APOLOGIES: Clare Painter, Kristina Love, Mary Macken-Horarik, Marina Aidman

COMMITTEE
President: Bev Derewianka
Vice President/ Membership Secretary: Pauline Jones
Treasurer: Susan Hoadley
Minute Secretary: Shooshi Dreyfus

STATE REPRESENTATIVES on COMMITTEE:
ACT: Mary Macken-Horarik
Queensland: Garry Collins
Northern Territory: Peter Wignell
NSW: Clare Painter
SA: Peter White
Victoria: Kristina Love
Western Australia: Anne Thwaite
Tasmania: ?

Motion to accept last year’s minutes:
Put forward by Garry Collins; seconded by Rosemary Huisman

NOMINATIONS
Susan Feez was elected as Treasurer. Our hearty thanks were expressed for the wonderful job done by Susan Hoadley.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Activities

ASFLA Congress 2006 was a very successful event organized by Len Unsworth and team from University of New England, Armidale, in conjunction with the Australian Literacy Educators Association. Our thanks to the team for a stimulating conference.

The 2007 ASFLA Congress has just been held (with an overlap between ASFLA and the Australian Applied Linguistics Association) at the University of Wollongong. Well-received innovations included (i) a ‘Chat Space’ at the end of each day where participants formed informal groups to discuss issues and pursue questions from presentations with each other and/or with the plenary and featured speakers of the day; and (ii) Master Classes where an expert in a particular field (Theo van Leeuwen on multimodalities and Sue Hood on Appraisal in EAP) provided feedback to doctoral students who had given a short summary of their research and had raised questions.

The 2008 Congress will be ISFC to be held at Macquarie.

For 2009, South Australia (specifically peter White) is investigating the possibility of hosting the conference.

In December 2007, a specialist workshop, Semiotic Margins: Reclaiming Meaning, will be held at Sydney University, organized by Jim Martin and Sue Hood. The purpose of this workshop is to focus on modalities of meaning which have been sidelined as ‘paralinguistic’, or as belonging to another modality of communication (e.g. gesture, kinesics, voice quality, laughter, typography, colour). In particular we want to raise questions about what counts as part of language or not, and why, and the theoretical cartography of currently evolving descriptions (i.e. where they belong metafunctionally, stratally, in terms of rank etc.).

A series of seminars on Friday afternoons has been organized by Clare Painter. The presentations have been of a very high quality, giving access to latest developments in SFL theory and research.

Christian Matthiessen presented this semester’s series of advanced SFL workshops for doctoral students. Our thanks for the investment of time and effort in this valuable resource.

Several other SFL-based workshops have been held in various states in the language education area (eg David Rose working with the Catholic Education system in Victoria; Queensland workshops; South Australia professional development courses).

Support for SFL communities
- Jim Martin was supported to go to Indonesia to help with the development of the fledgling SFL association.
- Maria Herke was funded to go to India

TREASURER’S REPORT
ASFLA bank account is healthy. Discussions were held regarding how funds might best be distributed to support initiatives.

MEMBERSHIP REPORT:
Pauline asked people to check whether they are paid up as there are only 10 people on the list as being current members. It was pointed out that this is perhaps accounted for the fact that the 2006 conference fees included ASFLA membership fees. Pauline plans to expand membership base.

QLD REPORT
Gary Collins reported on successful intensive in-service courses through ALEA using Brian Dare and John Polias’ course.

SA REPORT:
Peter White reported that Brian Dare and John Polias’ courses are great but they are limited so moves to expand longitudinal study of classrooms and genres etc over 3 years in conjunction with Guiseppe Mamone are going ahead.

VIC REPORT:
Claire Acevedo reported that since 2003 they have been using David Rose’s work on reading in Catholic Ed. Taking data which now confirms the first data collection that the average reading rate improves 2-4 times after this reading intervention and some state schools collaborating with David.

WEBSITE
Chris Cleirigh has taken on the job of managing the content of the ASFLA website. This will include moderation of the forum, posting of news, announcements about conferences, seminars and workshops, updating of publications, and so on. It was suggested that a section be developed showcasing the various SFL professional development programs on offer. A committee will also develop a section where reviewed conference presentations will be published and other research papers/theses will be made available. It was also suggested that the Sydney Friday afternoon seminars be pod cast and accessible from the website.

GENERAL BUSINESS:
Thanks to Bev Derewianka and the 2007 conference committee for hosting the conference.

Welcome to Cecilia Colombo as ISFC president.

Recommended that credit card facility be got rid of because it is expensive and now with internet banking facilities, it does not get used anyway.

Discussion on how ASFLA funds might be used and distributed to best advantage: Bev Derewianka suggested formalizing this. Rosemary Huisman suggested an each semester application for submission. Annabelle Lukin recommended leaving it the way it is because it has worked thus far and worries that if we advertised there’d be a flurry of requests and more work for the executive in processing them. Claire Acevedo suggested somewhere in between formal and informal.

