Showing posts with label misidentifying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misidentifying. Show all posts

Monday, 29 August 2016

Confusing Strata And Misidentifying Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 563):
Martin (1985/1989) and Martin & Peters (1985) further divided expository writing into analytical and hortatory varieties, depending on whether the text outlined an argument (macro-proposition) or tried to persuade listener/readers to undertake a particular course of action (macro-modulated proposition), a distinction related to Longacre's +/– prescriptive opposition.  The inter-relationships proposed for these factual genres are formulated systemically in Fig. 7.26 (for further delicacy see Peters 1985).  Significantly, the network is comprised of ideational, interpersonal and textual features and thus cuts across register variables to bring out the oppositions between the genres:

ideational variables
+/– activity structure, document/explain


interpersonal variables
resolve/debate, analytical, hortatory


textual variables
+/– generalised


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, the rôle of language in context, such as analytical vs hortatory exposition, is a dimension of mode, the system of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Text types (language) are identified from above, by the situation types (context) they realise.  Here, on the other hand, textual mode is being identified from below, in terms of the interpersonal semantics (speech function).

[2] This misrepresents the distinction between these two types of exposition, both of which involve the presentation of arguments. The text structure (semantics) that realises a hortatory exposition (context: mode) is typically:
  1. Thesis
  2. Arguments
  3. Recommendation
whereas the text structure (semantics) that realises an analytical exposition (context: mode) is typically:
  1. Thesis
  2. Arguments
  3. Reiteration
The function of a hortatory exposition is to explain to the reader that something should or should not happen or be done — not to command the reader — whereas the function of an analytical exposition is a to persuade the reader that an idea is important.

[3] This misrepresents a theoretical defect — a network that mixes metafunctional perspectives — as a virtue.  However, the network also confuses features from different strata and misidentifies their metafunctions, as will be demonstrated below.

[4] In terms of SFL theory, of the "ideational register variables" classifying genres ("from below"), ± activity structure is ideational, but semantic, whereas document/explain is textual context (mode).

[5] In terms of SFL theory, of the "interpersonal register variables" classifying genres ("from below"), resolve/debate is interpersonal, but semantic, whereas analytical/hortatory is textual context (mode).

[6] In terms of SFL theory, the "textual register variables" classifying genres ("from below"), ± generalised is ideational semantics (construing experience).

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Misconstruing Semantics As Context And Misidentifying Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 562-3):
Martin 1985/1989, working along lines similar to Longacre's, developed a preliminary classification of "factual" genres drawing on field and mode.  The basic field opposition was between texts which were focussing on activity sequences (e.g. narratives, recipes, manuals) and texts which were not (e.g. descriptions, expositions); the basic mode opposition was between texts which generalised across experience and those which referred to a specific manifestation of a culture.  Generalised texts were further divided into those which function to document information and those which explain. … In later work Martin and Rothery divided explaining texts into those which considered more than one point of view, Discussions and Explorations, and those which presented only one position, Exposition and Explanation.  This genre matrix is outlined in Table 7.19.
Table 7.19 Cross-classification of factual genres

– generalised
generalised:
document

explain:
resolve


debate
– activity structured
description
report
exposition
discussion





+ activity structured
recount
procedure
explanation
exploration

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is inconsistent with Martin's (p564) opposition of factual and narrative genres.

[2] This confuses ideational semantics (activity sequences) with ideational context (field).  The confusion is thus along the dimension of stratification.

[3] This confuses ideational semantics (construing experience) with textual context (mode).  The confusion is thus simultaneously metafunctional and stratificational.

[4] This confuses interpersonal semantics (heteroglossia vs monoglossia) with textual context (mode).  The confusion is thus simultaneously metafunctional and stratificational.

Thursday, 12 May 2016

Misidentifying Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 508):
Mode refers to the rôle language is playing in realising social action.  Within register, it is the projection of textual meaning, and so is realised primarily through the textual metafunction in language.  Mode thus puts major systems such as TONALITY and TONICITY in phonology, and THEME and INFORMATION (clause), DEIXIS (nominal group), TENSE (verbal group) and SUBSTITUTION and ELLIPSIS (clause and group) in the grammar at risk, and because of their textual orientation impacts on all systems at the level of discourse semantics (NEGOTIATION, IDENTIFICATION, CONJUNCTION and IDEATION).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's 'register' is a misconstrual of culture (context) as a functional variety of language (register).  In SFL theory, mode is the "projection" of the textual metafunctional principle onto context, in modelling culture as a semiotic system, not the projection of textual meaning.

