Misunderstanding System Architecture And Dynamics

Martin (1992: 582):

Martin [1986] suggested as part of a model for dealing with ideology in crisis as system involving two axes: protagonist/antagonist and left/right. […] In general terms the systemic oppositions are outlined below; as far as the dynamics of ideology are concerned these are best treated as genuine oppositions, not simply as alternative choices within a system.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands system architecture.  In terms of SFL theory, the system network (Fig. 7.28) involves two simultaneous (conjunctively related) systems.  The term 'axis', on the other hand, refers to the distinction between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions: i.e. system vs structure.

[2] This misunderstands system architecture and dynamics.  Alternative choices (features) in systems are "genuine" oppositions, and the dynamics of the system is its instantiation (the selection of options and the activation of their realisation statements).

Misrepresenting Martin (1992)

Martin (1992: 574):

The first point that needs to be made is that the interpretation of language and context here is indeed multi-structural and polysystemic.  System/structure theory has been re-involved in the description on a number of different levels — rank, stratum and plane — most of which involve metafunctional diversity and so can be analysed simultaneously as particle, wave and prosody; in addition, synoptic and dynamic perspectives on text as system and text as process have been introduced.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, context is interpreted here as types of language, rather than as context, with the result that, being context, these types of language are not considered language.

[2] This is misleading, in that it overstates what has actually been done.  Almost none of the systems that Martin has provided specifies structural realisations.  This is partially disguised by the fact that some networks do include realisation statements; however, these merely provide textual instances of the feature.

• Of Martin's 49 discourse semantic system networks, across four metafunctions, only 4 specify structural realisations, and all are confined to the interpersonal metafunction.
• Of Martin's 11 register system networks, not one specifies any structural realisations; that is, no register structures are specified by register systems.
• Martin provides 0 genre systems — only taxonomies of types (factual and story genres); that is, no genre structures are specified by genre systems.

[3] This is misleading, in that it overstates what has actually been done.  Martin has not provided a rank scale for his planes of register and genre, and in the case of the stratum of discourse semantics, only one of the four metafunctional systems, the interpersonal, includes a rank scale: exchange and move.  The ranks discussed in the experiential dimension of discourse semantics — the clause and group — are ranks of a different stratum: lexicogrammar. 

[4] The level that does not involve metafunctional diversity is genre.  Metafunction is thus another dimension in which the model is inconsistent with the architecture of SFL theory, which follows from the misinterpretation of genre as context.

[5] To be clear, these are the favoured modes of structural realisation only, varying according to metafunction.  Significantly, these were introduced in the section on genre, the plane without metafunctional diversity. 

[6] This confuses text with language.  Text is only the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.  Language is the entire cline, from systemic potential to actual instance, with every point on the cline providing a different perspective.

'Text as system', therefore, is the instantial system; i.e. the system of an actual text, not the system of the language as a whole.  It is the instance viewed from the system pole.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384): 

If we look at logogenesis from the point of view of the system (rather than from the point of view of each instance), we can see that logogenesis builds up a version of the system that is particular to the text being generated: the speaker/writer uses this changing system as a resource in creating the text; and the listener/reader has to reconstruct something like that system in the process of interpreting the text — with the changing system as a resource for the process of interpretation. We call this an instantial system.

'Text as process', on the other hand, is the process of instantiation that occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation during logogenesis.  As previously explained, Martin misconstrues 'process' as structure, the syntagmatic axis, "viewed dynamically".  That is, he confuses the instantiation of the system as instance with the axial realisation of the system as structure.

Misconstruing Language Sub-Potentials (Genres) As Context Potential (Culture)

Martin (1992: 560):

Linguists' concern with constituency at the level of genre has meant that questions of field, in Pike's sense of the term, have not been actively pursued.  Hasan's notion of generic structure potential does generalise across a range of text structures, determining their generic identity:

The property of structure is what allows us to distinguish between complete and incomplete texts on the one hand, and between different generic forms on the other.  With some oversimplification, the assumptions here can be stated as follows: associated with each genre of text — i.e. type of discourse — is a generalised structural formula, which permits an array of actual structures.  Each complete text must be a realisation of a structure from such an array.  The generic membership of the text is determined by reference to the structural formula to which the actual structure can be shown to belong.  (Hasan 1977: 229)

But Hasan has not attempted to develop these structure potentials in the direction of system/structure theory; and as noted above, the question of systemic relations among structure potentials does not really arise.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This invites the misinterpretation that such linguists also:

• misconstrue genre (language sub-potential) as a stratum of context (cultural potential), and
• misconstrue semantics (text structure) as genre (text type).

