Dr Alice Caffarel

PhD (University of Sydney), BA Honours (University of Sydney), D.E.U.G Anglais-Portugais (Université de Bordeaux III)
Senior Lecturer
Room 743, A18 Christopher Brennan Building

+61 2 9351 3378

Alice Caffarel has been teaching French and Linguistics in the Department of French Studies for the past 10 years. Her main research interests are the grammar and semantics of spoken and written French, register variation, stylistics and language typology. She has developed a systemic functional description of the grammar of French which she has applied to the teaching of French, discourse analysis, stylistics and linguistics in the Department of French Studies and has recently published a co-edited book on language typology which explores the clause grammar of eight languages, covering seven language families. Her Systemic Functional Interpretation of French Grammar was published by Continuum in 2006.

• Systemic functional linguistics
• French grammar and semantics
• Discourse analysis
• Register variation and semantic variation
• Stylistics
• Computational linguistics
• Language Typology
• The role and use of functional grammar in the teaching of French
• Computer-mediated language teaching and learning

• Long-term project
  Ongoing description of the grammatical systems and structure of French from a systemic functional perspective
• Current projects
  The News project: multilingual case studies of the news media in various countries in relation to events in the Middle East
• The Linguistic Construal of Existential Reality in French texts: this project aims to understand how new world views are created through verbal art and propagated in everyday language. It explores how an existential reality is construed through linguistic patterning in the novels of Camus, Sartre and De Beauvoir; and also focuses on personal correspondence between De Beauvoir and Alice Caffarel’s mother between 1964 and 1984, to explore the degree to which the linguistic patterning of De Beauvoir’s public works extends into her private interactions
• French text analyser: Developing tools for the semi-automatic analysis of French texts in Systemic Functional terms

Books

Caffarel, A. 2006. A systemic functional interpretation of French grammar: from grammar to discourse. Continuum Publishing: London

"The consistent interplay between theoretical and applied pursuits has always been a defining feature of systemic functional theory: This kind of mutual enrichment is clearly demonstrated in Alice Caffarel's work. The result is a description which penetrates to the heart of language, revealing it at one and the same time as a specimen of the human semiotic and a unique resource for the continuous creation of meaning." Professor M.A.K. Halliday writing in the Preface

Caffarel & J.R. Martin & C.M.I.M Matthiessen (eds). 2004. Language Typology: a functional perspective. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Benjamins: Amsterdam

Caffarel, A. 2004. 'A metafunctional profile of French' . In Caffarel, Martin & Matthiessen (eds). Language Typology: a functional perspective. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Benjamins: Amsterdam, 77-138

Caffarel, A. 2004. ‘ The construal of a second-order semiosis in Camus’ Létranger’. In Text and Texture: Systemic Functional viewpoints on the nature and structure of text. edited by David Banks. L’Harmattan: Paris, 537-570

Caffarel, A. 2000. 'Interpreting French Theme as a Bi-layered Structure: Discourse Implications'. In Discourse and community: Doing Functional Linguistics. Eija Ventola (ed.). Gunter Narr Verlag: Tübingen, 247-272

Caffarel, A. 1996/1999. ‘Approaching the French clause as a move in dialogue, interpersonal organisation'. In R. Hasan & P. Fries (eds) Subject and Theme: from the perspective of functions in discourse. Benjamins:Amsterdam

Caffarel, A. 1997. 'Models of Transitivity in French, a systemic-functionl interpretation'. In A-M Simon-Vandenbergen, K.Davidse & D.Noël (eds) Reconnecting Language. Benjamins: Amsterdam

Book Chapters

Caffarel, A and Rechniewski, E. 2008. "Ideological opposition in news stories: a French case study." In E. Thomson and P. White (eds.), Communicating Conflict: Multilingual Case Studies of the Rhetoric of the News Media. Continuum: London.

Teruya, Akerejola, Andersen, Caffarel, Lavid, Matthiessen, Petersen, Patpong and Smedegaard. 2008. "Typology of MOOD: a text-based and system-based functional view." In Continuing Discourse on Language. A Functional Perspective Volume 2. Equinox: London.

Caffarel, A. 2007. "Learning Advanced French through SFL; Learning SFL in French." In H. Byrnes (ed.), Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky. Continuum: London.

Articles

Caffarel, A. 1992. 'Interacting between a generalized tense semantics and register-specific semantic tense systems: a bi-stratal exploration of the semantics of French tense'. In Language Sciences 14.4

Teaching

• French language, Functional linguistics, stylistics, discourse analysis and applied linguistics

Supervision

• Theoretical and applied linguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Language Typology, Discourse analysis, Stylistics, First and Second language development

• Regularly attends national and international systemic functional conferences in Europe, Latin America and Asia
• Co-organizer of ISFC2005 - the 32nd International Systemic Functional Congress, held at the Universtiy of Sydney in July 2005.