Post Titles For Chapter 5 — Ideation: The Company Words Keep

The titles of the posts that evaluate chapter 5 provide a glimpse of some of its theoretical shortcomings.

1. Misrepresenting The Chapter 4 Model Of Conjunction
2. Misconstruing Context As Register
3. Not Recognising The Stratification Of Content: Dictionary Definitions
4. Not Recognising The Stratification Of Content: Thesaurus
5. Misrepresenting The Model Of Transitivity
6. Misconstruing Unassigned vs Assigned As Single vs Double Agency
7. Misrepresenting 'Semiotic'
8. Misrepresenting The Directions Of Coding And Mistaking A Verbal Projection Nexus For An Identifying Clause
9. Falsely Claiming To Have Uniquely Classified Two Lexical Items
10. Misconstruing The Agency Of Identifying Clauses
11. Lexical Cohesion Update
12. Confusing Textual Cohesion With Experiential Delicacy
13. Relocating Lexis Outside Language
14. Misconstruing Semantics As Context
15. Inconsistencies Of Structure And Metafunction
16. Misconstruing The Difference Between Lexical Item And Grammatical Word
17. Confusing Register (Language) With Context (Culture)
18. Confusing Context With Semantics
19. Misconstruing First Order Field As Its Semantic Description [1]
20. Misconstruing First Order Field As Its Semantic Description [2]
21. Misconstruing Experiential As Constituent Of Logical
22. Misconstruing Stratification: Semantics Realising Semantics
23. Misrepresenting Congruent Vs Incongruent
24. Confusing Context, Semantics And Lexicogrammar
25. Misrepresenting Superordination (Hyponymy)
26. Misconstruing Field As Language
27. Misconstruing Meronymy As Hyponymy
28. Misconstruing Ellipsis Of Repetition As Relational Hyp(er)onymy
29. Misconstruing Synonymy
30. Confusing Lexis With Grammar
31. Misconstruing Antonymy
32. Misconstruing Ellipsis Of Repetition As Relational Meronymy [1]
33. Misconstruing Ellipsis Of Repetition As Relational Meronymy [2]
34. Misconstruing Location (Enhancement) As Possession (Extension)
35. Misconstruing Ellipsis Of Repetition As Relational Meronymy [3]
36. Misconstruing Synonymy + Collocation As Relational Meronymy
37. Confusing Lexical Cohesion And Reference
38. Misrepresenting Hyponymy As Bridging Hyponymy
39. Misrepresenting Meronymy As Bridging Meronymy
40. An Unwarranted Claim About the System Of Identification
41. Misconstruing Ranges As Mediums
42. Confusing Collocation With Transitivity
43. Misconstruing Logico-Semantic Relations Realised In The Clause [1]
44. Misconstruing Logico-Semantic Relations Realised In The Clause [2]
45. Misconstruing Expansion Relations Realised In The Nominal Group
46. Misrepresenting Ranges As Mediums
47. Misconstruing Enhancing Circumstances As Elaborating Ranges
48. Misconstruing Enhancement (Cause) As Elaboration
49. Misconstruing Extension (Composition) As Elaboration
50. Misconstruing Extension (Possession) As Elaboration
51. Misconstruing Elaboration As Enhancement
52. Misrepresenting Elaboration
53. Misconstruing Enhancement & Projection As Extension
54. Misconstruing Elaboration As Extension
55. Reducing All Verbal Group Complex Relations To Extension
56. Relocating A Subset Of Manner Circumstances To The Verbal Group
57. Reclassifying Function According To Form
58. Misconstruing Projection As Enhancement
59. Misconstruing Enhancement As Elaboration And Elaboration As Extension
60. Classifying Expansion Type On The Basis Of Form
61. Presenting Theoretical Misunderstandings As An 'Alternative Perspective'
62. Misconstruing Experiential Nuclearity As Logical Expansion Type
63. Misunderstanding 'Instantiate'
64. Misconstruing Elaboration As Extension And Extension As Elaboration
65. Misconstruing Logical Relations As Interpersonal Enactments
66. Confusing Metafunctions And Confusing Context With Semantics
67. Misconstruing Extension As Enhancement
68. Confusing Implication, Cause And Modulation
69. Misconstruing Ideational Semantics As Field
70. Confusing Strata And Confusing Metafunctions
71. Self-Contradiction And Misunderstanding Stratification
72. No Identifiable Discourse Semantic Unit Realised By Clause Complexes
73. The Avoidance Of Experiential Meaning In Discourse Semantics
74. Using Ideational Labels For Textual Units And Vice Versa
75. Misconstruing Incongruent Realisations And Expansion Types
76. Misconstruing Extension As Elaboration And General As Instantial
77. Misconstruing General Lexical Cohesion As Instantial
78. Confusing Strata And Confusing Metafunctions
79. Claiming The Verb 'Stand' Is A Repetition Of The Verb 'Tabled'
80. Claiming That Analysing A Text Can Alter The Mode Of The Text
81. Structural & Metafunctional Inconsistencies
82. Misconstruing Extension As Elaboration
83. Misconstruing General Lexical Cohesion As Instantial
84. Misconstruing Mode As Genre
85. Misrepresenting Processes As Subclasses Of Clause
86. Misconstruing Enhancement (And Complementarity) As Extension
87. Misconstruing Mode As Genre
88. Misconstruing Context As Register
89. Misidentifying The Main Differences Between Martin And Hasan
90. Misrepresenting Grammatical Metaphor & Neglecting Interstratal Accountability
91. Misidentifying Transitivity Rôles And Expansion Types
92. A Summary Of Discourse Systems Inconsistencies
93. Misconstruing Instantial Probabilities As Structural Relations
94. Construing A Scale From Hyponym To Ellipsis (Via Word Classes)
95. A Convoluted Non-Sequitur
96. Misconstruing Instantiation Probability As The Opposite Of Anaphoric Reference
97. Three Minor Clarifications
98. Confusing Three Distinct Notions Of "Predicting" Discourse
99. Claiming That Conjunctive Relations Are Realised By Nouns
100. Multiplying A Misunderstanding Of The External Vs Internal Distinction
101. Misrepresenting Field And Misconstruing Interstratal Realisation
102. Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Makes B Material'
103. Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Makes B Come To Be'
104. Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Reconstitutes B'
105. Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Is A Metaphor For B'
106. Self-Contradiction
107. Misrepresenting Interstratal Relations

