Self-Contradiction

Martin (1992: 501):

In broad terms the development of work on register and context reviewed above can be interpreted in terms of a gradual de-materialising and concomitant semioticising of frameworks for relating language to situation (see in particular Hasan's 1977, 1979, 1985/1989 use of contextual features to generate text structure).

Blogger Comment:

This is inconsistent with Martin's own claim (p497) that the early work of Firth (1950, 1957b, 1957c) developed context 'more abstractly as a level of language'.  The confusion of semiotic context with material setting is Martin's, as demonstrated here, here, here and here.  The material and semiotic are distinct orders of experience.