It is with deep regret that we inform you of the death of Lynne Young who passed away peacefully Wednesday, November 7, 2018 surrounded by family.
Professor Lynne Young first joined SLaLS in 1976 as an instructor. She later went on to complete a PhD at Leuven in Belgium in the area of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). A book based on her dissertation “Language as Behaviour, Language as Code: A study of academic English” was published in 1990. After completing her PhD, Lynne continued to work in SLaLS as an Assistant Professor and, over the next 25 years, established herself as one of North America’s main authorities in both SFL and Critical Discourse Analysis. Later in her career, Lynne developed an interest in the multimodal aspects of discourse:
“Having written and taught in this area for more than ten years it became increasingly evident that when we speak about discourse we now have to include non-verbal communication and the role of verbal and non-verbal modalities. My research into and teaching of Multimodality focuses on the many different semiotic resources that are used to make meanings in different discursive situations.”
Lynne served as Assistant Director for the Degree Division of the School from 1996 to 2002 and Acting Director of the School for 2010/11. She retired in 2013.
Lynne was a highly valued colleague, teacher and mentor, and will be deeply missed.
A Memorial Service for Lynne will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 11 at Temple Israel (1301 Prince of Wales Drive).