On the down side, for me anyway, the author critiques functional
linguistics and any other social, language-based model of
mind, which in her view emphasize conformity (citing Volosinov,
somehow making him a culprit in the project of conformity).
On the up side, she names those aspects of linguistic theory that
all good progressives resist (e.g., the search for regularity and
pattern where it obscures the "significant instances" - the
values - that direct and change us). More up, she discusses
(briefly but cogently -- EASY READING!) the developments
in functional linguistics (probabilistic grammars,
grammatical metaphor, genre as "underlying semiotic,"
as process) that help "to explain the linguistic moment
where the social confronts the individual, the structured
confronts the fluid..." I know this is not
the site of activity theory per se, but it is a site where
system & function & "choice" (and chance?) collide, a site where
innovation occurs, and a description of SFL tools and their
usefulness for "opening" that site to our investigative gaze.
Paul Thibault also has a useful discussion in the same book,
of recent SFL work on technocratic discourse (Jay's stuff) which is
ultimately concerned with the axiological dimension of discourse
-- shorter & so more accessible than Thibault's book
(_Social Semiotics as Praxis_). Includes a
critique of cognitive psychological analyses of writing.
I found the latter part of the discussion, the richer part, to be
a struggle. It's not common to find an SFL study of
any depth that doesn't demand in-depth knowledge of SFL. Not
promising for dissemination. It leaves most of us scratching
at the surface. And scratching our heads.
....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. - W. Blake