Misrepresenting Martin (1992) On Discourse Semantics And Contextual Theory

Martin (1992: 587):

So — texts are coherent, cultures are not.  Where does this leave linguistics which is articulated as a form of social action?

Clearly one important job, which has already begun […] lies in deconstructing the naturalisation process.  Systemic functional linguistics has always adressed [sic] this concern, and English Text's development of discourse semantics and contextual theory was undertaken with this goal explicitly in mind.  What seems crucial here is a model which displays the way in which language inflects and is inflected by contextual systems; one model of this kind has been provided.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated by the reasoned arguments in the 550+ analyses on this website, English Text's development of discourse semantics and contextual theory proceeds from multiple misunderstandings of SFL theory — misunderstandings so fundamental and pervasive that they undermine the validity of the work as theory.  In an intelligent, informed academic community that values reason and intellectual integrity, this would be a serious problem.

[2] The relation between language and context is precisely defined in SFL theory as realisation.  This is the relation of intensive identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction.

[3] The contextual model that has been provided confuses context (the culture that is realised by language) with sub-potentials of language itself (registers/genres).  The confusion is along two theoretical dimensions simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.

Confusing Linguistic Variabilty With Contextual Tension

Martin (1992: 581-2):

As noted with respect to text [7:5] above, variable realisation implies in a sense that all texts are multi-voiced. There is in other words a certain tension in the system, which manifests itself in semiotic processes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This involves two dimensions of confusion, as previously identified here.  Martin claimed that, because one mother's coding orientation was variably realised linguistically, she had 'more than one voice' in the conversation, and this was falsely equated with being dialogic in the Bakhtinian sense.

[2] There are two additional dimensions of confusion here — variability with tension, and language with context — since variability in the language realising context (one coding orientation) is misconstrued as tension in the context itself (misconstrued as ideology).

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).

Addressing "The Central Problem In Marxist Theory" By Adding A More Abstract Level

Martin (1992: 575, 576):

In their interpretations of language, register and genre as semiotic systems, systemicists have generally attempted to model cultures as a whole — to generalise meaning potential across all imaginable texts… .  The problems with this are:

1. as noted above, this meaning potential is not evenly distributed across participants in a culture; and 

2. for a culture to survive, this meaning potential has to evolve.

These two problems are in fact closely related; it is the tensions produced by the unequal distribution of meaning potential that forces a culture to change.  This brings social semiotic theory face to face with the central problem in marxist [sic] theory: what is the nature of the dialectic between base and superstructure that facilitates and at the same time frustrates social change?  Even more to the point, from the perspective of a theory of linguistics as social action, how is it possible to intervene in a dialectic of this kind?  These are the questions that the communicative plane of ideology has been articulated to address.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  Theory–competent Systemicists do not distinguish register and genre from language and do not model them as systems.

[2] This confuses culture (context potential) with the language that realises it.  The confusion is thus along the dimension of stratification.

[3] Neither of these are problems for proposing a system of language potential.  On the one hand, the social distribution of language system variants is a further dimension to be added to the model, and on the other, the evolution of the language system is modelled in SFL theory (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 18) by phylogenesis in relation to the other two semogenic processes:

• logogenesis provides the material for ontogenesis which provides the material for phylogenesis, while
• phylogenesis provides the environment for ontogenesis which provides the environment for logogenesis.

[4] The claim here is that:

• it is the tensions produced by the unequal distribution of meaning potential that forces a culture to change

Leaving aside the possibility that there may be other factors that "force a culture to change", the implication here is that an equal distribution of meaning potential would reduce tensions, but by doing so, put an end to cultural change.

[5] On the basis of [4], the academic revolutionary is faced with the choice of either working for social inequity or working for cultural stagnation.

[6] The claim here is that adding another level of symbolic abstraction to Martin's stratification hierarchy will address two questions:

1. what is the nature of the dialectic between base and superstructure that facilitates and at the same time frustrates social change?
2. how is it possible to intervene in a dialectic of this kind?

