Inconsistent Claims About Discourse Semantics, Register, Genre And Ideology

Martin (1992: 496):

In this projection [Fig. 7.3 Language and its semiotic environment] metaredundancy (Lemke 1984) is reflected through the metaphor of concentric [sic] circles, with larger circles recontextualising smaller ones; the size of the circles also reflects the fact that the analysis tends to focus on larger units as one moves from phonology to ideology.  Thus the tendency in phonology to focus on syllables and phonemes, at the level of lexicogrammar to focus on the clause, at the level of discourse semantics to focus on the exchange or "paragraph", at the level of register to focus on a stage in a transaction, at the level of genre to focus on whole texts and at the level of ideology to focus on discourses manifested across a range of texts.  More in the spirit of Firth than Hjelmslev, this projection lends itself to a reading whereby meaning is constructed on all levels …

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL, the tendency in phonology is to focus on the tone group, not on syllables and phonemes, and a tone group can be larger than a clause.

[2] To be clear, the lexicogrammar also affords the study of clause complex relations, and cohesive relations, some of which may obtain throughout an entire text.

[3] The units in Martin's model of discourse semantics (p325) are:

• exchange and move (interpersonal),
• participant (textual),
• message (logical), and
• message part (experiential)

The message is said (ibid.) to be realised in the lexicogrammar as 'Process (& transitivity rôles)', and the message part is said to be realised in the lexicogrammar as

• Event (element at group rank),
• Thing (element at group rank),
• circumstance (element at clause rank),
• Epithet (element at group rank) and
• Manner adverb (element at group rank in Martin, but at clause rank in SFL theory).

That is to say, the focus in discourse semantics is on units that are, for the most part, smaller than the clause, not larger.  On the other hand, Martin's macro-Theme (introductory paragraph) and macro-New (text summary) are construed as functions at the level of text — which is said to be the focus at the level of genre, rather than the focus at the level of discourse semantics.

[4] Leaving aside the facts that, in SFL theory, register is language and context is not, there is the inconvenient truth that not all registers involve staged transactions.

[5] On Martin's own model, this confuses context (genre) with language (text).  In terms of SFL theory, it confuses text type (genre) with the meanings of a text (semantics).

[6] This confuses stratification with instantiation.  In SFL theory, the study of "discourses manifested across a range of texts" is the concern of register (text type, genre).

[7] This continues the confusion between semogenesis (making meaning) and stratification.  The whole point of stratification is to parcel out the complexity of meaning making into different levels of symbolic abstraction, thereby relating meaning to both lower levels of abstraction (wording and sounding) and to higher levels of abstraction (context).

Rhapsodising On The Complementarity Of Method Of Development And Point

Martin (1992: 489):

In short, method of development is where a text is coming from; point is where it's going to.  Theme is how a speaker looks at things; New is where she takes the listener to.  Hyper-Theme is what a speaker is going to say; hyper-New is what a listener's learned.  Macro-Theme is their way in; macro-New is where they've been.  A text is a trip: method of development is the route taken, while point is why you went there in the first place — what you've seen/learned/experienced/taken away.  Method of development is the plan; point is the holiday.

Blogger Comments:

[1] These characterisations of method of development and point are concerned with the experiential meaning that is textually highlighted, rather than the textual highlighting itself.  This can be demonstrated by glossing the two terms as follows:

• introductory paragraph, topic sentences and Themes is where the text is coming from;
• News, paragraph summaries and text summary is where it's going to.

[2] Again, these characterisations of Theme and New are concerned with the experiential meaning that is textually highlighted, rather than the textual highlighting itself.  Theme is the giving of textual prominence to what is the point of departure of the clause as message.  Theme can highlight textual and interpersonal elements as well as the experiential.  New is the giving of textual prominence to what the speaker regards as unrecoverable to the listener.  New can highlight textual and interpersonal elements as well as the experiential.

