[Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan

[David Kellogg]

I think that Ruqaiya was the only person I ever met who set out to
"correct" Vygotsky and actually succeeded: her insight was that Vygotsky's
theory, without a theory of grammar, was inevitably going to focus too
narrowly on lexical meanings and their historical derivations. As Vygotsky
himself pointed out, it's very hard to tell when children's word meanings
develop. But Ruqaiya pointed out that it's very easy to tell when their
wordings do.

I was hoping to see her at the next ISFC in Germany next month--I'll miss
her.

David Kellogg

On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 4:56 PM, Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com> wrote:

> Many on this list will know of Ruqaiya Hasan's work and may even have
> joined in an XMCA seminar we had back in the mid noughties. She was a great
> advocate of intersections between Vygotsky, Halliday, Bernstein and Marx.
>
> I'm sad to pass this message on.
>
> Phil Chappell
>
> Dear SFL Friends
>
> With great sadness I have to tell you that Ruqaiya passed away suddenly
> yesterday afternoon.  She suffered heart failure, brought on by the stress
> of the cancer and the infection, which had so weakened her body.
> Fortunately Michael was with her at that moment, and for some time
> beforehand.
>
> I have just spoken with Michael, and want to reassure you that he is doing
> well in these circumstances - as courageous and determined as you know he
> would be.
>
> There will be a small funeral service in Sydney next week.  The time and
> date are still being arranged, and details will be posted when they are
> available.  There will also be a much larger scholarly event to celebrate
> Ruqaiya's life and work, and to keep it moving forward, later in the year
> at Macquarie University.
>
> A wonderful life, an immense scholarly contribution, an extraordinary
> friend to so many people around the world.
>
> Best regards,
> Geoff Williams
>
>
>
>