It might be remembered that the following has also been promised (p546):

Discourses of generation, gender, ethnicity and class channel subjects in very different ways according to the coding orientations they enjoy. It is the responsibility of the plane of ideology to make the nature of this channeling clear, deconstructing the momentum and inherent contradictions which allow it to evolve.

Misrepresenting Martin (1992) On Register & Genre

Martin (1992: 575):

The register and genre theory reviewed and developed above represents systemic theory's attempts to model heteroglossia and dialogism; it does this by formulating register and genre as social semiotic systems realised through text, thereby providing an account not simply of how one text relates to another (cohesion across products) but in addition of how one text relates to all the texts that might have been (product in relation to system). …

The interpretation does however need to be qualified in two important respects — namely heterogeneity and semogensis [sic] (i.e. semiotic change). 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is doubly misleading.  Firstly, 'the register and genre theory reviewed and developed above' does not represent systemic theory's attempts.  On the contrary, it is inconsistent with SFL theory, and represents Martin's attempts only.  Secondly, 'the register and genre theory reviewed and developed above' does not model heteroglossia and dialogism.  On the contrary, what is claimed bears little or no relation to heteroglossia and dialogism; see further below.

[2] This is inconsistent, both with Martin's model and with SFL theory.

In terms of Martin's stratification model, register and genre systems are realised by the systems of language, not by text.  In this, Martin confuses the system and instance poles of the cline of instantiation.

In terms of SFL theory, it involves two confusions.  Firstly, the notion of register and genre systems confuses a midway point of variation on the cline of instantiation (register/genre/text type) with the system pole of the cline.  Secondly, it misconstrues the relation between system and text as realisation instead of instantiation.  (This in addition to the inconsistencies entailed by modelling varieties of language as context rather than language.)

[3] This is misleading in terms of both register and genre.  In terms of register, any chance of providing an account how one text relates to another is undermined by Martin's numerous misinterpretations of field, tenor and mode systems, as demonstrated in many previous posts.  In terms of genre, Martin merely provides two simple taxonomies of factual and story genres (text types).  Martin nowhere presents any account of how his formulation of register and genre relates one individual text to another.

[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, cohesion is not a relation between 'products' (texts).

[5] This is the opposite of what is true.  This is precisely what Martin's model does not do.  In SFL theory, the relation of texts to text potential — of instances to system — is modelled as the cline of instantiation.  Martin's model is inconsistent with the cline of instantiation, due to the fact that it misconstrues the midway point on the cline (register/genre), not as language, but as systems of context, and as such, as higher levels of symbolic abstraction than language.  This follows from not understanding either stratification or instantiation, as demonstrated many times in previous posts.

[6] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) identify three types of semogenic processes:

• logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text;
• ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual; and
• phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

Asserting The Opposite Of What Is True

Martin (1992: 573):

The general point here is that single plane models of context tend to introduce additional complexity to handle the contextual variables distributed among field, tenor, mode and genre by English Text.  So the cost of recognising two connotative semiotics instead of one is not as high as it might initially appear.

Blogger Comments:

This is the conclusion of Martin's "argument" for the theoretical superiority of his stratification hierarchy over Halliday's original model, and it is clearly the opposite of what is true.

[1] As the previous six posts have demonstrated, Martin's model is more complex, not less complex than Halliday's model, but more importantly, its complexity arises from misunderstandings of the theoretical architecture of SFL, principally stratification and instantiation.  This has resulted in a model that is inconsistent both with the theoretical architecture and also with itself.

Furthermore, in the course of his argument, Martin has been prepared to misrepresent the work of both Halliday and Hasan in order to invent non-existent problems, which he purports to solve with his model.  As the previous posts demonstrate, each of Martin's "solutions" involves the creation of additional theoretical consistencies.

[2] The principal defect in Martin's bi-stratal model of context is, of course, that it is not a model of context.  Register and genre refer to language, not to context, and in SFL theory, they are complementary perspectives on diatypic variation.

With respect to register, Martin's misunderstanding arises from mistaking the contextual systems that identify registers — field, tenor and mode — for systems of registers themselves.  This in turn arises from Martin not understanding the principle of stratification: as levels of symbolic abstraction related by realisation (as demonstrated many times in previous critiques).