[3] Here the concern is writing pedagogy, not linguistic theory, and the focus is on experiential meaning, rather than textual highlighting.  This can be demonstrated by glossing the two terms as follows:

• topic sentence is what a speaker is going to say
• paragraph summary is what a listener's learned

[4] A paragraph summary is meaning created by the speaker (writer).  In contradistinction, what a listener has learned from a text is meaning created by the listener.

[5] Here the concern is again writing pedagogy, not linguistic theory, and the focus is on experiential meaning, rather than textual highlighting.  This can be demonstrated by glossing the two terms as follows:

• introductory paragraph is their way in
• text summary is where they've been.

[6] In terms of the metaphor 'a text is a trip', 'the route taken' also includes the meanings not included in the introductory paragraph, topic sentences and Themes.  The entire text is 'the route taken'.

[7] The claim of this metaphor is that News, paragraph summaries and text summary is 'why you went there in the first place'.  This misconstrues the meaning of point in terms of cause: purpose, and ascribes it to the interlocutors, rather than the text.

[8] This can be glossed as follows:

• introductory paragraph, topic sentences and Themes are the plan (of the trip);
• News, paragraph summaries and text summary are the holiday (of the trip).

In terms of the metaphor 'a text is a trip', all the meanings of the entire text constitute the trip (holiday).

Rhapsodising On Method Of Development

Martin (1992: 489):

Method of development takes these harmonising meanings, and finds a peg to hang them on — it establishes an angle on the field.  This angle will be sensitive to a text's generic structure where this is realised in stages.  Method of development is the lens through which a field is constructed; of all the experiential meanings available in a given field, it will pick on just a few, and weave them through Theme time and again to ground the text — to give interlocutors something to hang onto, something to come back to — an orientation, a perspective, a point of view, a perch, a purchase.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It is instructive to compare these metaphors with Martin's model.  Martin's method of development is a mixture of writing pedagogy and linguistic theory.  Martin supplies the writing pedagogy, rebranding introductory paragraph as macro-Theme, and topic sentence as hyper-Theme, whereas Halliday supplies the linguistic theory: Theme as point of departure for the clause as message (textual metafunction).  Martin's method of development is the progression of experiential meaning that is highlighted by inclusion in an introductory paragraph, topic sentences, and clause Themes.

[2] It is because Martin focuses on the experiential meaning that is textually highlighted, rather than on the textual system that does the highlighting, that he believes that method of development 'establishes an angle on the field' — the ideational dimension of context — keeping in mind that what Martin regards as "field" includes ideational semantics and involves a misconstrual of context as register.

Importantly, interpersonal and textual meanings are also given thematic prominence — e.g. modal adjuncts such as allegedly and conjunctive adjuncts such as nevertheless, respectively — but these are ignored in this focus on experiential meaning.

[3] Consider the "development" of a text that keeps returning to the same Theme, the same point of departure 'time and again'.

Misconstruing A Grammatical Reference Item As An Accumulation Of New Information

Martin (1992: 459):

Hyper- and macro-News, like hyper- and macro-Themes are more prominent in written than spoken English.  However, just as marked Themes were shown to functional [sic] in parallel ways to hyper-Themes in spoken mode, so extended reference can be shown to function in parallel ways to hyper-News.  Two excerpts from text [4:2] are re-presented below to illustrate this point.  This in [4:2ff & ii] and that in [4:2aaa & ccc] are used to accumulate the actions in the activity sequences that have gone before in a way which complements their scaffolding with marked Themes as discussed in 6.3.2.  Extended reference is in other words to hyper-New as marked Theme is to hyper-Theme:

Synoptic : Dynamic ::

(WRITTEN : SPOKEN ::)

hyper-Theme : marked Theme ::

hyper-New : extended reference

Blogger Comments:

[1] In text [4:2], or any other text, the grammatical items this and that do not "accumulate" (or summarise) previous New information.  As instances of anaphoric demonstrative reference, they refer back to earlier information, which may have been presented as Given and/or New.

[2] For Martin, activity sequences in the text are misconstrued as field, the ideational dimension of context, and this, in turn, is misconstrued as register.

