Sunday 3 May 2015

Mistaking The Experiential Construal Of Participants For Textual Reference

Martin (1992: 111):
Where more experiential meaning is required, a common noun will be selected as Thing, and Numerative, Epithet, Classifier and Qualifier elements added as appropriate… . The choices that are relevant to the discussion at this point have to do with the Deictic function. If the interlocutor/non-interlocutor opposition is relevant to identifying the participant in question then demonstrative reference will be selected… . This opposes participants near (in the sense of what Halliday 1985: 160) calls "associated with") the interlocutors (this/these) with those less proximate (that/those). Where "proximity" to the interlocutors is not relevant the definite article the can be used to mark the identity of the participants as recoverable.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this confuses the (structurally realised) system of the nominal group that realises a participant (experiential metafunction) with the (non-structurally realised) system of reference (textual metafunction).

[2] To be clear, this confuses the (structurally realised) deictic system of the nominal group (interpersonal metafunction) with the (non-structurally realised) system of reference (textual metafunction).

[3] To be clear, this misunderstands the deictic distinction between these determiners and misrepresents it as a distinction in the system of reference.  The determiner distinction is between non-selective (the) and selective: near (this/these) vs far (that/those) specific deixis.

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