With respect to genre, Martin's misunderstanding arises from mistaking Hasan's generic structure potentials for potentials 'at the level of genre'.  For Hasan, they are structural potentials at the level of semantics which vary according to genre (text type/register).

In conclusion, because Martin confuses semogenesis (all strata make meaning) with stratification, his strata of register and genre are — ignoring internal inconsistencies — both focused on linguistic meaning; that is, both strata are theoretical relocations and rebrandings of semantics.

Why Martin Prefers His Own Model To Hasan's

Martin (1992: 572):

English Text's preferred position is to treat mode differences as simply difference in mode and to derive all text types from genre networks elaborated along the lines illustrated above.  These networks are in a sense systemic formulations of what Hasan's [sic] refers to as a culture's "array of existing conventions".  The model suggests however that these arrays are relevant for all genres, not just those constitutive in mode.  This avoids the problems inherent in Hasan's apparently materialist reading of context, which leads her to derive some texts from their context of situation and others with respect to their cultural heritage.  The ancillary/constitutive opposition is in any case a cline, which creates considerable uncertainty about how to model context for texts in 'middling' modes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] A preferred position is not a reasoned argument; it is merely a stance, an attitude, a pose.

[2] This is doubly misleading.  On the one hand, it falsely implies that Hasan does not "treat mode differences as simply difference in mode", and on the other hand, it falsely implies that Martin does.  As previously explained here, Martin allocates the mode system of medium to his register and the system of rhetorical mode to his genre.  In SFL theory, mode is a system of context, whereas register and genre are complementary perspectives on functional (diatypic) varieties of language.

[3] This is also doubly misleading.  

Firstly, the comparison here is with Hasan's model.  The discussion of Hasan's work focused on deriving text structures.  Here Martin offers his alternative "preferred position" but in doing so switches to deriving text types.  That is, it does not address the issue he raised about Hasan's model, and yet purports to be offering a better alternative.

Secondly, the reason Martin has switched from deriving text structures to deriving text types is to divert attention away from the fact that he has not devised any genre systems for deriving text structures — merely given excuses for not doing so; see here.  He has however provided small taxonomies of factual genres (Fig. 7.26) and story genres (Fig. 7.27), neither of which, of course, generates structures.

[4] This is a false claim.  Martin's taxonomy merely classifies types of story in terms of a few semantic features.  It provides no information about the conventions of text (semantic) structure associated with specific types.

[5] This is also doubly misleading.  On the one hand, it falsely implies that Hasan claimed these were relevant to constitutive mode, and on the other hand, it falsely implies that Hasan claimed these were relevant only to constitutive mode.  As Hasan (1984: 78) pointed out with regard to this "array of existing conventions":

But to say that the structure of a nursery tale is controlled by artistic conventions is to explain nothing …

[6] The claims here are that:

• Hasan's model of context is materialist;
• it is this materialist perspective that 'leads her to derive some texts from their context of situation and others with respect to their cultural heritage; and
• Martin's model avoids such problems inherent in Hasan's model.

All three claims are, of course, false.  This can be demonstrated as follows.

[a] Firstly, it is not true that Hasan's model of context is materialist.  Hasan uses Halliday's model of context, which conceives as context as the culture as a semiotic system.  In contrast, as previously demonstrated, Martin has used the term 'context' to refer to:

• material setting,
• co-text,
• register (diatypic variety of language viewed from the system pole),
• genre (diatypic variety of language viewed from the instance pole).

Materialism is clearly anathema to Martin, despite the fact that he doesn't understand what it is.  Here's one definition:

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

By way of contrast with Martin, Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 609) clarify the philosophical underpinning of SFL theory as materialist in this sense:

… we are prepared to acknowledge a broadly materialist position …

[b] Secondly, it is untrue that a materialist perspective of context leads Hasan 'to derive some texts from their context of situation and others with respect to their cultural heritage'.  There are three untruths here, in addition to the false claim about Hasan's perspective being materialist:

• a materialist perspective — since this is Martin's misrepresentation — is thus not the reason for Hasan's two methods of analysis;
• Hasan does not "derive" texts, but text structures — Martin's omission of 'structure' misleadingly invites the interpretation as 'text type', on the basis of the preceding co-text; and
• Hasan does not "derive" text structures "with respect to their cultural heritage" — but from the semantic features of such texts, as explained in the previous post.