Misrepresenting Interstratal Relations

Martin (1992: 379):

The interaction of discourse semantic and lexicogrammatical structures will be taken up in Chapter 6 below in an attempt to underline the way in which the two strata contribute independently, dependently and interdependently to the process whereby meanings are made as text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, the "interaction" between these two levels of symbolic abstraction, these two perspectives on the content plane, is realisation: either congruent or metaphorical.

[2] The logical relation of interdependency is irrelevant to interstratal relations; the only logical relation between strata is elaboration (the intensive relation of identity).  The notion of semantics and lexicogrammar being independent aligns with the Chomskyan view of 'autonomous syntax', which contradicts the previously espoused view of a natural relation between content strata.

[3] To clarify, the process whereby meaning potential becomes actualised as the meanings of a text is termed instantiation — the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements — as occurs during the semogenic process of logogenesis, the unfolding of the text.  Logogenesis occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

Self-Contradiction

Martin (1992: 378-9):

Realisation then is a technical concept embracing all these meanings.  Grammaticalising the concept through Token°Value structures such as field is realised through the ideational resources of lexicogrammar should not be taken as delimiting in any way the meaning of realisation as outlined above.  Technically it may in the long run prove helpful to replace the term realisation with a less directional term like redound (cf. Halliday in Thibault 1987: 619: "it shows just how the context of situation 'redounds with' (construes and is construed by) the semantic system."

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is not true.  See previous posts.

[2] This is the theoretical meaning of 'realisation'.  The lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token) realises (Process: relational: identifying: intensive: symbol) the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).

[3] This misunderstands stratification.  Field, like the rest of context, is realised in semantics realised in lexicogrammar.  However, because Martin's "field" is actually semantics, it is (inadvertently) true to say that it realised in lexicogrammar.

[4] Realisation is the fundamental relation of semiotic systems (see Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 447).  It is the relation between the signified and the signifier, the two complementary sides of a linguistic sign.

[5] This is a direct contradiction of the claim made on the previous page.  Martin (1992: 378):

During any such consideration of the consideration of one level of meaning in another, it needs to be kept in mind that as a theoretical construct realisation is not directional.

[6] Note that the strata in Halliday's formulation are semantics and context, not discourse semantics and register.

[7] Construing is distinct from realising.  To construe is to intellectually construct.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

The word “construe” is used to suggest an intellectual construction — though one that, of course, we then use as a guide to action.

To say that the context of situation 'redounds with' the semantic system is to say that the context of situation intellectually constructs and is intellectually constructed by the semantic system.

Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Is A Metaphor For B'

Martin (1992: 378):

Finally (point (iv) above) lexicogrammar has been taken as naturally related to field, and thus as a resource of metaphors for interpreting this register variable.  The concept of taxonomy was derived from Carrier°Attribute and Classifier°Thing structures; the notion of nuclear configurations was abstracted from TRANSITIVITY and experiential grammar at group rank; and the idea for activity sequences was taken from extending and enhancing clause complexes.

Blogger Comments:

 [1] In 'point (iv) above', A realises B is interpreted as A symbolises B, which is the only accurate interpretation, out of the four provided.