[2] To be clear, this is field, in Martin's misconstrual of Pike's sense of the term (as system rather than structure type).

[3] To be clear, as the quote makes plain, Hasan's generic structure potentials provide a generalised formula for a range of semantic structures of a given text type (genre).

[4] Hasan did not make systems of generic structural potentials because to do so would have been inconsistent with the rest of the architecture of SFL theory, since it would have confused the system pole of the cline of instantiation (semantic stratum potential) with the middle of the cline (genre/text type/register).

Prioritising Structure Over System

Martin (1992: 553):

The advantage of the dynamic perspective is that choices can be conditioned by the point reached in a text's development.  Keeping in mind Firth's comment that "The moment a conversation is started, whatever is said is a determining condition for what, in any reasonable expectation, may follow" (1935/1957: 31-2), this is an important perspective to keep in mind.

Blogger Comment:

Importantly, but apparently unknown to Martin, this reflects one crucial difference between Firthian Linguistics and the (Neo-Firthian) Systemic Functional Linguistics of Firth's student, Halliday.  For Firth, consistent with his quote above, entry conditions to systems of choice are specified syntagmatically, whereas for Halliday, entry conditions to systems of choice are specified paradigmatically.  Systemic Functional Linguistics, as the name implies, prioritises paradigmatic system over syntagmatic structure.

Misinterpreting Hasan And Proposing Theoretical Inconsistencies

Martin (1992: 551):

For Hasan, text structures are derived from generic structure potentials conditioned by choices in field, tenor and mode — with most of the optionality apparently determined by tenor and mode.  This suggests that systemic relationships among different text structures are equivalent to relationships among field, mode and tenor options; and the question of systemic relationships among generic structure potentials does not arise.  Challenging the first of these suggestions, and redressing the second, Martin (1985) suggests reformulating generic structure potentials as system networks and realisation rules as with Ventola's (1987: 15) reformulation of Mitchell above, proposing a speculative network and realisation rules for service encounters by way of illustrating how this might be done (Martin 1985: 253-4; Fig. 7.21 below).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Hasan (1985/9: 64), a generic structure potential is the structural potential of a text — as the largest unit of the semantic stratum — of a given genre (text type/register).  For Hasan, genres that share the same contextual configuration of field, tenor and mode features share the same structural potential at the level of semantics.  In SFL theory, the relation between context and semantics is realisation: context is a higher level of symbolic abstraction than semantics.

[2] This false inference derives from Martin's earlier false claim (see here) that Hasan associates obligatory elements of text structure with field (p546). For Hasan (1985/9: 62), the obligatory elements of text structure are the elements that define the genre (text type).

[3] This is a false inference in that it blurs important distinctions between the theoretical dimensions of axis, stratification and instantiation:

• The relation between structure (syntagmatic axis) and system (paradigmatic axis) is realisation; semantic structure realises semantic system.
• The relation between semantic stratum systems and context stratum systems is realisation, not equivalence.
• Different text structures are a matter of registerial (text type/genre) variation at the level of semantics.

[4] Martin (1985) is thus challenging his own misinterpretation of Hasan.

[5] The proposal here is to model registerial (text type/generic) variation in semantic structure as a system network at the level of context.  The confusion here is thus along two dimensions simultaneously:

• the cline of instantiation: system (potential) vs register (subpotential);
• stratification: context vs semantics.

[6] Ventola's network models registerial variation (service encounters) as a system network with semantic structure specified by realisation rules activated by the selection of features.  That is, it models subpotentials (registers) as potential (system) and specifies semantic structure as its realisation.