[3] Glossing Martin's terms, these proportionalities become:

• an anaphoric demonstrative reference item in spoken mode is to
• a paragraph summary in written mode as
• a marked Theme of a clause in spoken mode is to
• a topic sentence in written mode.

When An Abstract Is A Summary And A Summary Is An Introduction

Martin (1992: 458):

The consideration of macro-Theme and macro-New in Matthiessen and Halliday's paper points to the difference between what are often referred to as an abstract and a summary. A[n] abstract is essentially a dislocated macro-New (typically "Theme marked" at a text's beginning or published elsewhere); it presents the essence of what can be learned by reading the text the abstract functions as macro-New for.  A summary on the other hand is more like a dislocated macro-Theme (often "Rhematic" at the end of a text or published elsewhere); it provides an outline of what can or has been read, re-scaffolding by way of review.

Blogger Comments:

[1] On this model, the difference between an abstract and a summary is that an abstract is a summary and a summary is an introductory paragraph; see the next two points, below.

[2] Glossing the term macro-New as 'text summary' (p454), this becomes:

A[n] abstract is essentially a dislocated text summary; it presents the essence of what can be learned by reading the text the abstract functions as text summary for.

[3] Glossing the term macro-Theme as 'introductory paragraph' (p437), this becomes:

A summary on the other hand is more like a dislocated introductory paragraph; it provides an outline of what can or has been read, re-scaffolding by way of review.

[4] An abstract or summary that is published elsewhere, rather than as part of the text in question, though related (intertextually), is not part of the logogenesis of the actual text it abstracts or summarises, and so does not function as its macro-New or macro-Theme.

Presenting Prescription As Theoretical Description

Martin (1992: 456):

Importantly, macro-News are not simply a replay of macro-Themes; they draw together new meanings which could not have been predicted by macro-Theme because they had not been made.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This translates as: 'text summaries are not simply a replay of introductory paragraphs'.  The field here, still, is writing pedagogy — prescribing how to structure written texts — rather than theorising the system of the English language by examining instances (texts).  Moreover, the situation is quite different when an actual text is closely examined.

In text [6:23], the introductory paragraph ('macro-Theme') is given by Martin as:

Wars are costly exercises. They cause death and destruction and put resources to non-productive uses but they also promote industrial and economic change. This benefit does not mean that war is a good thing, but that it sometimes brings useful developments.

and the text summary ('macro-New') is given by Martin as:

… it is clear that future generations not only enjoyed the security and peace won by their forefathers but also the benefits of war-time economic expansion.

It can be seen that, rather than accumulate the New meanings of the preceding co-text (Martin's claim), what actually happens in this particular text summary ('macro-New') is:

1. first, content not previously discussed in the text is introduced (it is clear that future generations not only enjoyed the security and peace won by their forefathers), and
2. second, one piece of New information from the introductory paragraph (promote industrial and economic change) is reworded (lexical cohesion) and again presented as New information (the benefits of war-time economic expansion).

[2] The claim here is that new meanings could not have been predicted by the introductory paragraph on account of the fact that these new meanings had not been made.  The logic here is as follows:

• Q could not have been predicted from P because Q had not yet happened.

The notion of prediction only applies to events that have not yet happened.

Confusing Writing Pedagogy With Linguistic Theory

Martin (1992: 456):

Macro-Theme, hyper-Themes and clause Themes project forward, scaffolding the text with respect to its rhetorical purpose (i.e. its genre); macro-New, hyper-News and clause News on the other hand look back, gathering up the meanings which have accumulated to elaborate a text's field.  The result is a textured sandwich in which texts project both forward and back as they unfold.  Texture of this kind, which is a tendency in writing (by no means a categorical rule) is outlined schematically in Fig. 6.12.

 

Fig. 6.12. Sandwich texture in abstract written discourse

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field here is writing pedagogy, not linguistic theory:

• macro-Theme is Martin's rebranding of introductory paragraph; 
• hyper-Theme is Martin's use of Daneš's (1974) term to rebrand topic sentence;
• macro-New is Martin's term for a text summary (and so 'New' is a misnomer);
• hyper-New is Martin's term for a paragraph summary (and so 'New' is again a misnomer).

