Plenary speakers at ESFLC34

John A. Bateman

Professor of Linguistics and English at Bremen University 

"The ‘othering’ of non-verbal semiotic modes: critical reassessments of where the boundaries lie and some consequences for linguistic description"

Although it is commonplace for SFL to consider its domain of application to be far ‘broader’ than language as traditionally defined (i.e., within linguistics), it is equally commonplace for SFL discussions to employ phrasing such as “language and other semiotic modes” as if the divisions and boundaries were clear or of little consequence. In contrast, current results from neurocognition, interaction studies, multimodal semiotics, and more show considerable converging evidence that such boundaries, particularly those assumed between the verbal and the non-verbal, need reassessment. In this talk I offer a brief overview of some of this work, relating accounts to the current state of proposals concerning multimodality and how to treat it. Of particular concern, however, will be potential consequences of these developments for the tasks of linguistic description: i.e., just what does a linguistic description, at any stratum, need to capture and what it can (and perhaps should) safely leave to ‘other’ semiotic systems. Drawing on examples including gesture, body posture, sequences of static pictorial content, dance, formal notations, and diagrams, I will suggest that some forms of expression thought of as ‘multimodal’ may not actually be multimodal at all, but simply be single modes engaging with far more complex materialities than has hitherto been done justice to. Conversely, some forms of expression treated similarly to language, may be sufficiently different to demand treatments quite distinct to those found in language descriptions. These points will be illustrated with closer reference to current proposals for the SFL description of context as well as to the relation of descriptions to materiality. 

Annabelle Lukin

Professor of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney 

"Is theory necessary in the climate crisis?"

Linguistics is a fragmented discipline. It has a plethora of subdisciplines (e.g. psycho-; socio-; cognitive-; eco-; critical discourse analysis) where we find largely irreconcilable or contradictory debates and proposals about the nature of language and the key challenges of our discipline. Each subfield has its own professional association, its own conferences, its own journals. We have disagreed on what language is, how it evolved, how it should be studied, its internal organization and its externalities, its relations with ‘reality’.

As our academic practices continue to contribute to dangerous climate pollution (Bjørkdahl & Duharte, 2022), it is timely to ask ourselves does linguistic theory matter in the climate crisis? This question was recently asked by Steffensen, Döring and Cowley (Steffensen et al., 2024). Sparked by Greta Thunberg’s statement ‘I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is’, they wondered whether discussions of theory still matter. The conclude in favour of more theoretical reflections: they propose ‘abandon[ing] the baggage of twentieth-century linguistic theory’ (at least, their reading of this ‘baggage’), in favour of their particular reframing of ecolinguistic theory, where ‘languages and languaging are seen as ecological phenomena’ (p26).

Yet some of the most important language analysis on climate has proceeded with little help from our discipline. For example, the work by climate scientist Geoffrey Supran and historian Naomi Oreskes (Supran & Oreskes, 2021a; Supran et al., 2023; Supran & Oreskes, 2021b), on the discourses of denial and delay by American oil giants has produced litigable evidence on how ExxonMobil misled the public on the dangers of burning fossil fuels (Milman, 2023). Further, two major new multi-disciplinary publications, Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment (with contributions from over 100 academics), and The Routledge Handbook on Climate Crisis Communications (edited by a sociologist and a climate scientist) explore problems of climate communication and disinformation without any input from academics from linguistics. The work closest to our field in these two volumes is conducted by scholars in journalism/media, communication, psychology, and environmental education (see e.g. Aronczyk et al., 2025; Stecula et al., 2025; Russill & Alrasheed, 2025; Nero & Lejano, 2025; Nero & Lejano, 2025).

Moreover, climate activism – for example, Australia’s Rising Tide movement that has organized in successive years the largest climate mobilizations in Australia’s history (viz the People’s Blockade of the world’s largest coal port, 2023, 2024, 2025), and has a strong and clear media strategy – proceeds without the need for linguistic theory or analysis.

All of this non-linguistic work is predicated on the growing power of language and meaning (Halliday, 2003a; Lukin, 2024). My presentation will reflect on these examples of direct analysis, intervention and mobilization around climate, and will consider how and why they bypass our discipline. My paper will consider what we can learn from this non-linguistic academic work on language and this activism. In doing so, I reflect on one of Halliday’s most obscure but insightful claims, a part of what I have called his ‘reality triptych’ (Lukin, In press): that in the relations of language to reality, as well as being part of reality and a construer of reality, language is a metaphor for reality (Halliday, 2003b).