Discursive Power And The Evolutionarily Necessary Resolution Of Semiotic Tension Through Dynamic Openness

Martin (1992: 581):

Because coding orientations are variably realised, ideology will never be a question of this or that but one of more or less; and because these coding orientations distribute discursive power unevenly, there will always be semiotic tension in the community. The variable realisation of ideology provides the dynamic openness through which this tension can be resolved — it is a necessary condition for the system to evolve.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the confusion of variability in the linguistic realisation (semantic style) of one coding orientation with the different linguistic realisations (semantic variation) of different coding orientations; see earlier critique here.

[2] This continues the misconstrual of coding orientation as ideology; see earlier clarification here.

[3] Bernstein's coding orientations do not distribute (the undefined) "discursive power" — unevenly or evenly — and so this is not a cause of (the undefined) "semiotic tension in the community".  The codes are different uses of language by different social groups.  Halliday (1978: 106):

What Bernstein’s work suggests is that there may be differences in the relative orientation of different social groups towards the various functions of language in given contexts, and towards different areas of meaning that may be explored within a given function.

And these sub-cultural angles are functions of the social structure; Halliday (1978: 123):

This angle of vision is a function of the social structure. It reflects, in our society, the pattern of social hierarchy, and the resulting tensions between an egalitarian ideology and a hierarchical reality.

[4] Two claims are made here about the mistaken notion of "the variable realisation of ideology":

• it provides the dynamic openness through which semiotic tension can be resolved;
• it is a necessary condition for the system to evolve.

No evidence or argument is offered to support either of these bare assertions.

Misconstruing Bernstein's Coding Orientation As Ideology

Martin (1992: 581):

Perhaps the most that can be said at this stage is that from a synoptic perspective, ideology is a system of coding orientations which makes meaning selectively available depending on subjects' class, gender, ethnicity and generation.  Interpreted in these terms, all texts manifest, construe, renovate and symbolically realise ideology, just as they do language, register and genre.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confusion of ideology with coding orientation fixes ideology to the social co-ordinates of language users.  It should be obvious that speakers with similar social co-ordinates can project very different ideologies, and that speakers with very different social co-ordinates can project very similar ideologies.

[2] This misunderstands Martin's own model of stratification.  Taking (meta)metaredundancy into account, the claim — in Martin's terms only — should be:

• language (not text) realises the realisation of ideology in the realisation of genre in register.

[3] In SFL theory, the relation between texts and language, register and genre is neither manifestation, nor construal, nor renovation, nor symbolic realisation.  The relevant theoretical dimension, instead, is the vector of instantiation:

• text is a point of variation at the instance pole of instantiation, 
• register and genre are complementary perspectives on a midway point of variation on the cline of instantiation, and 
• language is the entire cline, since each point on the cline is a perspective on language.

Martin's Reasons For Not Devising Ideology Systems

Martin (1992: 580-1):

What are the implications of Hasan and Bernstein's work for the interpretation of ideology as system?  This is a question which is in some respects premature.  Work on mapping out the fashions of meaning constituting a culture at the level of ideology has only just begun (most of Hasan's own work in this area remains unpublished as of 1989). …

All of this is compounded by the fact that fashions of meaning and the more abstract notion of coding orientation need always to be interpreted in context — that is, with respect to the genre and register through which they are manifested.  Given our present understanding of these planes, this is a challenging task; and certainly not one for which even a provisional network of oppositions can be provided at this time.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The work of Hasan and Bernstein has no implications for the interpretation of ideology as system.  The reason for this is that neither work is concerned with ideology.  One way to define 'ideology' is as a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.  In contrast, from the perspective of SFL theory, Bernstein's work on codes is concerned with how social structures affect the semantics of registers, and Hasan's work is concerned with that semantic variation.

[2] The implication here is that Martin cannot devise an ideology system until Hasan has provided one that he can alter.

[3] This is misleading.  It misrepresents the work of Hasan and colleagues on semantic variation as framed within Martin's model of ideology.

[4] Given that Martin locates fashions of meaning and coding orientations on a contextual plane of ideology, this misconstrues lower levels in the stratification hierarchy as the context of higher levels.  This is the opposite of what the hierarchy represents.

Preparing To Misconstrue Bernstein's Codes As Ideology

Martin (1992: 576-7):

Basically Bernstein's suggestion […] is social class positions subjects to make meaning in distinctive ways depending on context.  Taking up Hallidays' (Thibault 1987: 620) terms quoted above, code "bifurcates" register, with the result that speakers from different classes (or generations, ethnicities and genders) construe context in different ways.  In Bernstein's own terms:

… I shall take the view that the code which the linguist invents to explain the formal properties of grammar is capable of generating any number of speech codes, and there is no reason for believing that any one language code is better than another in this respect. On this argument, language is a set of rules to which all speech codes must comply, but which speech codes are realised is a function of the culture acting through social relationships in specific contexts. (1971/1974: 197)

Without an interpretation of these divergent speech codes, or better, fashions of meaning, contextual theory does indeed run the danger of over-determining, homogenising and thereby reifying semiotic communities.  The notion of 'fashions of meaning' which has been used to relativise context here is based on work by Whorf who differentiated languages and cultures on the basis of different fashions of speaking …

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Bernstein's codes regulate the selection of meanings in the registers that realise situation types.  Halliday (1978: 67, 68):

In terms of our general picture, the codes act as determinants of register, operating on the selection of meanings within situation types: when the systemics of language — the ordered sets of options that constitute the linguistic system — are activated by the situational determinants of text (the field, tenor and mode […]), this process is regulated by the codes. …

It is important to avoid reifying the codes, which are not varieties of language in the sense that registers and social dialects are varieties of language. […] The code is actualised in language through register, the clustering of semantic features according to situation type. (Bernstein in fact uses the term ‘variant’, i.e. ‘elaborated variant’, to refer to those characteristics of a register that derive from the choice of code.) But the codes themselves are types of social semiotic, symbolic orders of meaning generated by the social system. Hence they transmit, or control the transmission of, the underlying patterns of a culture and subculture, acting through the primary socialising agencies of family, peer group and school.

[2] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Bernstein's 'fashions of speaking' are registerial varieties, at the level of semantics, as regulated by Bernstein's codes. Halliday (1978: 25):

The ‘fashions of speaking’ are sociosemantic in nature; they are patterns of meaning that emerge more or less strongly, in particular contexts, especially those relating to the socialisation of the child in the family.

[3] This misconstrues under-specifying as over-determining.

[4] This misconstrues under-specifying as homogenising.

[5] This misunderstands the meaning of 'reify'.  The meaning of reify is to convert into, or regard as, a concrete thing; that is, to metaphorically construe a phenomenon that is not a thing as a thing.  To claim that a community is not congruently a thing, is to claim that is either a quality, a process or a circumstance.  Of course, in using the word 'communities' Martin has construed the phenomenon as a thing himself.  On the basis of grammatical reactances, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 193) classify human collectives as things that are intermediate between conscious things and non-conscious semiotic things (institutions):

Human collectives: intermediate between conscious beings and institutions. These can function as Senser in figures of sensing of all kinds, including those embodying desideration; but they accept either singular or plural pronouns, and if singular pronominalise with it (e.g. the family says it is united/ the family say they are united).