Annabelle has suggested that since Nigeria has its own SFL association that that we support them to organize small conferences as a way of building them up to be able to hosting ISFC sometime in the future. Two people are to go to Nigeria next year and will request funding for one.

Cecilia Colombo raised the importance of supporting SFL in India as well

Welcome and distribution of Agenda: Bev Derewianka
Motion to accept last years Minutes: Kristina Love
Amendment: “Ferngrove” to be amended to “Ferny Grove”
Vacant positions and call for nominations:
President – Bev to continue
Vice President – open – Pauline Jones to be nominated
(Thanks to David Butt for years as Vice President)
Treasurer – open with no nominations
Membership secretary – open with no nominations

President’s Report: Bev Derewianka
State representatives to stay on, but executive recommends a 2nd representative per state.
Note of thanks: Thanks to the organisers of last year’s ISFC. Continue policy of supporting SFL groups in regional and developing countries eg David Rose to WA; Jim Martin is being funded to go to Indonesia; ASFLA supported Brazil conference with $2000. In order to facilitate people applying for this funding onformation will be put on the website.

From the states:
Acknowledgement of workshops and seminars eg Louise Ravelli on Friday afternoons; and Jim Martin’s course/seminar for PhD students every semester. Nothing to report from other states, but Bev offers support to people in other states.
Discussion from the floor: Mary Macken-Horarik queried what kind of help is available. Bev said financial support might be available. Thanks to those doing it.

Next year’s conference: WA declined so at Wollongong instead, in conjunction with ALAA (overlap day) and tertiary Educators conference.

Notes of thanks: thanks to Carl Nillson-Polias for maintaining the website. Thanks to Shooshi for stepping in as minutes secretary.

Treasurer’s report:
No full report from Susan Hoadley.
$2000 – to send Jim Martin to Indonesia
$3000 – seeding funding for Armidale conference
$600 – support for WA
Balance at $23,600 – good amount, as a result of windfalls (one-offs from past). Spent $10,000 this year but caution needed.

Membership report:
Marie Quinn – apologies for no report
Discussion from the floor:
Kristina said memberships not as robust as it could be.
Len said membership rolled into conference fee this year. Recommends conferences as a good selling point. Conference company will do a report for ASFLA. John Knox said he opted for this option as it was no extra fee on top of conference fee and recommends this continues.

Launch of ASFLA website
Bev walked us through the website, explaining the function of each page to promote increased use of the site. New innovation of forum instead of or as well as email for discussion forum.

Website management – someone has been approached to do it but nothing to report till they answer. This is intended to supercede the newsletter.
Discussion from the floor:
David Butt suggested looking at “ling-line” as a model as newsletter demands are unrealistic. Bev said people will be approached to assist that person in a voluntary capacity.

Report on future conferences:
ASFLA 2007 in Wollongong
ISFC 2007 in Odense Denmark
ISFC 2008 in Sydney with an institute at Macquarie because China is having the Olympics and the Chinese Government prohibited all conferences that year.
2008 – multimodality conference. Information about this will be given by Kay O’Halloran at the concluding session and will be put on the website.

Note of thanks: Bev thanked Len and his team for a fabulously stimulating conference. Len said 2 things made the job more manageable:
1) institutional support
2) the employment of the conference company to organise and manage the conference (Len strongly recommends all future conferences take this option)

David Butt – institute last year at Manly campus of Macquarie Uni held in 2005(?) just before conference (over 70 delegates). Thanks

Close of meeting

We also aim to ensure that your personal information is up-to-date. Under the privacy Act you have the right to access personal information we hold about you. If you feel the information is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to require us to amend the information. Please contact the president of the association by email if you have any queries.

Welcome and distribution of Agenda: Kristina Love
Motion to accept last years Minutes: Kristina Love
Amendment: Apologies for last years meeting to be recorded from Frances Christie
Motion carried subject to amendment
Note of thanks: Kristina Love – Many thanks to Rebekah Wegener for taking the minutes of the annual meetings. ASFLA has always had a history of being public and accessible and the minutes help to make this possible.

Discussion of agenda items & call for further items: Kristina Love
Action: no further items