The network is thus inconsistent with the architecture of SFL theory in that it posits a midway point on the cline of instantiation (subpotential) as the systemic potential that specifies semantic structure.  According to the architecture of SFL theory, the systems that specify semantic structure are the systems of the semantic stratum (axially) and context (stratally).

Blurring The Distinction Between Realisation, Logogenesis And Instantiation

Martin (1992: 536-7):

Field is the contextual projection of experiential meaning and so alongside IDEATION puts at risk the clause rank systems TRANSITIVITY, CIRCUMSTANTIATION and AGENCY, as well as systems generating Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, Thing and Qualifier in nominal group structure and various other group/phrase systems, all of which need to be interpreted as embracing lexis as most delicate grammar; in addition, research into collocation patterns provides an important perspective on field's realisation (see Benson & Greaves 1981, 1992, forthcoming).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  Field is not the contextual projection of experiential meaning.  Field is the ideational dimension of context.  That is, it is application of the theoretical notion of the ideational metafunction to the culture as a semiotic system.

[2] As previously demonstrated, Martin's system of ideation, purported to be a model of experiential meaning on the discourse semantic stratum, is actually a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction at the level of grammar), lexis as most delicate grammar (lexicogrammatical delicacy), and logical relations between figure elements.

Martin here omits systems of the logical metfunction.  This would have required the inclusion of the discourse semantic system of conjunction, which, as previously demonstrated, is a confusion of clause complex relations (logical metafunction) and cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction), both of which are grammatical systems.

[3] Unhappily, the risk that semiotic systems face is never identified.

[4] To be clear, the clause rank system of transitivity includes the systems of agency and circumstantiation.  Circumstantiation refers to 'circumstantial transitivity' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 758).

[5] 'Systems generating structure' blurs the distinction between axial realisation, logogenesis and instantiation.  The relation between paradigmatic system and syntagmatic structure is realisation.  Structure realises system.  That is, they are in a relation of symbolic identity, with system as Value and structure as Token.

On the other hand, 'generating', in this sense, is modelled in SFL theory as logogenesis, the unfolding of text at the instance pole of cline of instantiation, as features are selected and realisation statements activated (the process of instantiation).

[6] This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar — as also demonstrated by its inclusion in Martin's model of experiential discourse semantics.  Lexis as most delicate grammar means that if grammatical networks were to be elaborated to sufficient delicacy, bundles of the most delicate features would specify individual lexical items — just as bundles of articulatory features specify individual phonemes.

[7] To be clear, collocation is a resource of lexical cohesion, and so represents a resource of the textual, not ideational metafunction.

Confusing Instantiation With Axial And Stratal Realisation

Martin (1992: 531):

Poynton's realisation principle for contact needs to be considered from the point of view of both system and process.  From the perspective of system, the relevant principle is proliferation; the degree of contact determines the predictability of meanings at risk — the less contact, the fewer the choices available and conversely, the more contact, the more options available to be taken up.  Alongside this is the process oriented principle of contraction; less contact means that the realisation of meanings selected has to be more explicit, whereas more contact means that more can be left unsaid.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, the term 'system' is shorthand for 'system-&-process'.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 507):

As we conceive of it, … the term “system” is a shortened form of “system–&–process”, there being no single word that encapsulates both the synoptic and dynamic perspectives … .

Previously, as demonstrated here, with regard to 'process', Martin has confused the instantiation process, both with the realisation relation between system and structure, and with structure itself.

[2] This is asserted without supporting evidence.  Such matters are decided by empirical research.

[3] The exact nature of the risk that meanings face is never actually specified.  To be clear, risk is the potential of gaining or losing something of value.

[4] This confuses realisation with instantiation.  The axial realisation of meaning is as semantic structure; the stratal realisation of meaning is as wording.  The selection of meaning is the instantiation process, at the level of semantics, during logogenesis (the unfolding of the text).

Under-Acknowledging Hasan As Theoretical Source

Martin (1992: 517-8):

With this reservation in mind, a preliminary grid can be established as in Table 7.5 — with exemplary texts noted (Hasan 1985/9: 58 uses the opposition ancilliary [sic] / constitutive to establish a closely related continuum). 

