Semiotics of peace compassion and empathy

“This intention [of living NVC] is supported by becoming a part of an NVC community or creating one of your own choosing -- if not a regional community, then a virtual community for a special interest group, such as parenting, education, business, or social change”

CPP 2016:22

Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association, A Special Interest Group in the Semiotics of Peace, Compassion and Empathy (SIG SPCE)

Established at the ASFLA AGM in 2021, with its inaugural meeting held on 1 Dec, 2021

As a linguist and an NVC practitioner, I wanted to create a special interest group which furthered our understadning of NVC through semiotic enquiry. After presenting a proposal to the ASFLA AGM in 2021, the members voted on the formation of a Special Interest Group (SIG) dedicated to ‘researching and understanding the registers of peace and compassion’. This was an important moment for me as I had wanted to establish a community of like-minded, interested Systemic Functional scholars who are keen to cooperate in analysing, disseminating and promoting genres of peace, empathy and compassion to the wider community. And so under the auspices of ASFLA, the inaugural meeting of the SIG was held Dec 1, 2021 via zoom. We had 18 attendees from Australia, South East Asia, Europe and South America. The main purpose of the meeting was to establish the SIG's identity, vision and mission statements.

Our motto:

Moving towards peace through semiotic enquiry

Identity Statement:

We are home to a diverse group of enthusiastic scholars, citizen linguists, teachers and students, working within the tradition of systemic functional semiotics. We collectively seek to understand, promote and raise awareness of the specific functions of language and other semiotic resources to express peace, compassion and empathy in everyday life and in other theatres of social engagement.

Vision Statement:

To empower and improve all lives, we examine and celebrate the semiotics of peace, compassion and empathy through collaboration and research, teaching and training. 

Mission Statement

To realise our vision, we will:

1. Identify, analyse and instantiate genres of peace, compassion and empathy
   - by, for example, reading, discussing and creating texts in different professional, disciplinary and community contexts

2. Share our findings on the semiotics of peace, compassion and empathy
   - through research, conference sessions, special issues, community outreach and other means of dissemination

3. Apply our findings to inform the development of curricula, courses, and training resources oriented towards the language and other semiotic resources of peace, compassion and empathy and mentor junior researchers and teachers in the implementation of these resources.

4. Extend and help resource the work on meaning-making practices and the communication of peace, compassion and empathy
   - by, for example, mentoring junior colleagues, researchers, students, and communities in writing grant proposals; conducting linguistic/discourse/semiotic analyses; collaborating in research projects; hosting reading–writing groups

5. Connect and collaborate with other disciplines, groups, organisations, and communities of practice that practise, research and promote peace, compassion and empathy

6. Provide professional commentary on matters relevant to public discourses of peace and compassion.

To date I have made a number of contributions to the SIG SPCE:

• I coordinate the quarterly meetings;

• have organised a Colloquium on the peace, compassion and empathy at the ASFLA Conference at Macquarie University, 2022;

• have offered a workshop on empathy in NVC at Macquarie University;

• am coordinating a Special Issue of the Journal, Language, Context and Text ;

• and offered a presentation at the IDEAS Research Group, University of Wollongong on March 8, 2023.ET’s presentation flyer on empathy

My outputs include:

Thomson, E.A. Building Resilience Using the Semiotics of Empathy, Pre-conference Workshop, ASFLA Conference 2022, Macquarie University, 22 Sept, 2022.

Thomson, E.A. Exploring empathy as Participant, Process and a social semiotic act of connection, affiliation and acceptance, Colloquium: The semiotics of peace, compassion and empathy in our changing world, ASFLA Conference 2022, Macquarie University, 23 Sept, 2022, and later at University of Wollongong at the IDEAS Group Seminar series, 8 March, 2023.

Thomson, E.A. and S. Abdelmawgoud, Applying the elements of gamification to three online language courses, underpinned by the Teaching Learning Cycle, ASFLA Conference 2022, Macquarie University, 24 Sept, 2022

Thomson, E.A. Working towards a Systemic Functional description of the word ‘empathy‘, Reading Group #2, ASFLA Special Interest Group, Semiotics of Peace, Compassion and Empathy, 12 August. 2022.

Thomson, E.A. Empathic listening as a social semiotic practice within the tradition of Nonviolent Communication: An analysis of choices in thematic progression and information structure, Reading Group #5, ASFLA Special Interest Group, Semiotics of Peace, Compassion and Empathy, 6 October. 2023. Article to be published in the Special Issue of the Journal, Language, Context and Text in March 2024.