Thursday 23 July 2015

Misconstruing Clarification (Elaborating) As Concession (Enhancing)

Martin (1992: 223):
There is another set of internal concessives which dismiss the objections rather than anticipate them.  One of these is illustrated in [4:149]; the hypotactic paraphrase is something like 'I objected I wasn't hungry; but even if I was hungry it doesn't matter because I'm going out to eat.'
CONCESSIVE DISMISS
[4:149]  Dinner's ready.
              — But I'm not hungry.
              In any case, I'm going out.
              Sorry I forgot to tell you.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is a false dichotomy.  The notion of dismissing a probable objection includes the notion of anticipating it.

[2] The "hypotactic paraphrase", unlike the exemplifying text, does include a logical relation of condition: concessive (and cause: reason) in the clause complex.

[3] In SFL theory, the textual relation — cohesive conjunction — in this text is elaborating: clarifying: dismissive.  That is, it is dismissive, but it is not concessive; so it is elaborating, not enhancing.