[2] This confuses context (which is more abstract than language) with register (which is a functional variety of language).  The rôle of language in context is its rhetorical mode.  A genre, on the other hand, as a text type, is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

[3] 'New' is a functional element of the information unit, not the clause. The domain of an information unit may be shorter or longer than a single clause.

[4] The meanings that 'elaborate' the field of a context of situation are all the meanings of a text, not just those that are presented as New to the addressee or re-presented in summaries.

[5] The relation between meaning (semantics) and field (context) is realisation, which is both an elaborating and an identifying relation.  It is the identifying component of the relation that marks the two as different levels of symbolic abstraction.  The use of the term 'elaboration' betrays the fact that Martin does not understand strata as different levels of symbolic abstraction, as has been demonstrated in numerous previous posts (here).

When New Information Isn't

Martin (1992: 455):

The pattern of interaction in [6:23] is outlined below, listing the text's News, hyper-New and macro-New.  The News of the introduction are listed (in plain face) but do not participate in this pattern; they participate instead in the complementary function of predicting the text's method of development reviewed above.

Blogger Comment:

To be clear, on this model, information that is presented by the writer as New to the reader in the introduction (Martin's macro-Theme) does not participate in the 'accumulation of New information'.

Misrepresenting New Information

Martin (1992: 453-4):

The pattern of hyper- and macro-Themes recognised in 6.3.2 above raises the question of whether a similar symbolic pattern arises based on New.  Reviewing text [6:23] it can be seen that hyper- and macro-New are also important aspects of texture, particularly in abstract writing.  The function of hyper-New is illustrated in [6:23l] below; this clause pulls together and summarises the information build up in the rest of the paragraph. … 

Hyper-New [is] single underlined … in the following representation of [6:23]; the minimal News of remaining clauses appear in bold-face.

[6:23]	(illustrating New, hyper-New …)
	a	Wars are costly exercises.
	b	They cause death and destruction
	c	and put resources to non-productive uses
	d	but they also promote industrial and economic change.
	e	This benefit does not mean that war is a good thing, but that it sometimes brings useful developments.
	f	The Second World War further encouraged the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis.
	g	Between 1937 and 1945 the value of industrial production almost doubled.
	h	This increase was faster than otherwise would have occurred.
	i	The momentum was maintained in the post-war years
	j	and by 1954-5 the value of manufacturing output was three times that of 1944-5.
	k	The enlargement of Australia’s steel-making capacity, and of chemicals, rubber, metal goods and motor vehicles all owed something to the demands of war.
	l	The war had acted as something of a hothouse for technological progress and economic change.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field here is again writing pedagogy, rather than linguistic theory.

[2] The paragraph is a unit of graphology, the expression plane of language realising written mode.  It is not a unit of linguistic content.

[3] New is not a functional component of the clause.  It is the obligatory element of the information unit, which is parallel with the clause.  The distribution of information units in a text is indicated by the phonological system of tonality, which specifies the distribution of tone groups, because an information unit is realised by a tone group.  The culmination of New information, the information focus, is indicated by the phonological system of tonicity, which specifies the location of tonic prominence, because the information focus is realised by tonic prominence.

In contrast, in the analysis of text [6:23], the New is arbitrarily assigned to the last functional element of the Rheme of the clause, regardless of intonation, graphological indications of tone group boundaries, lexical density, and so on.  The possibility of New information in the Theme, a very frequent feature of discourse, is ruled out by such a rigid, arbitrary approach.

Some of the likely foci of New information in text [6:23], based on a spoken reading, and overlooked by the arbitrary approach, are highlighted above in dark red.