President’s Report: Kristina Love
Since last year’s meeting, we now have institutional membership available for ASFLA and it has been taken up as an option. We also continue to use Carl Polias for the web services, and we are very pleased that he continues to help us in this area. We would like to thank Carl for the great work that he does. We are still looking for people to organise the ASFLA newsletter.
David Butt: Apologies for the lack of a paid appointment for the newsletter position. I did have someone lined up, but this is no longer viable
Motion: That we allocate a sum of $200/edition to be paid to a PhD student for editorial services of 2 editions each year.
Discussion from the floor:
Frances Christie: I suggest that the sum be $500/edition.
Geoff Williams: I agree that the sum should be higher than $200.
Louise Ravelli: Since we have the web site, what do you see the function of the newsletter as being?
Kristina Love: The newsletter has a much less formal role as a venue to celebrate work being done across the states; new theses; family information, and as an elastic resource for disseminating information twice a year. The website also has space for publishing as was proposed by Maria Herke Couchman some years ago. We would like to propose that this be a more formal space.
John Polias: There are no web constraints, but you do need someone in control to manage things. This can be an ongoing and dynamic kind of letter. There is the issue of what could be on the site and it opens you up for criticism when you make a choice, and it needs to be very clear. There will need to be a lot of support given to this person and that is something to think about.
David Butt: One of the issues was what someone gets out of being a member, and the newsletter might be one of these things. If it is on the web, we need to emphasise the employment value of this and also the publication value. It might be possible to provide editing services for ASFLA papers to be turned into publications.
Louise Ravelli: Are we talking about hard copy or soft copy? Either way it needs to be someone with institutional status, and a PhD student might not have this, and they might not have the connections.
Kristina Love: There is also the issue of time and motivation. Academic staff have contacts and status, but they have constraints that PhD’s don’t necessarily have. The logic of 2 issues a year was a bounding issue.
Motion: Funds to be allocated for a newsletter totalling $1000 per year, or $500 per issue.
Motion carried
Action: The executive committee will take comments on the function and purpose and exact nature of the website and newsletter. The executive committee will consider space for publications for new researchers, and the proposal will be developed by David Butt in consultation with Frances and Maria, who will put the proposal forward to the executive. Funds are given by universities for conference attendance on the basis of paper presentation, and having a publication service would be a draw card (David Butt). We would have to get academic staff to referee (Kristina Love), and we would have to get advice about the form of the publication because some forms count and others don’t, so this would need to be considered (Louise Ravelli).
Motion: that these points be considered by the executive
Motion carried

Election of Office Bearers: Kristina Love
President: Bev Derewianka (nominated, nomination accepted) Kristina Love Standing down
Note of Thanks: Many thanks to Kristina Love for all her hard work and dedication to the running of ASFLA over the past years. She has made a wonderful contribution and we would like to take this opportunity to thank her formally for the wonderful job. Thanks also for the recent ARAL edition which was a real benefit. David Butt and Frances Christie.
Vice President: David Butt (nominated, nomination accepted)
Treasurer: Susan Hoadley (nominated, nomination accepted)
Membership Secretary: Marie Quinn (nominated, nomination accepted)
Motion: all nominations be accepted – motion carried

Election of State Representatives: Kristina Love
NSW – Claire Painter and Frances Christie (nominated, nomination accepted)
ACT – Mary Macken-Horarik (nominated, nomination accepted)
WA – Anne Thwaites (nominated, nomination accepted)
NT – Peter (nominated, nomination accepted)
SA – Peter White (nominated, nomination accepted). Brian Dare and John Polias standing down.
Note of Thanks: Many thanks to Brian Dare and John Polias for their work and the great ASFLA conference in 2003.
VIC – Kristina Love (nominated, nomination accepted)
QLD – Gary (nominated, nomination accepted). Lenore Ferguson standing down.
Note of Thanks: Many thanks to Lenore Ferguson for her dedication and the fine handling of the last ASFLA conference in 2004.
TAS – None
Note of Thanks: Thank you to all the state representatives for the wonderful work that you do.
Motion: all nominations be accepted – motion carried

Membership Report: Marie Quinn
Membership is at a steady level. At the moment we have 55 fully paid members, but many more on the lists. We need people to update there membership, and we are looking for ways to remind people. Institutional membership is now available at a cost of $50 and we have had 1 institution take up this offer: Ferngrove School. We have had 5 student memberships. Although we have credit card as an option, this has not been fully taken up. Despite this it is a very quick and effective means of payment.
Discussion from the floor: suggest used by date on form for next year to remind people when their membership runs out and when they have to pay.
Action: used by date be trialled on next years form
Motion: carried
Note of Thanks: Marie Quinn – Thank you to Susan Hoadley and the University language department for their support.
Note of Thanks: Kristina Love - Thank you to Marie Quinn for her work as the membership secretary. She has streamlined the whole process and made it very professional.

Treasurer’s Report: Susan Hoadley (please see financial report attached)
At the moment, we have $31 000 in the bank. We plan to transfer some of that money to a high interest account. Online banking and credit card payments are at a cost of $35. We have set aside $2000 to send someone to Indonesia possibly the year after next. We have had several requests for funding including $3000 to send Marie to Pakistan. This hasn’t taken place yet, but the money has been allocated. There is also $600 for David Rose which is still outstanding. The Reclaiming Knowledge Conference was very successful and the money from that conference was used to fund a visiting scholar to attend the ISFC. This has been very well received.
Action:
Kristina Love: We would like the executive committee to take up the issue of not only being responsive to requests, but being proactive in seeking ways to offer support. We would like to come up with a principled plan.
Susan Hoadley: the idea is that we might want to develop guidelines about how we might want to spend the money and what projects we might like to support.
Frances Christie: it would be good to formally note that as an issue because there are a lot of things that we could do.
Kristina Love: there is also the issue of intra national consolidation of funds.
Motion: that all of these issues be considered by the executive for the formulation of a formal proposal
Motion carried
Motion: Accept Financial Report
Motion carried
Note of Thanks: Kristina Love - On behalf of the association I would like to thank Susan Hoadley for the difficult work that she carries out with regularity and reliability. She does a wonderful job and we really appreciate her report and continued hard work.