This grid distinguishes field-structured from genre-structured texts and subclassifies field-structured texts according to how much of the social action is constructed by language. 

Texts in which most of the social action is realised non-verbally are referred to as ancilliary [sic]; texts in which most of the social action is realised linguistically are further divided into those in which language monitors what is going on (e.g. sports commentary), those in which it reconstructs what has gone on (e.g. biography) and those in which the language generalises about what goes on (e.g. recipes).

Genre-structured texts are divided into those which review field-structured texts (e.g. movie reviews), and so are partially determined by their activity sequences, and theoretical texts which are not organised around a sequence of events in any respect (e.g. editorials).  This scale arranges texts with respect to iconicity and the amount of ideational meaning that needs to be made explicit to realise the field.

Blogger Comments:

[1] More accurately, Hasan's (1985) ancillary/constitutive distinction is the source of Martin's (1992) theorising here.

[2] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Martin is classifying text types (registers/genres) according to how semantic structure varies with the mode features of situation types (context). That is, three theoretical dimensions are entangled here:

• stratification (context realised by semantics),
• axis (system realised by structure), and
• instantiation (text types and situation types)

[3] A recipe does not "generalise about what goes on".  As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 356) point out, a recipe is a procedural text, a 'macro-operation consisting of a number of micro-operations'.

[4] To be clear, a movie review of a text is a review of just the script of a movie.

[5] An editorial is merely an opinion piece.  The classification of an opinion piece as a theoretical text is consistent with Martin's approach to theory, as demonstrated over and over again by these critiques.

Eight Problems With The Third Justification For A Genre Stratum

Martin (1992: 506):

(iii) Making genre rather than register variables responsible for generating schematic structure makes it easier to handle changes in experiential, interpersonal and textual meaning from one stage to another in a text.  There are many text types where this occurs: a teacher may shift fields to explain a point by analogy; a salesperson will manipulate tenor in order to close a sale; sports commentators shift rhythmically from play to play description to critique and evaluation.  Underlying register, genre can be used to predict these changes, stage by stage, while at the same time accounting for a text's overall coherence.  Halliday and Hasan's (1976: 23) observation about coherent texts being "consistent in register" cannot in other words be interpreted literally as "the same register throughout"; rather the text must be motivated by its register, changes in which can in turn be motivated by genre.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The use of 'generating' here confuses semogenesis with the realisation relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes.  The relation of system to structure on a given stratum is one of realisation; system is a higher level of symbolic abstraction than structure.  Generation, on the other hand, is the unfolding of text, logogenesis, at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.  This is a departure from previous confusions of semogenesis and realisation, which involve the realisation relation between strata, rather than axes.

[2] To be clear, by 'register variables' Martin means the metafunctional systems of context: field, tenor and mode.

[3] The claim here is that contextual changes of field, tenor and mode during the logogenesis of texts are easier to "handle" if the text structure of text types (genres) is modelled as a higher level of symbolic abstraction than the culture as semiotic system. The problems with this model include:

• one aspect of semantics, text structure, is removed from semantics and relocated to a level even more abstract than context (the culture as a semiotic);
• the stratification model is reversed: semantics (text structure) is realised by context (field, tenor and mode);
• cultural context (field, tenor, and mode — misconstrued as register) is modelled as the interface between two levels of language, in Martin's model: between genre and discourse semantics.

[4] Martin's claim that his higher stratum (genre) underlies his lower stratum (register) betrays his misunderstanding of stratification.

[5] This again reverses the relation between strata.  Contextual changes of field, tenor and mode during the logogenesis are realised in changes in text structure at the level of semantics.

[6] The coherence of a text is not accounted for by an incoherent model.

[7] This is misleading in a way that suits Martin's argument.  The interpretation is not Halliday and Hasan's, though Martin's use of quotation marks invites this attribution.

[8] In addition to all the above-mentioned inconsistencies, this presents the relation between strata as one of motivation rather than realisation.  That is, it misconstrues an intensive (elaborating) identifying relation as a circumstantial (enhancing: cause) identifying relation.