Confusing The Textual And Interpersonal Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 448):

Considered from the the perspective of group rank as opposed to clause rank meanings, all of the topical Themes in [6:30] are in fact 'interpersonal' ones: first and second person pronouns (I, you, you, you, I, we, you, you, we) and the metaphorical modulation my responsibilities.  So the method of development of this text is an interactive one: the sitting member is concerned to engage his constituent.  The association of unmarked Theme and Subject in English means that these interpersonal considerations are better pursued during the discussion of modal responsibility in 6.3.4 below.  It is important to note at this point however that a pattern of Theme selection which foregrounds interpersonal meaning will not lend itself to he experientially oriented macro-Theme, hyper-Theme, Theme interaction reviewed above.  It is for this reason that school rhetoric has long cautioned against writing in the first person (although it has also long forgotten why this is so).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses the textual metafunction (method of development) with the interpersonal metafunction (speaker-addressee 'engagement').

[2] To be clear, the "interaction" in this written monologic text is merely the use of the 'speech rôle' pronouns I, we (speaker) and you (addressee).

[3] This confuses the textual metafunction (Theme and method of development) with the interpersonal metafunction (Subject as the carrier of modal responsibility).

[4] To be clear, in saying 'a pattern of Theme selection which foregrounds interpersonal meaning' Martin means 'speech rôle' personal pronouns serving as topical (experiential) Themes.

[5] This is even manifestly untrue within Martin's model, since macro-Themes (Introductory Paragraphs) and hyper-Themes (Topic Sentences) can "predict" the appearance of (anaphorically referring) personal pronouns as Themes.

[6] Clearly, any proscriptions against writing in the first person do not derive from writers being unable to apply Martin's pedagogical model.

In SFL theory, this is a matter of variation according to the text type (register) and the situation type (cultural context) it realises.  Prescription and proscription arise in pedagogy when usuality (modalisation) is reconstrued as obligation (modulation).

Confusing Writing Pedagogy With Linguistic Theory

Martin (1992: 444):

The interaction patterns considered to this point have focussed on written text; the compositional scaffolding discussed depends for its development on a degree of consciousness not associated with spontaneous spoken monologue… — although professional public speakers do make use of scaffolding of a not unrelated kind.  Spontaneous spoken text however unfolds dynamically; it is not configured as a thing, with an elaborated part/whole structure.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  Text [6:35] was falsely presented as a text in written mode, despite the fact that it was actually a written transcript of an interview (spoken mode).  See the evidence at Falsifying Data: Misrepresenting An Interview Transcript As A Writing Exercise.

[2] As the term 'scaffolding' makes clear, this model of method of development — using macro-Theme (Introductory Paragraph) and hyper-Theme (Topic Sentence) — is actually a model of writing pedagogy.

[3] The "degree of consciousness" not associated with spoken monologue — or indeed spoken dialogue — is the possibility, afforded by written mode, of planning and editing a text, with the further option of using a model of writing pedagogy.

[4] Professional public speakers who write their speeches beforehand can also make use of the scaffolding offered by writing pedagogy.

[5] All texts unfold dynamically — since unfolding is a process, it would be hard to unfold any other way.  In SFL theory, this semogenic (meaning-making) process is modelled as logogenesis: the unfolding of the text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

[6] To claim that a written text is 'configured as a thing' is to confuse the text as material object (e.g. ink on paper, etc.) with the text as semiotic object (an instance of a linguistic content).

[7] On the contrary, even spontaneous spoken text is highly structured.  As Halliday (1985: 79) explains:

The spoken language is, in fact, no less structured and highly organised than the written. It could not be otherwise, since both are manifestations of the same system.

Locating Graphological Units 'Above' A Grammatical Unit

Martin (1992: 443-4):

Clearly, in longer texts, this pattern of macro-Themes predicting hyper-Themes can be extended, with hyper-Themes themselves functioning as macro-Themes in their own right… .  Schematically, the thematic relationships being introduced here are outlined in Fig. 6.10, with the proviso that a text may be organised thematically around more than the three levels shown.  As noted above, the lowest level hyper-Themes in a text are referred to traditionally as Topic Sentences and the highest level "macro"-Themes as Introductions.