[c] Thirdly, it is untrue that Martin's model avoids the problems inherent in Hasan's model.  This also doubly misleading.  On the one hand, the "problems" in Hasan's model are not problems, but misrepresentations and misunderstandings on Martin's part, as demonstrated above and in the previous post.  On the other hand, Martin's model lacks what Hasan's model provides, since, unlike Hasan's, it does not account for text structures; it is merely a taxonomy of text types (genres).

[7] The claim here is that because ancillary vs constitutive opposition is a matter of degree — modelled as a cline — it "creates considerable uncertainty about how to model context for texts in 'middling' modes" when using Hasan's model.  Martin's confusions here are threefold:

• the mode system cline is a way of modelling context;
• Hasan is concerned with modelling the structural potential (semantics) of text types — i.e. language — not context;
• uncertainty does not arise, because both of Hasan's methods can be used for determining the structural potential of text types that realise intermediate values on the mode cline.

Consequently, on this fourth tendered piece of evidence, Martin's claim that his model of register and genre avoids additional complications in Halliday's (and Hasan's) model is the exact opposite of what is true.

∞

The number of untruths here, so efficiently packed into such a small passage of text, amply justifies the type of assessment made by Peter Medawar (1961) of another author:

its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself.

Strategically Misrepresenting Hasan

Martin (1992: 572):

Mode also impinges on Hasan's model of context and text structure, since for her only texts where the role of language is ancillary and whose environment is pragmatic can be derived from contextual configurations (in her discussion she is opposing text types such as service encounters to the nursery tale; Hasan 1984: 76).  Since for constitutive modes, context cannot predict text structure, Hasan suggests that for these texts what matters most is "the array of existing conventions" (1984: 78).  Hasan's model then is one which derives text structures in two fundamentally different ways, depending on mode (see Harris 1987: 36-7 for a related critique).

Blogger Comments:

[1] The reason mode "impinges" on Hasan's model of context and text structure is because Hasan understands that

• text structure is semantics, 
• semantic structure realises semantic systems, and
• semantics realises context (field, tenor and mode).

[2] This seriously misrepresents Hasan (1984: 78), who only raised this in order to point out that, by itself, it explains nothing:

The single most salient fact that appears most relevant is the overall adherence to an array of existing conventions.  But to say that the structure of a nursery tale is controlled by artistic conventions is to explain nothing, unless alongside this assertion we can also provide a convincing account of how artistic conventions themselves originate and how any change is successfully introduced into a body of pre-existing conventions.

In contrast, Hasan goes on to derive the structural potential of this text type from the semantics of the texts themselves.

[3] This is falsely presented as if it is a defect in the Hasan's theory, rather than a distinction that is motivated by the data.  In the passage immediately preceding the quote above, Hasan (1984: 78) explains :

I would suggest that the nature of the factors which motivate the elements of structure in such genres is relatively opaque.  This is because the environments in which such texts are either created or received bears only a tangential relationship to their inner unity.  It follows then that the elements of the structure of the nursery tale can neither be seen as fully governed by the author-audience interaction

To contextualise this and the previous misrepresentation, Hasan's (1984) paper was not easily accessible at the time that Martin was writing, being only published in a Nottingham Linguistic Circular.  However, the paper was eventually published in the 1996 collection Ways Of Saying: Ways Of Meaning.

[4] No indication is given as to how the critique in the following obscure paper relates to Martin's "critique" of Hasan.

Harris, S. 1987. "Court Discussion as Genre: some problems and issues".  Department of English, University of Nottingham.  Occasional Papers in Systemic Linguistics 2. 35-74.

∞

This misrepresentation of Hasan's work is strategic because its function is to demonstrate that Martin's model is less complex, and thus preferable.  See the next post for an assessment of the truth of this proposition.

