Emeritus Professor Geoff Williams

BEd, MA(Hons), PhD(Linguistics)
Honorary Professor
Phone
+61 4 1754 0821
Fax
+61 2 9351 2606
Building/Room
A35 / 307
The University of Sydney
In addition to his honorary appointment with Sydney School of Education and Social Work, Geoff Williams is an Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where he was Head of the Department of Language and Literacy Education from 2005 to 2010. Prior to that, he held senior lecturer appointments at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Education (1979-1993) in the fields of Primary Education and English Language, and the Faculty of Arts, Department of English, in the English Language and Early English Literature section (1993-2005). He has been a regular Academic Visitor to several universities in China and Hong Kong. Geoff is a former Chair of both the Australian and International Systemic Functional Linguistics Associations. 
University Medal (MA thesis), University of Sydney
NSW Institute of Education Research Prize
  • Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada
  • Co-editor, Language, context and text: The social semiotics forum (John Benjamins) https://www.benjamins.com/catalog/langct
Book chapters
  • Williams, G. (2019). Language development. In Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine, David Schonthal (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (pp. 487–511), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Conference presentations
  • Williams, G. 2021. "Semantic variation theory as applicable linguistics. Presented at the Systemic Functional Linguistics Seminar Series, The University of Sydney, 10 September 2021.
  • Williams, G., Boyle, F., Bertula, I. and Thompson, J. 2021. "Effects of melanoma patient SES on communication during initial consultations and clinical trial recruitment", paper presented to the Melanoma Institute Australia Research Retreat, Sydney. 20 August 2021.
  • Williams, G., Boyle, F., Bertula, I. and Thompson, J. 2021. "Effects of melanoma patient SES on communication during initial consultations and clinical trial recruitment: Report 2", paper presented to the Melanoma Institute Australia Friday morning research meeting, Sydney. 24 November 2023.   
Effects of melanoma patient SES on communication during initial consultations. Geoff has recently completed this project with Professor Fran Boyle, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney and Melanoma Institute Australia, Dr Iris Batula and Jake Thompson, also of the Melanoma Institute Australia. The project was funded by The Friends of the Mater and the Melanoma Institute Australia. Additional to its practical contributions in healthcare, the project is designed to expand knowledge of semantic variation, a concept researched extensively by Professor Ruqaiya Hasan and Dr Carmel Cloran. It was extended into the child-literacy-development field through Geoff's research. Results of the Melanoma Institute study are being prepared for publication.
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