Discursive Power And The Evolutionarily Necessary Resolution Of Semiotic Tension Through Dynamic Openness

Martin (1992: 581):

Because coding orientations are variably realised, ideology will never be a question of this or that but one of more or less; and because these coding orientations distribute discursive power unevenly, there will always be semiotic tension in the community. The variable realisation of ideology provides the dynamic openness through which this tension can be resolved — it is a necessary condition for the system to evolve.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the confusion of variability in the linguistic realisation (semantic style) of one coding orientation with the different linguistic realisations (semantic variation) of different coding orientations; see earlier critique here.

[2] This continues the misconstrual of coding orientation as ideology; see earlier clarification here.

[3] Bernstein's coding orientations do not distribute (the undefined) "discursive power" — unevenly or evenly — and so this is not a cause of (the undefined) "semiotic tension in the community".  The codes are different uses of language by different social groups.  Halliday (1978: 106):

What Bernstein’s work suggests is that there may be differences in the relative orientation of different social groups towards the various functions of language in given contexts, and towards different areas of meaning that may be explored within a given function.

And these sub-cultural angles are functions of the social structure; Halliday (1978: 123):

This angle of vision is a function of the social structure. It reflects, in our society, the pattern of social hierarchy, and the resulting tensions between an egalitarian ideology and a hierarchical reality.

[4] Two claims are made here about the mistaken notion of "the variable realisation of ideology":

• it provides the dynamic openness through which semiotic tension can be resolved;
• it is a necessary condition for the system to evolve.

No evidence or argument is offered to support either of these bare assertions.

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.

Confusing Field With The Language That Realises It

Martin (1992: 536):

The semiotic system of field was introduced in Chapter 5 by way of contextualising the discussion of IDEATION.  Field was introduced there in terms of sets of activity sequences oriented to some global institutional purpose (or more informally, field provides the semiotic interpretation of what counts as an answer to the question //1 What do you do// as put to strangers).

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated in several previous posts, the discussion (p292, pp321-5) of activity sequences in Chapter 5 confuses the contextual category of field with the language that realises it.

[2] This is misleading.  The answer to the question What do you do? is language, not field (context).  As a dimension of context, field is not language.  Language realises field; language and field are different levels of symbolic abstraction, with language as Token and field as Value.  This stratal identity relation encodes field by reference to language; and decodes language by reference to field.

The confusion arises, most generally, from Martin mistaking semogenesis (all strata make meaning) for stratification (context/meaning/wording/sounding), and because of this, treating all strata as levels of (linguistic) meaning.  This misunderstanding then leads, in the present chapter, to misconstruing context as types of language (register and genre).  Martin's model of register and genre, as contextual strata, is thus based on sequenced theoretical misunderstandings, and is inconsistent with both stratification and the notion of text type (register/genre).

Misunderstanding Mode

Martin (1992: 509-10):

Experientially mode mediates the semiotic space between action and reflection. Exemplifying again from [4:2], for the most part this text is constitutive of its field, which it generalises as an abstract procedure.  For this reason the processes are for the most part timeless (i.e. simple present tense in English) and the participants involve generic or generalised reference.  From [4:17tt] however, through to [4:17bbb], the text shifts its mode and becomes dependent on another text — the imaginary representation of the showing area on the coffee table to which the speaker refers exophorically: here, that way, like that, over there.  Correspondingly, the tense shifts as well, from simple present to present in present (is standing), as it has occasionally elsewhere in the text ([4:2e, h, j, z, gg]).  The text in other words becomes more dependent on its context — more a part, and less purely constitutive of what is going on.  Putting this in general terms, mode mediates contextual dependency — the extent to which a text constructs or accompanies its field.

17.	tt.		So, if your judge is standing here,
	uu.		we walk away from him that way.
18	vv.		That is [[so the judge can get the hind movement of your dog]].
19.	ww.		Then we usually walk sideways like that
	xx.		so as he can see [[the dog moving all over]]
	yy.		and then we walk back to the judge
	zz.		so as he can see the front movement.
20.	aaa.		After that he usually tells you
	bbb.		to wait over there.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The notion that mode "mediates" is mistaken and leads to multiple confusions, as shown in previous posts.  To be clear, one of the dimensions of mode is the cline from language in action to language in reflection (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 354).