 

Fig. 6.10. Solidarity across levels of Theme

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field of Martin's discourse has again shifted from building a theory of language to prescribing the use of his model for the writing of coherent texts (pedagogy). Removing Martin's re-brandings, this sentence becomes:

Clearly, in longer texts, this pattern of Introductory Paragraphs predicting Topic Sentences can be extended, with Topic Sentences themselves functioning as Introductory Paragraphs in their own right.

[2] In SFL theory, these "predictions" correspond to non-structural cohesive relations — lexical and grammatical (reference) — between the wording realised in Introductory Paragraphs, the wording realised in Topic Sentences, and the wording of clause Themes.

[3] To be clear, removing Martin's re-brandings, this schema becomes:

[4] To be clear, in this model, the levels of "Theme" are the Introductory Paragraph, the Topic Sentence and the Theme of a clause.  The top two levels, the paragraph and the sentence, are rank units of the expression plane: the stratum of graphology, whereas the lowest level, the clause, is a rank unit of the content plane: the stratum of lexicogrammar.

The re-branding of Introductory Paragraph and Topic Sentence as macro-Theme and hyper-Theme helps to conceal this theoretical inconsistency.

Questions "Predicting" Answers

Martin (1992: 438):

The obvious candidate for macro-Theme in a writing exercise of this kind is the question: What would you like to do at the end of your rehabilitation? And like to do does predict the hyper-Themes of the reply:

My first choice is to go back to work at the hospital.
I would also like to go to a sheltered workshop.

Blogger Comments:

[1] A macro-Theme (of a text) is Martin's rebranding of 'introductory paragraph'; see previous post.  Here a question from an interviewer — which the interviewee spends the rest of the text answering — is interpreted as functioning the same an introductory paragraph.

[2] A hyper-Theme (of a paragraph) is Martin's rebranding of 'topic sentence'; see previous post. Here two of the interviewee's responses to the interviewer's question are each interpreted as functioning the same as a topic sentence.

[3] Here an interviewer's demand for information is interpreted as "predicting" the requested information given by an interviewee.  That is, a question is said to "predict" the answer it requests.  However, the question only solicits a reply, it does not predict the actual information given in the reply — the lexical cohesion of like–choice–like notwithstanding.

Falsifying Data: Misrepresenting An Interview Transcript As A Writing Exercise

Martin (1992: 437-8):

As an example, consider the following written text, from a traumatic brain injured patient (from Prigatano et al. undated).  Topical Themes are underlined [in bold], marked topical Themes are underlined in all clauses…

[6: 35]	(written mode)
	a	What would you like to do at the end of your rehabilitation program?
	b	My first choice is to go back to work at the hospital.
	c	This would be hard for me to do
	d	because they have hired someone to take my place.
	e	I liked the work.
	f	I was there for over 5 years.
	g	I also would like to go to a sheltered workshop.
	h	This would be good,
	i	but it has to have transportation to the place and home.
	j	The transportation would have to be a bus
	k	because I do not have a driver’s licence.
	l	I  was to have it renewed last year,
	m	but that was not done.
	n	To get a driver’s licence,
	o	I will need to take the written and the driver’s exam.
	p	The workshop will help me control my temper,
	q	which is bad for me.
	r	I get mad easily
	s	and this is because of my brain injury.
	t	All I can recall is that I was knocked out for 3 weeks.
	u	I did my recovery at Mercy ICU.
	v	I had my accident on my way to the hospital for a personnel director’s meeting.
	w	The workshop might have been in Austin, Texas.
	x	This means I will be away from home,
	y	which I would miss very much.
	z	I miss not being at home.
	aa	I would like to work in the yard
	bb	and work on the cars,
	cc	especially washing and wax(ing) them.
	dd	This I have not done for years.

The obvious candidate for macro-Theme in a writing exercise of this kind is the question: What would you like to do at the end of your rehabilitation?

Blogger Comments:

[1] There are several points of evidence that demonstrate that this is not a writing exercise, nor even a text in written mode.