Misconstruing First & Second Orders Of Field

Martin (1992: 572):

The distinction between first and second order field is presented as follows:

In a discussion about a game of football, the social action is the discussion and the verbal interaction among the participants is the whole of this interaction.  Here the game constitutes a second order of 'field', one that is brought into being by that of the first order, the discussion … (1978: 144)

English Text would model a context of this kind by treating it as a discussion at the level of genre, and as simultaneously involving two fields at the level of register — one field realised through language in action mode (the discussion), and the other realised reflectively (the subject matter).  Keeping in mind that as far as text structure is concerned genre and field give convergent accounts as texts approach ancillary mode, English Text's approach to this context would amount in practice to treating the genre as discussion and the field as the game discussed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The inconsistencies here are too complex to analyse without the glossary below:

Martin’s Usage	What Martin Thinks It Means	What Halliday Means By It
context	register and genre	the semiotic system that has language as its expression plane
genre	context, not language; more abstract than register	language, not context; text type, i.e. register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation
register	context, not language; less abstract than genre	language, not context; text type viewed from the system pole of the cline of instantiation
field	ideational dimension of register	ideational dimension of context, not register

So Martin's approach is to model this situation type

• as a discussion at his higher level of context (genre), and 
• as two fields at his lower level of context (register),
• with first order field realised through ancillary mode, and
• second order field realised through constitutive mode.

That is, new inconsistencies are introduced at this point:

• a situation type has two modes simultaneously (two points on the same cline);
• systems at the same level of abstraction (field and mode) are related by realisation — the relation between different levels of abstraction;
• ideational features (field) are realised by textual features (mode);
• different orders of experience (first and second order field) are both realised by the same order (mode, which is second order).

[2] Note that mode of this situation type is constitutive, not ancillary.  Halliday explicitly specifies that 'the verbal interaction among the participants is the whole of this interaction'.

[3] Martin's approach is thus to treat the lower (first) order field as the higher level of semiotic abstraction — genre stratum — and higher (second) order field as the lower level of semiotic abstraction — register stratum — based on an incorrect interpretation of mode (see [2]).  The inconsistencies therefore are in terms of ordering (lower vs higher), relation (realisation vs projection) and mode (ancillary vs constitutive).

Consequently, on this third tendered piece of evidence, Martin's claim that his model of register and genre avoids additional complications in Halliday's model is the exact opposite of what is true.

Misconstruing One Mode System As Register And Another As Genre

Martin (1992: 571-2):

… and Halliday's second order opposition of medium to rhetorical genre is English Text's opposition between genre and mode.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents Halliday's 'rhetorical mode' as 'rhetorical genre'.  For Halliday, rhetorical mode is context, whereas genres are text types — registers viewed from the instance pole — which can be identified, in part, by the rhetorical modes they realise.

[2] Assuming Martin has these in reverse order, the proposal here is to reconstrue

• Halliday's mode system of medium (spoken vs written etc.) as his registerial system of mode, and
• Halliday's system of rhetorical mode (expository vs persuasive etc.) as his system of genre.

That is, two systems of potential at the same level of semiotic abstraction — context — are reconstrued as different levels of semiotic abstraction — genre realised by register — which, in SFL theory, are complementary perspectives on sub-potentials of language.  The confusions here are thus along two dimensions simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.

Consequently, on this second tendered piece of evidence, Martin's claim that his model of register and genre avoids additional complications in Halliday's model is the exact opposite of what is true.

Misconstruing A Higher Order Of Experience As A Lower Level Of Symbolic Abstraction

Martin (1992: 571):

First and second order tenor would be dealt with as the difference between register (tenor) and discourse semantics (NEGOTIATION) here;

Blogger Comment:

For Halliday, tenor is the interpersonal dimension of context.  The relation between first and second order tenor is projection.

Martin's proposal is to reconstrue:

• first order tenor as a dimension of register (misconstrued as context), and
• second order tenor as a dimension of discourse semantics.

That is, the proposal is to treat a higher order of experience within context, as a lower level of symbolic abstraction — within language.

That is, Martin misconstrues

• orders of experience (related by projection) as levels of symbolic abstraction (related by realisation), and 
• the lower order as the higher level.