[2] Information is not a system of the clause.  It is a system of the information unit (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 115).

[3] Deixis is not a textual system of the nominal group.  It is an interpersonal system (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 387).  Deixis functions textually in the cohesive system of reference.

[4] Tense is not a textual system of the verbal group.  Tense is realised by the logical structure of the verbal group (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 398).

[5] Strictly speaking, substitution-&-ellipsis is not a system of the clause and group.  Rank systems are structural.  As a system of cohesion, it is non-structural.  The clause and the group are domains in which it operates.

The other cohesive systems — reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion — are also relevant here, but omitted because Martin has misconstrued them as discourse semantic systems of various metafunctions: identification (textual), conjunction (logical) and ideation (experiential), respectively.

[6] This exemplifies Martin's confusion between text as a semantic unit, and the textual metafunction as a dimension of semiosis.  See [5] above.

Friday, 11 March 2016

Misidentifying New Information

Martin (1992: 454-5): 
The next paragraph is not pulled together in this way; instead, [6:23r] functions as a macro-New, summarising the text as a whole. … macro-New [is …] underlined in the following representation of [6:23]; the minimal News of remaining clauses appear in bold-face.

[6:23]
(illustrating New … and macro-New)

m
The war had also revealed inadequacies in Australia’s scientific and research capabilities.

n
After the war strenuous efforts were made to improve these.

o
The Australian National University was established with an emphasis on research.

p
The government gave its support to the advancement of science in many areas, including agricultural production.

q
Though it is difficult to disentangle the effects of war from other influences,

r
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.


Blogger Comments:

[1] This is the first mention of the security and peace won by their forefathers in the text, and so it does not satisfy Martin's definition of macro-New as 'summarising the text as a whole'.

[2] This does not satisfy Martin's definition of minimal New — the "highest ranking" clause constituent (p451) — because [6:23p] is a clause complex, rather than a single clause, with including agricultural production as a possessive attributive clause hypotactically elaborating the clause that precedes it.  Based on a spoken reading, there are likely to be information foci on many and agricultural.

Thursday, 11 February 2016

Misconstruing Enhancement As Elaboration And Misidentifying Metaphor

Martin (1992: 425, 427):
Notes on analysis:
(i) home and work are taken as places in this analysis to show their relationship to the domicile string; they could just as well have been treated as elaborations of the Process coming (home is so treated in the action strings below). …
Notes on the analysis:
(i) dead is taken as a metaphorical realisation of the action "die", and so worked into the "living" string here.
(ii) home is treated as a locative elaboration of the Process coming (cf. its treatment as a place in the place string above).
(iii) name is taken as a metaphorical realisation of the action "name", and so taken [as] a repetition of named in [6:33:a].


Blogger Comment:

[1] In SFL theory, Location circumstances are related to the nucleus (Process/Medium) by enhancement, not elaboration.  These are the clauses involved:

The next morning
she
ran away
from home
Location: temporal: rest
Medium
Process
Location: spatial: motion: away from

Meanwhile
the seven dwarfs
were coming
home
from work

Medium
Process
Location: spatial: motion: towards
Location: spatial: motion: away from

[2] These are not instances of grammatical metaphor, but in any case, it isn't necessary to regard them as such for the purpose of analysing lexical cohesion — the lexical strings of Martin's discourse semantic ideation.

The clause featuring dead is an intensive attributive clause, congruently realising a figure of ascriptive being–&–having:

because
her parents
were
dead

Carrier
Process: intensive
Attribute

The clauses featuring name are intensive identifying clauses, congruently realising figures of identifying being–&–having:

what
is
your name
Token/Identified
Process: intensive
Value/Identifier


my name
is
Snow White
Value/Identified
Process: intensive
Token/Identifier