Confusing Metafunctions And Axes

Martin (1992: 462):

The challenge here is to interpret the meaning of Subject from a discourse perspective, by looking at the way in which discourse structures interact with Subject selection.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses metafunctions.  Subject is an interpersonal function whereas discourse semantics has been demonstrated here to be largely a misunderstanding of Halliday and Hasan's model of lexicogrammatical cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction.  The meaning of Subject is interpersonal, not textual.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 528):

The “textual” metafunction is the name we give to the systematic resources a language must have for creating discourse: for ensuring that each instance of text makes contact with its environment. The “environment” includes both the context of situation and other instances of text.

[2] This confuses axes, and therefore levels of symbolic abstraction, since syntagmatic structures realise paradigmatic selections.

[3] As has been previously demonstrated here, the discourse "structures" reworked from Halliday and Hasan's model of lexicogrammatical cohesion are not structures, but cohesive relations.

Misrepresenting Halliday On The Stratification Of Content

Martin (1992: 401):

With notable exceptions (e.g. Halliday 1984) Halliday's work on English content form has generally assumed an unstratified system/structure cycle organised by rank and metafunction.

Blogger Comment:

This is a very serious misrepresentation.  The stratification of the content plane into two strata, semantics and lexicogrammar, has long been at the very heart of SFL theory — not least because the notion of grammatical metaphor depends on it — and long precedes the work of Halliday's students, such as Martin (1992).  For example, in the work most cited in Martin (1992), Halliday & Hasan (1976: 3) write:

Language can be explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels of coding, or 'strata': the semantic (meanings), the lexicogrammatical (forms) and the phonological and orthographic (expressions).  Meanings are realised (coded) as forms, and forms are realised in turn (recoded) as expressions.  To put it in everyday terminology, meaning is put into wording, and wording into sound or writing…

The stratification of content, cross-coupled with the distinction of paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes, produces two system–structure cycles, one on each stratum.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

…in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones.

It is another of Halliday's students who proposes a single system–structure cycle, though with a stratified model of content.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

In Fawcett’s model, there is only one system–structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a “realisational component” to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically… 

The importance of modelling content as stratified in SFL theory cannot be overstated.  For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 25):

The stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species — it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo … into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain. …

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604):

This deconstrual of the content plane into two strata … is a unique feature of the post-infancy semiotic, corresponding to Edelman’s (1992) “higher–order consciousness” as the distinguishing characteristic of Homo sapiens.

Blurring The Distinction Between Realisation And Instantiation

Martin (1992: 392):

The modularity imposed by stratification is also an important issue.  Discourse systems generate structures which in principle cut across grammatical and phonological ones.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the misconstrual of strata as modules instead of complementary levels of symbolic abstraction.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relation between system and structure is realisation.  This axial relation is distinct from the process of instantiation — the selection of systemic features and the activation of realisation statements — during logogenesis.

Misrepresenting Realisation And Preselection

Martin (1992: 390):

Within grammar, the problem of mapping different systems onto each other is handled by realisation.  Structures deriving from different metafunctional components are conflated and preselect options from constituent ranks until lexicogrammatical options are exhausted.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is untrue. Conflation is not realisation. The relation between the different metafunctional systems on the lexicogrammatical stratum is not one of realisation.  Realisation is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction, as between strata, between function and form and between system and structure.  The metafunctional systems on the lexicogrammatical stratum are of the same level of symbolic abstraction.  The metafunctions on the lexicogrammatical stratum are different perspectives on the same phenomenon: wording.

[2] This is untrue.  Structures do not preselect options.  The selection of a feature of a paradigmatic system can preselect a feature of a system on a lower stratum (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 378-9), and, across axes, paradigmatic specifications can select syntagmatic specifications (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 94).  The latter has been renamed 'eco-functional selection' (ibid.).

Misconstruing Experiential As Constituent Of Logical

Martin (1992: 293):

On the basis of this characterisation of field, the discourse semantic unit underlying lexical item and entering into cohesive lexical relations can be set up.  Since it is an experientially defined unit, it will be referred to as a message part, to bring out its metafunctional relationship with CONJUNCTION.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The characterisation of field confuses context with language by construing field as a semantic description of social activity.  That is, it violates the principle of stratification.

