Misrepresenting Hasan On Text Structure

Martin (1992: 504-5):

For Hasan, text structure is the realisation of choices made from among the options constituting a culture's field, mode and tenor (each permissable [sic] combination of choices is referred to by Hasan as a contextual configuration).  In practice, obligatory elements of structure appear to derive from field, with variations in generic structure controlled by tenor and mode.  This means that there is a strong association between field, text structure and genre.  As Hasan (1985/1989: 61) puts it:

by implication, the obligatory elements define the genre to which a text belongs; and the appearance of all these elements in a specific order corresponds to our perception of whether the text is complete or incomplete.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents Hasan (1985: 59-63) in a way that encourages a misreading of the provided quote, and in a way that suits Martin's proposed model of text structure. In describing a particular service encounter, Hasan (1985: 60) writes of the first obligatory element, SALES REQUEST: 'Its occurrence is predicted mainly because of field values' and of the second, SALES COMPLIANCE: 'The motivation for SC is to be found in field and tenor values'.  Hasan associates none of the other three obligatory elements (SALE, PURCHASE and PURCHASE CLOSURE) with a specific contextual value.

[2] This also misrepresents Hasan (1985: 59-63) in a way that encourages a misreading of the provided quote, and in a way that suits Martin's proposed model of text structure.  Hasan (1985: 60) relates optional elements to contextual configurations (field, tenor and mode), not merely to tenor and mode:

So, while optional elements do not occur randomly, their optionality arises from the fact that their occurrence is predicted by some attribute of a CC that is non-defining for the CC and to the text type embedded in that CC.

[3] Given the false representations of Hasan above, the singling out of field here is misleading.  On Hasan's model, the structure of a text of a particular type (genre), realises the field, tenor, and mode values that make up a contextual configuration.