>> our inaugural cohort to start in Fall 2015 - the application deadline is
>>>>> December 1, 2014. I’m happy to answer any questions they may have.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Jim Levin
>>>>>> Professor
>>>>>> Department of Education Studies, UC San Diego
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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