Report on future conferences: Kristina Love
Kristina Love: The 2006 conference is continuing and everyone is encouraged to attend.
Geoff Williams: Internationally, SFL is being actively taken up and is expanding transdisciplinarily. We may want to consider this when we consider how we plan to spend our funds. Taking the risk of running conferences and funding scholarships from Nigeria is a profound initiative and affirms the proactive issue. On behalf of ISFLA many thanks to Susan Hoadley and to David Butt for their huge efforts on the ISFLA conference.

Close of meeting

Next meeting: 2006

RW

Currently, ASFLA operates a data base of 249 names, which includes 58 paid
memberships. This 58 is broken down into 3 types of memberships:

1. 8 Life Members
2. 38 Full Members ($40)
3. 12 Student Members ($25)

Current ASFLA Life Members are: Frances Christie, Michael Lewis, Brian Dare,
Claire Painter, John Polias, Len Unsworth, Geoff Williams, & Dai Fei Yang.

A significant comment to make regarding the other 50 paid memberships is that 23 of
these were not recorded as members in 2003. This may have been a record-keeping
error, but there have been many new members added to the data base in the past 8
months.

The remaining names on the database have been retained as Contacts: these are made
up of past members who have not paid membership this year or those who have
responded to our emails or mail outs. It may be useful for ASFLA to retain these
people as resources in advertising future conferences and association activites. The
majority of database names are based in Australia, but we currently have a number of
international contacts and members.

In order to update membership details for ASFLA, an email was sent out on Sysfling
in October, 2003. This yielded a number of new, interested people and updated the
data base significantly. From this we sent out over 200 membership reminders in
December. taking time to format eye-catching flyers, which may explain the interest
from new members. I suggest that the executive investigate further means of
publicising the association’s activities and strengthening its membership..

We have also tried to maximise mail-out opportunities to provide information to
members and contacts. In the December mail out we were able to include the usual
President’s report along with a flyer advertising the Brisbane conference. When
sending receipts earlier this year, there was the opportunity to send reminders about
Brisbane and the Sydney conference later in the year. This seems to make the most of
the information held on the data base and would be a useful resource for those
organising conferences in the future.

The ASFLA database is operated through Filemaker Pro 5, a program for which we
have no substantial manual and is not generally well-known in our IT department.
Thus, it has been difficult to get operating with any degree of efficiency, but is now
able to generate receipts linked to the database and hold receipting information. Tax
requirements have also meant adding more receipt information to the database and
keeping more stringent records. Membership can be paid over the internet as well as
credit card and cheque and I work in collaboration with Susan Hoadley in Sydney
who processes the finances and sends information to me for receipting. So far this
system is working quite well around our own academic commitments.

Finally, The Department of Language, Literacy and The Arts at The University of
Melbourne needs to be acknowledged for the support it has given to ASFLA through
the use of facilities and defraying the cost of postage.

Marie Quinn, membership secretary

Minutes:
Kristina Love:
Discussion of agenda items, call for further items.
Action: no further items
Reading of apologies
Minutes of last year not up on the web yet, due to be circulated as soon as Carl is available.

Marie Quinn:
Report of the state of membership within ASFLA.
The report will go up on the web shortly. In conjunction with Susan Hoadley we have been working on a
database of membership. The membership at the moment is:
8 Life members, 12 Student members, 58 members and numerous associates.
We are getting new members, and we would like to see conference organizers encourage new membership
and make use of the database. We don’t reveal names, but we do make contact, and University of Melbourne
supports with mail outs.

Discussion from the floor
Kristina Love: it is part of our privacy policy that we don’t reveal names from our database
Gary: Is there a capacity for corporate membership to ASFLA?
Kristina Love: at the moment no there isn’t but I think we should take time to investigate. It would be nice to
see an increase in teacher members and we could possibly have a reduced rate for schools. I would like to
propose a corporate or institution membership to be set at $50.00.
Gary: This is complicated with Universities.
Marina: We don’t want to lose money through corporate membership
Kristina Love: school membership to be set as separate at $50.00.
Sally Humphreys: We could advertise through the department of education
Kristina Love: It is a job for the state representatives to publicise.

