Tuesday 5 January 2016

Misrepresenting The Grammatical Realisation Of Discourse Semantic Ideation

Martin (1992: 403):
IDEATION, as was noted in Chapter 5, is realised through experiential grammar systems (including the LOGICO-SEMANTICS of the clause complex) and is strongly correlated with field.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Realisation statements specifying how ideation is realised in these grammatical systems are not provided.

[2] The realisation of the experiential discourse system of ideation in the logical relations of the clause complex was not discussed in Chapter 5. As the summarising Table 5.26 (p373) makes clear, the system of ideation is said to be realised in the lexicogrammar by transitivity, group rank experiential grammar, lexis as delicate grammar and collocation. The same table identifies the logical discourse semantic system of conjunction as that which is realised by the logico-semantics and interdependency of the clause complex.

The discussion of clause complex relations in Chapter 5 was restricted to temporal relations (p323-5), and these were said to realise the field system 'activity sequence', whose feature options were expectancy (realised by and (then) versus implication (realised by if/then).  (See the relevant critiques for an analysis of most of the inconsistencies involved.)  No experiential discourse semantic system was identified in the discussion.

[3] In SFL theory, the realisation of the contextual system of field in ideational meaning and wording varies according to register.