Wednesday 18 November 2015

Misconstruing Extension As Elaboration

Martin (1992: 333):
Note that elaborations are included as single message parts (as with the centre of = the ring).

Blogger Comment:

The relation here is extension, not elaboration, because the centre is part of the ring and composition is one major category of extension that resonates across the entire linguistic system.  The reason why this type of error matters is that, on the discourse semantic model, instances involving extension are regarded as two message parts, not one, and such miscategorisations can have significant consequences on the outcome of text analysis.