Conclusions
Strata in Systemic Functional Linguistics - Levels, Layers, Planes, Domains - Elissa D. Asp
Elissa D. Asp [+]
Saint Mary's University
Elissa D. Asp is Professor of English and Linguistics, and Coordinator of Linguistics at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, NS. She was educated at Glendon College and York University in Toronto, where she specialized in linguistic description of discourse and linguistic theory. She is interested in functional and formal theories of language and developing models that elucidate language processing in context. Ongoing research addresses three main areas: (1) language and discourse correlates of dementias, especially neurodegenerative diseases associated with ageing; (2) MEG studies of neurocognitive networks supporting language and discourse processing; (3) theoretical implications of these studies for models of language.
Description
The conclusion summarises the main points. Strata are here to stay. However, there is a need to revisit relations between the various ‘levels’ that get represented as strata in SFL models and to ask whether some strata (such as discourse and context) mightn’t or couldn’t be better described by other constructs. At issue is the need to continue to develop the view of language as a dynamic open system embedded in socio-cultural contexts but also change, where change is warranted especially by changing understanding of socio-cognitive and neurobiological contexts and the intersections of these with socio-cultural contexts.