According to linguistics scholars in Mexico, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is the next big thing for many in the field of systemic functional linguistics. The theory, created by University of Sydney Sociologist Professor Karl Maton, is changing the way linguists work and has made a significant impact in South Africa, USA, and China.
The linguists adopting LCT are using it to great social impact. Dr Yaegan Doran ran a two-day workshop in Puebla, Mexico before the Fourteenth Congress of the Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics of Latin America, at Benemérita Universidad de Autónoma Puebla, in early October 2018. He had these words to say about LCT in Mexico:
“For scholars in the field of systemic functional linguistics, LCT is the next big thing. There are many people with real-world problems – like falling literacy rates in indigenous populations in the south of Mexico, where there is significant societal change, and they’re looking for a means to both celebrate and develop indigenous knowledge while giving access to the Spanish-language knowledge. LCT gives them a way of doing both the macro understanding of ‘What is happening? How does this work?’ but also to filter it down to the micro understanding of being able to teach intricate, nuanced, literacy and knowledge practices.
“There is one person who is working with a local indigenous community in Oaxaca – Marievna Donají Vázquez Marcial. There are protest movements in the area with a lot of tension, injury, even death. They’re trying to build education in the area – not to deny the protests but to help, so their voices can be heard without violence. LCT is a way to build literacy and educational programs that can give voice and access to both indigenous and Spanish-based knowledge so the voices can be heard.”
While not every Mexican scholar was using LCT for social justice, they were using it to clarify not only their work but their discipline: “Lots of people work in disciplinary literacies, like architectural design or sciences, and particular educational programs – LCT is a way of being able to conceptualise the way their disciplines are organised.”
Dr Doran could not stress enough how popular this SSPS theory was at the pre-conference series of workshops. It has inspired the Mexican scholars he met with: “It was the biggest course there, and then two days in people said they wished they had gone to the course – it’s almost worth doing a course again at the end. It’s exciting, it’s getting bigger, people are excited and want to come to Sydney to learn. Every time we do this somewhere, there are more people, which sparks local centres, and when we return two years later [LCT has] exploded. I want to go back! It’s the Mexican and Chilean scholars who are leading the Spanish translation of LCT terminology.”
This popularity extended to the university itself: “Sydney University is very much the centre of all this. People genuinely want to come here. It’s the centre of the world field.”