Problems With The Non-Argument For Genre As Context

Martin (1992: 502):

As noted above, the fact that notions of purpose and effect do not correlate with any one metafunctional component of language and have been associated with different variables in the development of register theory suggests that a teleological perspective on text function might be better set up as superordinate to — rather than alongside or incorporated in — field, mode and tenor.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is manifestly untrue.  Notions of purpose (Fawcett 1980) and effects (Firth 1950) were not 'associated with different variables in the development of register theory'.  Each was featured in  early models of context.

[2] This misunderstands stratification.  The term 'superordinate' misconstrues relations between strata as a relationship of hyponymy (delicacy), instead of symbolic identity (realisation); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

[3] The argument here for establishing genre as a contextual stratum is as follows:

• Premiss 1: Because notions of purpose and effect do not correlate with one metafunction only, and
• Premiss 2: because purpose and effect have been associated with different variables in the development of register theory,
• Conclusion: it follows that a teleological perspective on text function might be modelled as "superordinate" to field, mode and tenor.

As noted in [1] and [2] above, Premiss 2 features an untruth, and the Conclusion mistakes stratification for hyponymy.  Leaving these aside, the conclusion does not follow from the premisses. This is because the number of metafunctions and the different theorisings of purpose and effect are entirely irrelevant to the question of levels of symbolic abstraction in the stratificational hierarchy.

[4] Teleology has its Western philosophical origins in Aristotle, who 'believed in purpose as the fundamental concept in science' (Russell 1961: 90).  However, it ceased to be part of scientific explanation with the rise of science in the 17th Century.  As Bertrand Russell (1961: 523) makes clear:

Another thing that resulted from science was a profound change in the conception of man's place in the universe. … Moreover purpose, which had since Aristotle formed an intimate part of the conception of science, was now thrust out of scientific procedure. … The world might have a purpose, but purposes could no longer enter into scientific explanations.