[2] This confuses the syntagmatic axis (structural unit) and the paradigmatic axis (lexical item).

[3] This places the higher level of symbolic abstraction (discourse semantic) below the lower level (lexical).  That is, it inverts the stratification of content.

[4] This construes the experiential unit as something that is interrelated —cohesively, so: textually — rather than as something with internal structure; cf sequences, figures, elements in SFL theory.

[5] In SFL theory, a 'message' is a unit of the textual metafunction on the semantic stratum.

[6] This misconstrues the relation between the logical and experiential metafunctions as one of constituency.  On the one hand, logical units don't consist of experiential units; on the other hand, the relation between units in complexes is not constituency but interdependency.

Misconstruing The Difference Between Lexical Item And Grammatical Word

Martin (1992: 290-1):

The distinction within a systemic model between lexical item and word means that in principle cohesion analysis is not tied to orthographic word boundaries.  Phrasal verbs for example can be taken as single lexical items. …

Just how far this notion of a lexical item could be pushed however, remains unclear. …

The problem is that if strong mutual expectancy is used to define lexical items, where does one stop?  If phrasal verbs are treated as single lexical items, then what about Process Range structures …

And if Process Range structures, such as these, what about Process and Medium …

Or Process and Circumstance (of location, with deixis-less destinations) …

The point is that the distinction between word and idiom is a gradient one, and that distinguishing word from lexical item does not determine where the line between the two is drawn.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents the distinction between lexical item and (grammatical) word as a question of how many words make up a lexical item.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 568):

The folk notion of the “word” is really a conflation of two different abstractions, one lexical [lexical item] and one grammatical [word rank].

[2] The view of lexical items presented here is from below (graphology) and the syntagmatic axis (word boundaries).  In SFL theory,  lexical items are specified paradigmatically, by combinations of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems.

[3] In SFL theory, strong mutual expectancy is not used to define lexical items.  This misconstrues lexical items as a syntagmatic relation.  See [2].

[4] Here combined elements of grammatical structures are being used to raise doubts on the (misconstrued) notion of the lexical item.  The purpose of doing so is to justify an approach based on a misconstrued notion of 'field'.  See following posts.

[5] The distinction between word and idiom is irrelevant to the distinction between word and lexical item.  Again, idioms, in Martin's words 'frozen collocations', takes a syntagmatic perspective on the issue.

Redundancy Phoricity: A System With No Structural Realisation

Martin (1992: 144):

Note that redundancy phoricity is not taken as contributing to the structure of reference chains, since it is not concerned with presuming the identity of participants, but simply with presuming some aspect of their experiential meaning.  Substitution and ellipsis at group rank is thus more appropriately treated as an aspect of lexical cohesion…

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, redundancy phoricity is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) cohesive system of substitution and ellipsis, misunderstood as a type of reference, and relocated from lexicogrammar to Martin's discourse semantics stratum.

[2] To be clear, here Martin proposes a system (paradigmatic axis) that has no structural realisation (syntagmatic axis).

[3] This is misleading, because it is manifestly untrue, since the substitution and ellipsis is of wording, not experiential meaning (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 635-6).  Moreover, the elements subject to substitution and ellipsis are identified in terms of the interpersonal metafunction (ibid.).  So, in terms of Martin's discourse semantics as 'meaning beyond the clause', this is neither meaning nor beyond the clause.

[4] On the one hand, as the terms 'group rank' and 'lexical cohesion' make clear, this is lexicogrammar misrepresented as discourse semantics.  On the other hand, Martin recommends treating redundancy phoricity as the discourse semantic counterpart of grammatical reference (IDENTIFICATION) when the ellipsis–&–substitution occurs at clause rank, but as the discourse semantic counterpart of lexical cohesion (IDEATION) when the ellipsis–&–substitution occurs at group rank.

∞

Main Points:

• redundancy phoricity is not the semantic counterpart of reference;
• redundancy phoricity has no structural realisation;
• redundancy phoricity is not meaning beyond the clause.