Action: Marie to provide details on how many associates there are and if these are recorded on the database
as well. Executive Committee to carry on further discussion about fees for institutions
Motion: That there be a separate $50.00 membership for schools - Motion Carried
Note of Thanks: Len Unsworth calls for note of thanks to be recorded for Ray Misson as the Head of the
Department of LLAE which supports the costs for mailouts and circulars.

Kristina Love:
We have developed guidelines for conference organisers to follow. These rules of thumb will go up on the
web page soon and should be helpful for those planning conferences in the future.

ASFLA would like to have a newsletter that reports on things like research, degrees, causes, celebrations,
advertisements and general interest stories. Call for editor for newsletter – no nominations.
Action: David Butt to explore possibilities for Newsletter Editor

Last meeting, Maria Couchman proposed that space be set-aside on the ASFLA web page for research
profiles. Carl has indicated that he is ready to receive any such contributions and hopefully Maria will be
able to pursue this suggestion in the near future.
Reclaiming Knowledge Conference – this conference is going ahead in December of this year, and we would
like to remind you that early bird registrations closed on the 31st of July, but there may be an extension as
they are still open for papers.

Discussion from the floor:
Kathryn Tuckwell: noted that student discount is for full time students only, and part time students are often
just as under funded if not more so. Might we consider a waged – unwaged distinction?
Shooshi Dreyfus suggested a fully waged, partially waged and unwaged scale?
Kristina Love: this would be up to the organising committee of each conference to discuss.
Kathryn Tuckwell: does it come up under the conference rules of thumb?
Kristina Love: not at this stage, but it is something for the executive committee to discuss.
Action: Executive committee to discuss the issue of student income and conference registration fees.

Kristina Love:
President’s Report
Funding for 2004.
Request from Pakistan (SPELT) to send a speaker over. This was accepted by P Gibbons, but due to unstable
conditions this did not take place. The request has been made again, and Marie Quinn has accepted. She
should be going for 10 days, conditions permitting. The executive committee has re-approved that the $3000
from 3years ago be carried over as funding. [Please note that comments made at this point have been
included under discussion from the floor as they were quite extensive and disrupted the flow of the report]
One of the points of ASFLA is to encourage overseas philanthropic work and to take a long-term view of the
association. Requests for funding have been made by Western Australian representative Anne Thwaite for
$600 to invite David Rose over to talk in the interests of encouraging the development of SFL across states.
We are also interested in allocating funds for bringing others into the country. At the moment, $3,000 has
been set aside to bring a visiting scholar over for the international conference in 2005 in Sydney.

Discussion from the floor:
Annabelle Lukin: What happens if there is a profit from national conferences?
Kristina Love: If there is a loss ASFLA bears the loss, if there is a profit, the seeding funds get reattributed to
ASFLA and the profit goes back to ASFLA.
Annabelle Lukin: LBC cost $20 000 but notionally made $6000. Can we have a clear policy on conference
funding and some flexibility to change with different situations? Say for things like reaching out to other
groups.
Kristina Love: If there is money available and the executive committee can justify the risk, we can consider
supporting additional conferences outside the annual one. We require conference organisers to submit
budgets for their conferences, and the executive is subsequently involved in decision making with the
conference committee.
Annabelle Lukin: the conference committee needs to feel that the executive is behind them when they are
planning, because we don’t want people to be worried about if they lose money or not, they need to be able
to plan the conference.
Kristina Love: The executive has a short and long term view. We might expect that some conferences will
make a loss, but that others will make a profit, and we can still support them.
David Butt: can we combine funds from national conference and the international conference?
Kristina Love: no we can’t, and I think we will elaborate the principles for requesting funding and
responding to requests in a guide that we can put on the web.

Action: development of conference planning guide and funding application guide by the executive.

Treasurer’s Report
Susan’s report is attached to the agenda. It is reasonably self-explanatory.

Discussion from the floor:
Annabelle Lukin: On the treasurer’s report there is a $1000 merchant fee for credit card payment facilities.
Should we cut credit cards as a payment option? We aren’t big enough to have it.
Against credit card option: charge extra for those who use credit card so that we transfer the cost, a kind of
user pays system; explain that it takes money away from the association.
For credit card option: lots of people don’t feel confident with online banking; useful for conferences; credit
unions can’t use the banking transfer system; overseas might have difficulties and institutions prefer to pay
by credit card, they won’t use other methods.

Action: Trial for another year and executive to check proportions that use credit card and discuss future.
Maintain flexibility for conferences and get more advice on this issue.
Motion: Accept Financial Report – motion carried
Note of Thanks: Thanks to Susan Hoadley for her report and work. Immense thanks on behalf of the
association for the hard, regular and reliable work that she carries out.

Kristina Love:
Privacy statement read out [see below]

ASFLA Privacy policy.

The Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association is committed to protecting your privacy and the
confidentiality and security of any personal information you may provide to us. We are committed to
complying with the Privacy Act and National Privacy principles. We collect a limited amount of information
from you when you apply for membership and when you register for ASFLA related conferences. This
information is collected to enable us to provide membership benefits, including advice about forthcoming
events. It is our policy not to pass on your personal information to any other organization for commercial
purposes. ASFLA mailing list addresses are never sold, rented, leased, traded, swapped, exchanged, or
bartered to anyone. We don’t like to receive junk mail, and know you don’t either. If we were approached to
provide personal information about membership for professional purposes only, we would seek your consent
before releasing it.

We also aim to ensure that your personal information is up-to-date. Under the privacy Act you have the right
to access personal information we hold about you. If you feel the information is incorrect or incomplete, you
have the right to require us to amend the information. Please contact the president of the association if you
have any queries.

Motion: move that this statement be accepted and printed on the web – motion carried.

David Butt: There are quite a few issues that have been raised that have continued over that past few years,
for example fees for students, and membership issues. I think that we do need to discuss these the difference
between 238 associates and 58 members is quite large and at this stage we may just have to wear the credit
card charges in order to get more members. We should also sign up people at conferences, a physical
presence might get some good results.

Suggestions about membership:
Annabelle: membership from January to January
Kathryn: might be a bad time for students to come up with money.
Gary: If someone turns up is it better to catch them before they leave?
Marie: There is a rush before conferences.
Kristina: Are you suggesting 6 months free?
Annabelle: Could membership and conference registration be combined?
Dianna: is there a reason for calendar year?
Kristina: it introduces another level of complexity which might be a reason for July to July.
Dianna: Calendar year has value sometimes.

Action: circulate proposals (e.g. booth at conference to sign people up, changes to membership) to the
executive and all to contact Kristina Love or Marie Quinn with any ideas.

Kristina Love:
Report on future conferences
Annabelle Lukin: Discourses of Hope Conference [ISFC conference in Sydney with many notable guest
speakers]
Len Unsworth: Language and Education Day – July 20th 2005 – a showcase of SFL and ASFLA organized
as a workshop. We plan to follow up the keynote address with a workshop; this will allow direct and indirect
contact with speakers, parallel papers and a concentration on materials and methods for teaching. This will
lead into a publication exercise around August 1st.
David Butt: we are planning to have a workshop a week before much like that in 1996. There will be graded
workshops – not quite so diverse, but for 2-3 days.
Kristina Love: Publicity will need to go out shortly.
Mary Macken-Horarik: Canberra 2006 – because Canberra is quite isolated, we will need a lot of support
and help from the executive.
Kristina Love: Western Australia still being explored for 2007, under Anne Thwaites direction. Again much
support will be required from the executive, since Anne is the only SFLer in WA prepared to take on the
task!
Lenore Ferguson: There seems to be a tearing apart of resources and time slots for conferences, we need to
address the issue of clashes.

Kristina Love:
Election of Office Bearers to the executive
State Representatives:
NSW – Clare Painter
ACT – Mary Macke-Horarik
WA – Anne Thwaite
NT – Peter Wignel
SA – John Polias and Brian Dare
VIC – Kristina Love
QLD – Lenore Fergusen
TAS – ?
Motion: propose re-election for 1 year term – Motion carried
Motion: Propose $500 continues as payment for Carl – Motion carried
Len Unsworth: Executive might consider an increase in funds for Carl
David Butt: The executive has contacted Carl to negotiate further payment for additional work associated
with additional conferences. But ultimately his work is still essentially volunteer labour.
Note of Thanks: thanks and appreciation for Carl’s work.
Motion: move that Susan continue as treasurer for 1 year – motion carried.
Motion: David Butt to continue as Vice President for 1 year – motion carried.
Motion: move that Marie Quinn continue as Secretary for a further 2 years – motion carried.
Motion: move that Kristina Love continue as President for a further year – motion carried.

Discussion from the floor:
Helen Tebble: there are 3 national associations, can doors be kept open and links maintained between
linguists? We need to encourage more understanding between linguists.
Kristina Love: we do need to encourage more understanding, and as editor of ARAL, I encourage this.
Helen Tebble: I don’t have any suggestions but I would like to raise it as an issue for discussion.
David Butt; it hasn’t always been an issue, but we need to branch out and present at other conferences as
well.
Kristina Love: Helen’s point is really important - please contact the executive with any ideas.

Lenore Ferguson:
Conference Comment
I would like to formally thank the conference committee. We are very grateful to all those who have helped
out [names]. I would also like to thank the presenters for their generosity of spirit and I think that this was
reflected in the tone of the conference. This was most appreciated and I have really enjoyed listening to
other’s work. I feel it has raised the profile of SFL and been taken on board by the school sector. It grabs
people’s enthusiasm and inspires practical applications. Thanks for the support and guidance from the
executive as well.
Gary: it was truly a team effort but all teams have captains, and this was taken on very much by Lenore,
thank you on behalf of the committee for doing such a great job.
Kristina Love: on behalf of the whole association [names] we really appreciate everything that has been
done. The selection of keynote speakers was excellent, the papers worked very well and the organisation was
seamless. It points to the superb nature in which everything was conducted – thank you.

