I am somewhat astonished by Craig's response to Ed Shuster's question
about work on the acquisition of writing along the lines of K. Perera in
the 1980s.

Craig writes:

 We have a rather astounding lack of research in the area, perhaps
because for a few decades or so the prevailing view has been that
language is primarily "acquired". 

*********************************

The work by Perera in the 1980s makes this point, and, if you actually
read this work, you
will find that she actually cites linguistic structures which are
relatively "late" (after the age of 12) in
children's writing. I have read nothing by people working in systemic
functional linguistics which provides the specificity of "late" acquired
structures in the work of Perera.  Several years ago Craig reported on
this list that he had just heard about Perera's work at
an ATEG conference for the first time.  

I'm surprised that he apparently still has not read any of her work.

************
In the  field of second language acquisition, there is an entire
subdiscipline called English for Special Purposes that focuses on the
discipline specific language.  

However, I have no special expertise to do the following, and I wonder
if anyone on this list does.

   Certain kinds of structures tend to be valued in certain registers,
sometimes without the kind of reflectiveness that would call some of
that into question. So we need to think about both sides of this. What
can we offer various technical disciplines that would help improve
their own discourse and how can we help students make the language
adjustments they need to make to do well in those worlds.

**************
This is couched in such a high level of generality that is difficult to
figure out what Craig thinks we can "offer various technical disciplines
that would help improve their own discourse."  

Perhaps, Craig can give us an example of a "technical discipline" whose
discourse needs assistance and the kind of assistance he would offer, so
we can get a sense of his program of work.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri 

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