Systemic Functional Linguistics Interest Group - SFLIG

Dear Members,

We are excited to announce the SFL Stream at the ALEA National Conference which will be held from 9-12 July 2026 in Fremantle, Western Australia. The SFL Stream will take place for one day, meaning Saturday 11 July 2026. You are warmly invited to submit your abstract that focuses on one of the following topics. Your research context can be in Australia or in other countries, provided that you can make links to the conference theme and the Australian contexts.

• SFL-informed literacy pedagogy
• Functional grammar in classroom practice
• Multimodal and disciplinary literacy through an
SFL lens
• Teacher professional learning in SFL
• SFL in early years, primary, secondary, or
tertiary contexts
• Research–practice partnerships
• Case studies of classroom implementation

Who should submit?
✔ Classroom teachers
✔ Literacy leaders and coaches
✔ Teacher educators
✔ Researchers and HDR students
✔ School and system leaders

If SFL shapes your work, this stream is for you. We look forward to your submissions and welcoming you to the ALEA conference in Western Australia in July.

How to submit your abstracts?
Submission guidelines:
https://eventandconfco.eventsair.com/PresentationPortal/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2FPresentationPortal%2F2026-alea-conference%2Falea-abstracts
Submission portal: https://eventandconfco.eventsair.com/PresentationPortal/2026-alea-conference/alea-abstracts

Submission Deadline: Friday 20 February 2026

Notification of Acceptance: Monday 13 April 2026

ALEA 2026 Convenors
Kelly Taylor and Jess Nailer

If you have any questions at this stage, please feel free to contact Beryl Exley ([email protected]) and Vinh To ([email protected])

SFLIG 2025 Updates: Recordings

Hi Everyone,

Just letting you know that all plenary and keynote recordings have been uploaded on the SFLIG Youtube Channel.
https://www.youtube.com//videos

Recordings of the parallel sessions will be uploaded in the next few weeks.

Subscribe to this channel if you haven't done so already to get latest updates about video uploading!

SFLIG Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

Loved the conference vibes and the matching Zoom backgrounds at SFLIG 2025!!!

🎉Thank You from the Conference Committee! 🎉

As the conference comes to a close, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this event such a success!

To our incredible plenary and keynote speakers, engaging presenters, and enthusiastic participants joining us from around the world, thank you for sharing your energy, passion, and insights. Your contributions have made this conference truly memorable and intellectually enriching.

We would also like to acknowledge the tireless efforts of academic reviewers, our organizing team and volunteers, for their dedication, hard work, and professionalism throughout the event.

Until we meet again at the next conference, SFLIG 2027, thank you for being part of this wonderful community!

Please do keep in touch with us through our communication channels (email lists, website, and social media) for future updates about SFLIG activities!

Warmest regards,
SFLIG 2025 Organising Committee

Emilia is speaking on picture books and other semiotic artefacts in library storytime.

SFLIG 2025- Day 4- Parallel presentations- Multimodality

SFLIG 2025- Day 4, 13 November 2025

Plenary 8: Enhancing Evidence for Systemic Functional Linguistics and Genre Theory in K-12 Literacy Education

Assoc. Prof. Clarence Green, University of Hong Kong

Abstract

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Genre Theory (GT) have influenced decades of research in first and second-language literacy education. However, recent systematic reviews highlight a gap in large-scale interventions and controlled trials evaluating their impact (Green et al., 2024). This presentation explores how the evidence base for SFL and GT’s effectiveness on K-12 student literacy outcomes can be strengthened through research designs that extend beyond those commonly currently used in SFL/GT K-12 classroom research. Interventions with control groups demand significant collaboration among schools, funding agencies, universities, and researchers, but without them current evidence syntheses are constrained by the existing limited evaluations of SFL and GT’s potential benefits in K-10 classrooms. Given international shifts in educational policy and practice calling for the types of research discussed in this presentation, it is proposed that the research community consider adopting designs that align with rigorous evidence standards, such as those set by educational evaluation bodies (e.g., What Works Clearinghouse) and systematic review guidelines for evaluating educational evidence via interventions. The discussion of where SFL/GT classroom research might go in the future is valuable for stakeholders engaged in policy, curriculum development, and teacher training across multiple countries, offering a pathway to more robust evidence-informed literacy education practices.