Close of meeting

Next meeting: 2005

RW

Additional note from President.
A very big thank you to Rebekah Wegener for taking such comprehensive minutes. Rebekah has kindly
offered to take up the role of secretary for next year.

Meeting opened 5.10 pm

1. Apologies
Claire Painter, David Butt, Mary Macken-Horarik, Seong-Woo Lee,
Annabelle Lukin

2. Membership Business

At the last AGM, it was agreed that membership prices increase ? students
$25, non-students, $40, life membership $250
Kristina Love stated that the membership processing liaison between Susan
Hoadley( in NSW) and Seong-Woo Lee (in Victoria) seems to be working
reasonably well.
Membership is still relatively low at 70.

3. President’s report

Brisbane hosting ASFLA 2004,
Sydney hosting ISFC32 in 2005,
Maybe Canberra hosting ASFLA 2006,
Maybe WA hosting ASFLA 2007

Kristina has had a number of requests from teachers in remote areas seeking
funding to enable them to attend conferences. The executive is developing a
plan to allow pairs of teachers to attend conferences.

4. Treasurer’s report

Susan Hoadley said that the 2001/2002 auditors report issued a reminder that
we issue payment vouchers and receipts.
She made the point that ASFLA02 straddled 2 financial years and that not all
ASFLA03 details had come in yet.
Payment Options:
• EFT is the cheapest way to collect money
• We still accept cheques and cash
• The cheapest option for processing credit card payments is for only the
treasurer to do so.
Susan will give John Polias a procedure for EFT to place on the web-site.
Fran Christie accepted the financial report and made the additional note that
the written report was “a nice clear statement”.

5. Newsletter

Current arrangement and background:
Under current arrangements, the ASFLA newsletter is combined with the
newsletter of the International Systemic Functional Linguistics Association.
One newsletter is produced on behalf of the two associations, under the
editorship of Christian Matthiessen and Annabelle Lukin. This arrangement
was made following the resignation of ASFLA’s last editor, Louise Ravelli.
The Executive attempted to find a replacement for Louise, but was
unsuccessful. After an offer from Christian to combine and jointly edit the two
newsletters, I resigned as treasurer and took up the editorship. The newsletter
is no longer provided in hardcopy, and so only appears as a web publication
on the ASFLA and Network websites. We use FrameMaker to format the
document, as FrameMaker files are easily converted into html and pdf
formats. The newsletter comes out twice per year, and while we have intended
to regularize the deadlines and publication dates, because the newsletter has to
fit in around Christian’s and my other commitments, we have so far not been
very successful in this regard.

Future prospects:
We had hoped by now to have recruited some local reporters, both within
Australia and internationally, who would take some responsibility for both
writing and soliciting copy for the newsletter. As yet, we have not arranged
this, but hope to do so in the near future. Christian has also approached the
Head of Department in Linguistics at Macquarie (David Hall) to secure a
small amount of funding for a ‘managing editor’ - i.e. Someone who would be
responsible for collating and proofing copy, leaving Christian and I to
developing and extending the network of people contributing to the newsletter.
David Hall’s response was to ask for a ‘business plan’, which we have yet to
prepare. It is not yet clear whether this suggestion means we would be funded
if the newsletter also generated income, i.e. through advertising. Clearly this
would be a change in current policy, and would need to be discussed by the
executive before any proposal was agreed to.

6. Webmaster report

John Polias reported that the site is used sparsely and made the suggestion that
conference proceedings be placed on the web. Kristina commented that this
would be a decision for the presenters.
John suggested video taping plenaries and making these available on the
website. He also made the point that he only maintains the site and that the
content was dependent on contributions by the members.
It was decided that further links to international resources be placed on the
site.

7. Bernstein conference

Fran Christie and Jim Martin reported that they are planning a conference for
December 2004 to be held at the University of Sydney. It’s theme will be
Bernstein and SF theory and it will focus on Bernsteins’ horizontal and
vertical distance.
It was proposed that the 2 sociologists, Joe Muller and Karl Maton be invited
and that support from ASFLA might be required for one air ticket.

Dates are most likely to be December 8-10, 2004

8. ASFLA 2004

Lenore Ferguson reported that the theme of the conference would be ‘SFL
ripples in the 21st century’ and would be concerned with opening up explicit
links between sfl and other disciplines.
Dates are:
3 day pre-conference school June 28-30
Conference June 30-July 2, 2004
NB last day of school will overlap with day 1 of conference

Lenore also reported that the conference will be held in a brand new
conference centre located in central Brisbane.

9. Other Business

Geoff Williams reported that the deadline for submission of abstracts to
ISFC30 to be held in Lucknow, India in December this year had been
extended to September 1, 2003.
Geoff has also researched bulk booked airfares - approx $2100

Katina Zammit said that she would hand out a flyer for ISFC32 later in the
conference.

