Sunday 13 December 2015

Misrepresenting Interstratal Relations

Martin (1992: 379):
The interaction of discourse semantic and lexicogrammatical structures will be taken up in Chapter 6 below in an attempt to underline the way in which the two strata contribute independently, dependently and interdependently to the process whereby meanings are made as text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, the "interaction" between these two levels of symbolic abstraction, these two perspectives on the content plane, is realisation: either congruent or metaphorical.

[2] The logical relation of interdependency is irrelevant to interstratal relations; the only logical relation between strata is elaboration (the intensive relation of identity).  The notion of semantics and lexicogrammar being independent aligns with the Chomskyan view of 'autonomous syntax', which contradicts the previously espoused view of a natural relation between content strata.

[3] To clarify, the process whereby meaning potential becomes actualised as the meanings of a text is termed instantiation — the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements — as occurs during the semogenic process of logogenesis, the unfolding of the text.  Logogenesis occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.