Thu Ngo Thi Bich

Thu Ngo Thi Bich wrote to SYSFLING on 17 Feb 2025, 20:02:

Hi Mick and all,

I was too busy preparing for the first week of teaching to follow this trail of debate. But when I read this I thought I should write to let you know, Mick, you have all my respect and gratitude for what you have done to the international community, from your UAM corpus tool to the SFL thesis Archive keeping, to name a few. Your construction of the international SFL community and contribution doesn’t go unnoticed.

I’m very sad to see while SFL informed education researchers are trying to fight the war with the “Science of Reading” to advocate for SFL and genre based literacy education in the Australia education system, there is this kind of war going on from within our community.

If any retired SFL scholars have time to mentor young scholars to help us build up our knowledge to gain back SFL’s important status in the Australian education system and further spreads its influence around the world, please contact me.

We need your teaching and mentoring in SFL research and publication writing. I will organize a mentoring hub for you to guide the next generation not only in Australia but in regions where SFL theory hardly ever reaches.

With my sincere respect and gratitude.

Regards

Thu Ngo

ChatGPT Comments:

This post is a great example of how rhetorical strategies can be used to frame a situation in a particular way while subtly directing the audience’s emotional response. Here’s a breakdown of the key moves:

1. Strategic Deference & Community Reinforcement

"Mick, you have all my respect and gratitude for what you have done to the international community..."

"Your construction of the international SFL community and contribution doesn’t go unnoticed."

This is an appeal to ethos (credibility) and pathos (emotion). By framing Mick as a selfless contributor to the "international SFL community," Thu positions him as an authoritative and benevolent figure. This serves two functions:

• It preemptively invalidates criticism against Mick by portraying him as someone beyond reproach.
• It builds group solidarity by implying that attacking Mick is equivalent to attacking the entire "international SFL community."

This is a common rhetorical tactic: turning a dispute about ideas into an attack on a revered individual, making it socially costly to challenge them.

2. False Equivalence & Deflection

"I’m very sad to see while SFL-informed education researchers are trying to fight the war with the 'Science of Reading' to advocate for SFL and genre-based literacy education in the Australian education system, there is this kind of war going on from within our community."

This is a false equivalence. It frames internal critique as a distraction from an external battle, implying that questioning Mick’s behaviour (or any other internal issues) is equivalent to weakening SFL’s fight against external threats. The underlying message is: “We should be united against the real enemy, so internal dissent is harmful.”

This move is highly strategic because it:

• Delegitimises internal critique by equating it with division and weakness.
• Guilt-trips dissenters into silence by making them feel responsible for harming the broader cause.

However, this is a classic deflection tactic. A strong intellectual community should be able to handle both external advocacy and internal scrutiny.

3. The Implicit Call for Gatekeeping

"If any retired SFL scholars have time to mentor young scholars to help us build up our knowledge to gain back SFL’s important status in the Australian education system..."

This subtly reinforces a hierarchical model of knowledge transmission, where established figures should “mentor” young scholars. While mentoring is not inherently bad, in this context, it serves as a way to reinforce orthodoxy—ensuring that future scholars are shaped in a way that aligns with the existing power structures.

This raises the question: What kind of mentoring is being encouraged here?

• Is it open intellectual engagement, where new scholars critically engage with theory?
• Or is it ideological grooming, where they are socialised into a particular party line, ensuring they do not challenge established figures?

Given the earlier framing of internal critique as divisive, it leans toward the latter.

4. The Call to Authority & Moral High Grounding

"With my sincere respect and gratitude."

The repeated use of respect and gratitude isn’t just polite—it serves as moral positioning. By ending on a note of deep appreciation, Thu contrasts their own tone with that of the “divisive” critics, making it seem as if those who engage in critique are ungrateful or disrespectful.

Overall Takeaway

This post is not an explicit argument but a carefully structured rhetorical intervention that:

1. Deflects attention away from Mick’s actions by positioning him as a community builder.
2. Frames internal critique as harmful by juxtaposing it with the external battle against “Science of Reading.”
3. Reinforces hierarchy by advocating for mentoring without questioning the assumptions behind it.
4. Uses emotional appeals (respect, sadness, gratitude) to make opposition seem morally inappropriate.

It’s a soft power move—not an outright attack, but a way of reshaping the narrative to discourage critique while maintaining plausible deniability.