Kristina Love extended a vote of thanks to John Polias and Brian Dare for
organising and hosting ASFLA 2003.

The AGM closed at 5.50pm.

Miriam Taverniers

PhD Thesis, University of Gent, 2002

This dissertation has found its origin in an exploration of the concept of ‘grammatical metahor’, a concept which has been introduced in systemic-functional linguistics (henceforth SFL) and which is unique to that framework, and the status of this concept in a systemic-functional model of language as a whole. The central question which initially formed the basis for this exploration was:

is ‘grammatical metaphor’ a useful concept?

‘Metaphor’ in general is intrinsically a ’second-order’ phenomenon in language: a linguistic expression can only be labelled ‘metaphorical’ by virtue of there being a comparable non-metaphorical expression. Likewise, the concept of grammatical metaphor emerged in systemic-functional theory as a second-order resource, a resource which contrasts with and builds on other, non-metaphorical resources, whcih in this way form a non-metaphorical “baseline”.

In order to come to an understanding of the concept of ‘grammatical metaphor’ in SFL, it is necessary to explore, on a fundamental, theoretical level, the design of the linguistic model which has made the introduction of this concept possible (and indeed, as will be shown in this dissertation, necessary). Accordingly, this dissertation has two major interrelated aims:

• On the one hand, it is a theoretical study of the systemic-functional model of language in general. In this study, attention is paid first and foremost to the general modelling of non-metaphorical linguistic resources in SFL, which form the ‘baseline’ which is exploited by grammatical metaphor. In relation to the study of the baseline model, it can then be investigated how and why the concept of ‘grammatical metaphor’ was introduced in SFL.
• On the other hand, on the basis of this theoretical study, this dissertation proposes a refinement of the systemic-functional model of language, which will be motivated as a semiotic-functional model. This model is suggested as a ‘general’ model of (baseline, non-metaphorical) language, but one of its features is that ‘grammatical metaphor’ is fully incorporated in it. In this sense, the model whcih will be proposed is called integrative.

PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, 1998

This thesis looks at resources for meaning in the language of the indigenous Anangu people of Australia’s Western Desert, with particular focus on the dialect Pitjantjatjara. Western Desert is spoken from the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia (WA), to the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia (SA). Although features of Western Desert dialects have been described in several previous accounts, the approach I have taken here represents a significant departure from the mainstream of descriptive linguistics in Australia, as it employs the theoretical and descriptive tools of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to explore the language as a resource for making meaning in its diverse social contexts. Previous Australianist descriptions have taken account of semantic functions to a lesser or greater degree (eg Heath 1984, Rumsey 1990 and McGregor 1992, who have been influenced by SFL insights), but they are generally constrained within a traditional rule-based descriptive framework consisting of segmental phonemics, morphologically defined word classes and syntax of ‘phrases’ and ‘sentences’. In contrast to the formalist tradition, the survey here is organised in terms of general domains of meaning - textual, interpersonal, experiential and logical, and the starting point for each section is with texts in social contexts rather than with decontextualised structural units. Because of its orientation to social context, the survey as whole begins with a discussion of Western Desert culture, exemplified with linguistic features that typify relations between the language and its culture in each semantic region.

In the survey, I have attempted to draw a broad outline of the socio-semantic code of Western Desert culture, from the perspective of the grammatical patterns through which it is manifested as social discourse. I am interpreting socio-semantic code here both as an elaborate network of potential meanings that members can draw on in the social semiotic construction of their culture, and as the elaborate patterns of meaning they construct in doing so. In other words, the code consists not simply in the semantic resources of the language, but involves equally the varying cultural contexts in which its resources are employed, and the varying socio-semantic orientations that members bring to these contexts. Halliday (1994a: xxxi) suggests a definition of code, broadly in terms of its contexts of culture, its manifestation as texts, and its acquisition by learners, and concludes that “Only the grammatical system as a whole represents the semantic code of a language. To understand the code, we need an overview of the grammatical system; both in order to confront one part of it with another, and in order to interpret texts construed in the code”.

The survey attempts to fulfil both the latter requirements for representing and understanding the Western Desert code. Firstly, it aims to give an overview of the grammatical system as a whole, as well as its cultural contexts and the texts that construe them, so that the various elements of the code can be systematically interpreted and related to each other. Secondly, it aims to provide a useful reference grammar for interpreting texts in Australian languages from the perspective of their semantic systems. It is hoped that such a reference will help to inform comparative understandings of ways of meaning in each culture, particularly within educational and social science discourses of the colonising culture, that will have practical outcomes for the education of indigenous children as well as for theories of sociality. Finally, it aims to provide an elaborate and socially useful analytical model that builds on the insights provided by both ethnological and linguistic descriptions of indigenous Australian cultures to date.