Consequently, on this first tendered piece of evidence, Martin's claim that his model of register and genre avoids additional complications in Halliday's model is the exact opposite of what is true.

Misrepresenting Halliday On Context, Register And Genre

Martin (1992: 571):

For Halliday, the complication has to do with introducing the concept of first and second order contexts, with first order field and tenor oriented to situation and second order field, tenor and mode defined by reference to language.  Table 7.21 sums up his (1978: 143-5) position:

Table 7.21. First and second oder [sic] register in Halliday (1978)

	first order	second order
field	social action	subject matter
tenor	social roles	speech function roles
mode	–	medium, rhetorical genre

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, both first and second order field and tenor are systems of context, and both are related to language by realisation — the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction.  The relation between different orders of experience is projection.

[2] Here Martin misrepresents Halliday (1978: 142-5) by substituting his own model for Halliday's.  For Halliday's 'context', Martin substitutes 'register', and for Halliday's '(rhetorical) mode', Martin substitutes his 'genre'.

Weaving An Illogical Argument Around A Misinterpretation Of Halliday

Martin (1992: 570):

Probably the main theoretical weakness as far as modelling [the system of genres that constitute our context of culture] is concerned lies in interpreting both system and process as what might metaphorically be referred to as "negotiation".  This stems in part from a fundamental weakness in the dynamic modelling of the exchange; but it projects from there onto difficulties in dealing with tenor (the ways in which interlocutors treat in status, contact, affect), with genre (the interplay through which participants consummate, frustrate or abandon a genre) and on to ideology where tension among coding orientations vies with power, deprivation and systemic inertia to engender evolution.  As Halliday comments in Thibault (1987):

I would interpret the power relations in a particular situation, when we represent that situation in terms of field, tenor and mode, by building into our representation that fact that the situation may be different things for different interactants.  The total picture is obviously going to bring in all angles; but in any typical context of situation in which there is a power relationship of inequality, then the configuration embodied in that situation is different from the way it is seen from either end.  This means, of course, that the register that is being operated by the interactants will be bifurcated, although we may choose to characterise the register of the situation as a whole by building in both strands.  (1987: 620-1)

It remains to develop ways of building in "both strands" that show how text negotiates with system, and different systems with each other; lacking a model of this metasystemic dynamism, contextual theory remains dangerously incomplete.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The main theoretical weakness, as far as modelling "the system of genres that constitute our context of culture" is concerned, actually lies in Martin's confusion of context potential (context of culture) with language sub-potentials (genres/text types/registers), as explained in previous posts.  There has since appeared an entire book devoted to promoting this misunderstanding: Genre Relations: Mapping Culture (Martin & Rose 2008).

[2] This confuses potential (system) and the instantiation of potential (process) with interpersonal semantics, the system–&–process whereby interlocutors enact intersubjective relations as meaning.  Note that Martin's argument is that it is this interpretation that is the main theoretical weakness as far as modelling genre systems is concerned.

probably	the main theoretical weakness	lies in	[[interpreting both system and process as [[ what might metaphorically be referred to as "negotiation"]] ]]
	Identified / Value	Process: relational	Identifier / Token

[3] The claim here is that the source (cause) of this theoretical weakness — the (mis)interpretation — is a fundamental weakness in the dynamic modelling of interpersonal semantics.

this	in part	stems from	a fundamental weakness [in the dynamic modelling [of the exchange] ]
Identified / Token	Manner: degree	Process: relational: causal: reason	Identifier / Value

[4] The claim here is that the theoretical weakness — the (mis)interpretation — extends to difficulties in modelling tenor, genre and ideology.

[simplified]

it	projects	from there onto difficulties [[[in dealing with tenor …  genre … ideology … ]]]
Carrier	Process: relational: spatio-temporal	Attribute: circumstantial

[5] This misunderstands Halliday.  The Halliday quote is concerned with the question of modelling contexts in which two interlocutors see the same situation as different configurations of field, tenor and mode.  These are the two strands that Halliday refers to.

[6] There can be no such "negotiation".  Text and system are the same phenomenon viewed from opposite poles of the cline of instantiation.