A	realises	B
A	symbolises	B
Token	Process: relational: identifying: intensive: symbol	Value

However, this is then misinterpreted as equivalent to A is a metaphor for B.  Symbolisation is only metaphorical when there is an incongruent realisation between the two levels of symbolic abstraction; congruent realisations are not metaphorical.

[2] SFL takes the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar as natural.  As previously demonstrated, Martin's "field" is actually within ideational semantics.

[3] This confuses incongruent relations between content strata in the linguistic model with the use of metaphor by a theorist while creating a model.

[4] As previously explained, field is not a register variable.  Field is the ideational dimension of context; context is more symbolically abstract than language; language realises/symbolises context.  Register is language, not context; register is a functional variety of language that realises/symbolises a functional variety on context (a situation type).

[5] Hyponymic and meronymic taxonomies are constructed on the expansion relations of elaboration and extension, respectively.  These relations also obtain within clauses and within groups.  In this chapter, like the last, they were misinterpreted.

[6] As previously demonstrated, these involved mistaken applications of the expansion relations of elaboration and extension.

[7] Activity sequences were misconstrued as context, rather than semantics.  It is semantics that is realised by lexicogrammar.  In SFL theory, clause complexes in the lexicogrammar realise sequences in the semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 104-127).

Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Reconstitutes B'

Martin (1992: 338):

It [this chapter] has also attempted to renovate (point (iii) above) linguists' interpretation of grammar and meaning by configuring the grammar as Agent in a material process with meaning as the Medium produced: grammar makes meaning (cf. learning how to mean, making meaning, meaning making resource etc.).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here a statement about how the theorist has gone about modelling language is presented as an example of a relation in the model itself (i.e. realisation).

[2] In 'point (iii) above', A realises B is interpreted as A reconstitutes B, which is, in turn, glossed as A continually renovates B.  In such an interpretation, the intensive identifying process of A realises B:

A	realises	B
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

is misconstrued as an assigned attributive relational process:

A	continually	renovates (‘makes new’)		B
Agent/Attributor	Manner: quality	Process: relational: attributive: intensive	Range/Attribute	Medium/Carrier

In SFL theory, instead of characterising realisation, this is more a statement about the relation between the instance and the system: the notion that in logogenesis, through instantiation, each instance alters system probabilities.  Halliday (2008: 119):

Each instance minutely perturbs the probabilities of the system. Any part of the system may remain stable over long periods of time; but the system as a whole is metastable: it persists by continually evolving within its overall eco-social environment.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 555) 

Historical change in language is typically a quantitative process, in which probabilities in systems at every level are gradually nudged in one direction or another, now and again becoming categorical so that some systemic upheaval takes place. Each instantiation of a tense form, say, whenever someone is speaking or writing in English, minutely perturbs the probabilities of the system …

[3] This continues the confusion of semogenesis (making meaning) with stratification (realising meaning) — a confusion which makes Martins' model of stratification theoretically untenable.

stratification: intensive identifying relational process

grammar	realises	meaning
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

semogenesis: creative abstract material process

grammar	makes	meaning
Agent	Process:	Medium
Actor	material: creative	Goal

Note that this material process does not exemplify the relational process of 'point (iii) above'.

Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Makes B Come To Be'

Martin (1992: 378):

Clearly this chapter has meant a number of things that have never been meant before; it has been involved in constructing the field of lexical relations (point (ii) above) as much as realising immanent meanings that have been previously construed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As the critiques of this chapter demonstrate, there are valid reasons why these things 'have never been meant before'.  This chapter is purported to model experiential semantics, but instead:

• confuses two lexicogrammatical dimensions: lexical cohesion (textual metafunction) and lexis (delicacy),
• confuses semantics with context (field),
• models experiential structure as logical and interpersonal relations between units that are defined according to a misapplication of expansion relations.

[2] In 'point (ii) above', A realises B is interpreted as A constitutes B, which is, in turn, glossed as A makes B come to be.  In such an interpretation, the intensive identifying process of A realises B:

A	realises	B
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

is misconstrued as the caused existential process A makes B come to be:

A	makes	B	come to be
Creator	Process	Existent	existential

In SFL theory, this gloss is closer in meaning to the process of instantiation, where potential is actualised ('made actual'). However, instantiation is not an interstratal relation.

[3] The notion of 'realising immanent meanings that have been previously construed' relates to the distinction, in logogenesis, between recycling already codified meanings and constructing new ones.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 24):

The production of discourse by an individual speaker or writer can be seen as a dialectic between these two semiotic activities: between (i) recycling elements, figures and sequences that that individual has used many times before, and so for him or her are already fully codified, and (ii) constructing new ones that are being codified for the first time (and some of which may remain codified for future use — especially with a child who is learning the system).