Firstly, it lacks the lexical density of written mode, and leans more towards the grammatical intricacy of spoken mode.

Secondly, it begins with an interviewer question addressing the patient 'you', and the rest of the text is the reply of the patient 'I'.  The context of situation is clearly an interview with a patient in rehabilitation, not an exercise in a writing class.

Thirdly, it features a repair strategy that is common to written transcripts of spoken language: wax(ing).

The source of the text is:

Prigatano, G.P., J.R. Roueche & D.J. Fordyce, undated. "Nonaphasic Language Disturbances after Closed Head Injury". Presbyterian Hospital and Neurosurgery Section, University of Oklahoma. mimeo.

[2] This is not a marked topical Theme of a clause.  It is a dependent clause in a 'regressive sequence' (b^a) clause nexus.  It has thematic status within the clause nexus — not within a clause.  See Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 392-3).

Intuiting Others' Assessments of Coherence

Martin (1992: 437):

In writing, the use of macro-Themes to predict hyper-Themes, which in turn predict a sequence of clause Themes is an important aspect of texture; and texts which do not make use of predicted patterns of interaction in this way may be read as less than coherent.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field of Martin's discourse has shifted here from building a theory of spoken and written language to prescribing the use of his model for the writing of coherent texts (pedagogy). Removing Martin's re-brandings, this sentence becomes:

In writing, the use of introductory paragraphs to predict topic sentences, which in turn predict a sequence of clause Themes is an important aspect of texture.

[2] A text that is restricted to this pattern cannot develop, because it must always revert back to the same point of departure. On the model of Daneš (1974) — the source of the notion of hypertheme — there are three main types of thematic progression:

1. a preceding Rheme becomes the next Theme;
2. a repetition of the same Theme, the first appearance termed a 'hypertheme';
3. a progression of derived Themes

For a text to develop, New information has to be introduced — in the Rheme in the unmarked case — and later taken as the point of the departure (Theme) in a subsequent clause, thereby providing the context for the introduction of further New information.

[3] Consider the likelihood that a text that doesn't develop would be 'read' as coherent with respect to its context of situation.

Note that here Martin provides his own intuition of what unidentified readers might regard as 'less than coherent'. See the related post Misrepresenting Hasan's Work On Coherence As Formalist.

Confusing Graphology And Semantics

Martin (1992: 437):

For English Text then, a hyper-Theme is an introductory sentence or group of sentences which is established to predict a particular pattern of interaction among strings, chains and Theme selection in following sentences — It is the child of wisdom and chance is the hyper-Theme of [6:34].  On the basis of this definition of hyper-Theme, the term macro-Theme can be defined as [a] sentence or group of sentences (possibly a paragraph) which predicts a set of hyper-Themes; this is the introductory paragraph of school rhetoric.  The proportionalities being set up here [are] as follows:

macro-Theme : text ::  hyper-Theme : paragraph ::  Theme : clause

Blogger Comments:

[1] Sentences and paragraphs are graphological units — units of the expression plane in written not spoken mode.  Here they are misconstrued as semantic units.

[2] In the dynamic unfolding of a text, logogenesis, a hyper-Theme does not predict future Themes. Any "prediction" is a retrospective analysis that is only made after the fact by taking a synoptic view of a written text.

[3] This "introductory (Topic) sentence" is preceded by a three-clause complex that introduces the topic of the discourse: the English Constitution.

[4] Just as the meaning of the Greek prefix 'hyper-' is above, over or beyond, the meaning of the Greek prefix 'macro-' is long or large.  That is, this (poor) choice of terminology results in the Theme of the largest unit, the (semantic) text, being a long- or large-Theme, and the Theme of the next largest unit, the (graphological) paragraph, being an above-, over- or beyond-Theme.

[5] That is, 'macro-Theme' is merely Martin's re-branding of 'introductory paragraph'.

[6] The proportionalities being set up here are as follows:

textual function of semantic unit : 

textual function of graphological unit :

textual function of grammatical unit