Martin claims:

• substitution and ellipsis at clause rank is grammatical reference (his IDENTIFICATION);
• substitution and ellipsis at group rank is lexical cohesion (his IDEATION).

Giving Priority To Structure And Form Instead Of System And Function

Martin (1992: 135):

This distribution of phoric items across different elements of nominal group structure makes it very difficult to capture the relevant textual generalisations at the level of grammar.  The structure of pronominal, proper and common nominal groups is very divergent (cf. he, Professor Emeritus J C Smith, that fellow I met last week) for good experiential and interpersonal reasons.  But all three types of group may be presuming in the same way and need to be classed together as far as textual meaning is concerned.  The same point can be made with respect to relevance phoricity: Deictics, Numeratives and Epithets are generated by quite different nominal group systems, but from the point of view of textual meaning all can presume supersets.

Blogger Comments:

[1] On the one hand, the "distribution of phoric items across different elements of nominal group structure" is irrelevant to "textual generalisations at the level of grammar" since reference is not a system of the nominal group.  On the other hand, viewing the grammar in terms of structure is at odds with SFL theory, in which priority is given to the view from above, which, in terms of axis, is to system rather than structure.

[2] Given that Martin's model is concerned with 'reference as semantic choice', and that reference is a grammatical system, "the relevant generalisations at the level of grammar" are already provided the theorists whose work Martin sources; see, for example, Halliday (1985).

[3] Here again Martin gives priority to the view 'from below' in terms of axis, structure over system, and supplements this with the view 'from' below' in terms of the rank scale, by classifying nominal groups in terms of the word classes that realise them (pronoun, proper noun, common noun).  That is, Martin's view is neither systemic not functional, being concerned instead with structure and form.

[4] Here again Martin confuses reference items with one of the grammatical domains in which they occur, the nominal group, and completely ignores the other grammatical domain: the adverbial group.

Confusing Instantiation With The Syntagmatic Axis

Martin (1992: 126):

As with the tracking and challenging options presented in Chapter 2, these retrieval categories broach upon a dynamic as opposed to a synoptic perspective on participant identification (see Martin 1985a).  The choices reviewed are relevant to both decisions a speaker must make when selecting phoric or non-phoric items and to processes the listener must go through to recover any information which is presumed.  And it is the particular point that has been reached in the syntagmatic unfolding of a text that is critical to any decisions made.  No attempt will be made to model IDENTIFICATION as a dynamic system here.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, to 'broach' means to raise (a difficult subject) for discussion.

[2] To be clear, Martin's "dynamic as opposed to synoptic perspective" confuses instantiation during logogenesis with a (dynamic) perspective on the syntagmatic axis; see [5] below.

[3] As previously explained, the term 'participant identification' confuses ideational denotation with the identifiability of textual reference items.  The inconsistency is one of metafunction.

[4] To be clear, the selection of features during logogenesis by speaker and addressee is the process of instantiation.

[5] The notion of a "syntagmatic unfolding of a text" confuses the syntagmatic axis with logogenesis (the unfolding of text).  Logogenesis is 'the instantiation of the system in text' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 18) — 'the creation of meaning in instantiation, maintained as a changing instantial system' (op cit.: 385).

[6] To be clear, the term system is shorthand for 'system–&–process' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 507).  In modelling IDENTIFICATION as a system, Martin has unwittingly modelled it as a dynamic system.

Confusing Paradigmatic Features With Syntagmatic Structure [New]

 Martin (1992: 53, 52):

To begin, it is useful to compare Burton's analysis of a basic action exchange with that developed in 2.3 above. The English Text analysis developed to this point is presented first, with full feature specifications at exchange and move rank.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Feature specifications for exchange rank were not developed in 2.3 above, and Martin does not provide a system network of features for exchange rank.

[2] To be clear, Figure 2.13 misrepresents paradigmatic features as syntagmatic structures (exchange structure), and posits the same features at both ranks ('negotiating', 'exchanging'). Cf. positing the PROCESS TYPE 'material' at both clause and group rank.