North American Systemic Functional Linguistic Association

Annual Report 2006

History:

The early beginnings of NASFLA consisted of dinner parties held for ten years at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL). NASFLA was formally organized in April 2002, in Salt Lake City, Utah at AAAL. Since there are relatively few systemic linguists in North America, we decided to meet with other groups rather than meet independently and hold a conference of our own. That year the National Council of Teachers of English invited us to sponsor a session at their annual convention. We did so and have sponsored sessions at every NCTE convention since then. The speakers have been Jay Lemke, Geoff Williams, Gordon Wells, and Ken Goodman. Geoff Williams will speak again in 2006

In addition to NCTE, we were invited to give a one day mini conference within the World Englishes conference, at the University of Illinois in 2002. Our featured speakers were Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan. In 2003 we organized a two-day conference within the LSA (Linguistic Society of America, Summer Institute) in East Lansing, Michigan. We have also continued to participate in AAAL and its parent organization, AILA.

Current Status:

We have made AAAL our home for the present. AAAL has a number of advantages as a home. All of its members take an interest in linguistics as it applies functionally to people, society and the world, and the members represent a wide range of fields of application, such as language policy and forensic linguistics, so it is attractive to a broad range of scholars in North America and beyond. Its meetings are mid-size for an academic conference (around 1000 or so) so that social contacts are rich but not overwhelming. And as a mid-size conference it is managed adaptively and nimbly.

This year at AAAL there were two SFL colloquia, one organized by Hiedi Byrnes and the other by Bernard Mohan. There were also a number of presentations by individual SFL scholars. It was very encouraging to note participation by an increasing proportion of ‘next generation’ younger SFL scholars in presentations and in our evening NASFLA ‘CrackerBarrel’ meeting during the conference, where about 30 interested scholars got together at ‘special topic of interest’ tables to discuss topics and connect with others who shared similar interests. We interrupted the CrackerBarrel to hold a brief AGM where our vacant offices of Secretary and Newsletter Editor were filled by Xiaoping Liang and Viviana Cortes respectively.

We continue to enjoy the support of our Webmaster Michael Cummings and our Assistant Webmaster Mike Bush. Since we have elected a Newsletter Editor this year, we look forward to reading the news that she will bring together in the future.

Officers:

President: Bernie Mohan <bernard.mohan@ubc.ca>

Vice President: Nan Fries <peterhfries@cs.com>

Secretary: Xiaoping Liang <xliang@csulb.edu>

Newsletter Editor : Viviana Cortes <viviana@iastate.edu>

Webmaster: Michael Cummings <mcummings@glendon.yorku.ca>

Assistant Webmaster: Mike Bush

Website: <www.yorku.ca/cummings/nasfla>

It is difficult to count members, since we do not charge dues. We simply add to our mailing list anybody who attends social functions, gives a paper for us or expresses an interest in NASFLA. Our mailing list currently stands at 170.

Future Meetings:

We intend to continue to meet at AAAL in the future and will also continue to sponsor a session at NCTE.

Bernie Mohan & Nan Fries