Biography

Dr Clarence Green is an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. His research focusses on vocabulary, reading, first and second language acquisition, language psychology and disciplinary literacy. He holds a PhD (University of Melbourne), and was formerly a k-12 teacher (Victorian Institute of Teachers, Ontario College of Teachers). He co-chairs the Australian Linguistics Society’s ‘Linguistics in the Schools’ SIG, is Associate Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, and editorial board member of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes and Australian Journal of Linguistics. He received the 2025 recipient of the UKLA/Wiley Research in Literacy Education Award. Email: [email protected]

SFLIG 2025- Day 4, 13 November 2025

4: Keynote 4: Using ideational concurrence to create accessible classroom metalanguage

Dr Lucy Macnaught, Auckland University of Technology
Dr Ruth French, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract

SFL scholars have long argued that a shared metalanguage is essential for making valued meanings explicit. Metalanguage enables teachers and students to talk about types of language choices and share reasoning about when and where to deploy them. Recent research has also illuminated how a multimodal view of metalanguage, including intonation and hand movements that accompany verbiage, takes into account the relationship between what teachers and students may talk about and the dynamic process of how they talk about it. Extending Hasan’s reading of semiotic mediation, such multimodal metalanguage contributes to making what is being mediated visible to students.

In this paper, we examine how teaching materials contribute to students developing knowledge of semiotic systems. We focus specifically on how images, with their constituent colors and shapes, contribute to classroom metalanguage. We trace earlier scholarship and then investigate the system of concurrence in teaching materials. Examples involve materials for Master’s of Nursing Science students undertaking research projects and undergraduate trainee teachers taking a literacy subject. Findings highlight how shapes and colors make meaning in combination with their co-text. Such ideational concurrence contributes to making language choices visible and accessible. It also provides insight into how convergent intersemiotic couplings are a mechanism through which non-disciplinary fields are ‘imported’, in this case, for teaching knowledge about language. These findings invite further investigation of the recontextualized systems that our students experience. They also point to current limitations with GPTs and the kinds of AI capacities that we might want.

Biography

Lucy Macnaught, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer/Learning Advisor at Auckland University of Technology. Her book, Writing with Students: New perspectives on collaborative writing in EAP contexts, is currently shortlisted for the M.A.K. Halliday Book Prize. It illuminates how metalanguage and the organisation of classroom talk enables students to critique and justify their choices and teachers to guide but not provide wording. Additional research interests include GenAI for writing development and embedding academic literacy in coursework and research programs.

Ruth French, PhD, is a Lecturer in the School of International Studies and Education, University of Technology Sydney. Her research and teaching interests include language and literacy education, children’s literature, primary curriculum and pedagogy. A particular research interest is the development of children’s knowledge about language, including grammar.

Victor is on now!

Plenary 7 - Day 4- SFLIG 2025
13/11/2025

SFLIG 2025- Day 4, Thursday 13 November 2025

7: Systemic Functional Linguistics in Education: Informing Educational Semiotics

Assoc. Prof. Fei Victor Lim

Abstract

The increasing multimodality of contemporary communication demands a rethinking of how we conceptualise literacy in education (New London Group, 1996). From digital news interfaces to interactive video games, from cinematic texts to educational websites and student-designed posters, meaning is no longer conveyed through language alone. In this plenary, I explore the role of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in informing educational semiotics, with particular attention to the development of a pedagogic metalanguage for thinking and talking about multimodal meanings. Drawing on the foundational work of Halliday in viewing language as social semiotic (Halliday, 1978), SFL provides not only a descriptive framework but also a generative theory for supporting the development of multimodal literacy in learners (Lim & Tan-Chia, 2023). I conclude by identifying future directions for research: the need for scalable teacher professional development in multimodal pedagogies, the refinement of pedagogic metalanguages across learning contexts, and the exploration of AI-mediated learning environments where multimodal meaning-making is increasingly shaped by algorithmic design (Lim & Unsworth, forthcoming).

Biography

Dr Fei Victor Lim is Associate Professor and Deputy Head (Research), English Language and Literature, at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He researches and teaches on multiliteracies, multimodal discourse analyses, and digital learning. He is an editor of Multimodality and Society and an associate editor of Computers and Composition and Designs for Learning. He is also author of the book, Designing Learning with Embodied Teaching: Perspectives from Multimodality, lead author of the book, Designing Learning for Multimodal Literacy: Teaching Viewing and Representing. He has received awards for his excellence in research, teaching and service.

System network discussed by Prof. Christian Matthiessen

Plenary 6- SFLIG 2023, Day 3