[2] The text does not "generalise" its field as an abstract procedure.  In terms of mode (Martin's genre) the text is a recount of a (concrete) procedure.  In terms of field, the subject matter of the text is dog shows.

[3] A text does not 'shift its mode' when it is accompanied by gestures.  A spoken text ± gestures is a spoken text.

[4] The spoken text is not dependent on the gestures that accompany it.  The truth is the exact opposite: it is the gestures that are dependent on the spoken text for their interpretation.  The independence of the spoken text is demonstrated by the intelligibility of the written version — exophoric references notwithstanding.

[5] This claim is not supported by the data.  Of the three instances of exophoric reference, the tense changes only once: in the first.

[6] This misconstrues synonymy (part /constitutive) as antonymy (more a part /less constitutive).

Problems With The Non-Argument For Genre As Context

Martin (1992: 502):

As noted above, the fact that notions of purpose and effect do not correlate with any one metafunctional component of language and have been associated with different variables in the development of register theory suggests that a teleological perspective on text function might be better set up as superordinate to — rather than alongside or incorporated in — field, mode and tenor.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is manifestly untrue.  Notions of purpose (Fawcett 1980) and effects (Firth 1950) were not 'associated with different variables in the development of register theory'.  Each was featured in  early models of context.

[2] This misunderstands stratification.  The term 'superordinate' misconstrues relations between strata as a relationship of hyponymy (delicacy), instead of symbolic identity (realisation); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

[3] The argument here for establishing genre as a contextual stratum is as follows:

• Premiss 1: Because notions of purpose and effect do not correlate with one metafunction only, and
• Premiss 2: because purpose and effect have been associated with different variables in the development of register theory,
• Conclusion: it follows that a teleological perspective on text function might be modelled as "superordinate" to field, mode and tenor.

As noted in [1] and [2] above, Premiss 2 features an untruth, and the Conclusion mistakes stratification for hyponymy.  Leaving these aside, the conclusion does not follow from the premisses. This is because the number of metafunctions and the different theorisings of purpose and effect are entirely irrelevant to the question of levels of symbolic abstraction in the stratificational hierarchy.

[4] Teleology has its Western philosophical origins in Aristotle, who 'believed in purpose as the fundamental concept in science' (Russell 1961: 90).  However, it ceased to be part of scientific explanation with the rise of science in the 17th Century.  As Bertrand Russell (1961: 523) makes clear:

Another thing that resulted from science was a profound change in the conception of man's place in the universe. … Moreover purpose, which had since Aristotle formed an intimate part of the conception of science, was now thrust out of scientific procedure. … The world might have a purpose, but purposes could no longer enter into scientific explanations.

The Problem Of Overlapping Lexical Strings And Reference Chains

Martin (1992: 427):

The problem of overlapping strings and chains can be illustrated with respect to the domicile string in [6:33] which overlaps with two distinct reference chains, one identifying the castle and one identifying the cottage:

domicile string:

castle–castle–home–woods–cottage–inside–home–inside

domicile chains:

a castle–the castle–the woods

this little cottage–there–here

The strategy adopted here to overcome this difficulty will be to analyse cohesive harmony from the point of view of reference chains as far as people, places and things are concerned and from the point of view of lexical strings for actions and qualities.  The strategy it must be noted has strong effects on the kind of string/chain interaction recognised for a text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This nicely illustrates how the 'problem' of overlapping lexical strings and reference chains arises directly from Martin's misunderstanding of the cohesive system of reference.

As previously explained, the overlapping of Martin's lexical strings and reference chains arises from Martin's discourse semantic system of identification — 'the semantics of reference' — confusing two distinct types of cohesion, reference and lexical cohesion, largely as a consequence of confusing the referent with the system of reference. See previous critiques here, here, here, here and here.

[2] In SFL theory, reference is a cohesive system for marking the textual status of an element as identifiable (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 550). There are two types: co-reference (personal or demonstative) and comparative (general or specific).  Reference is a grammatical cohesive system, rather than a lexical cohesive system.  Here, because of the confusion explained in [1], Martin has included lexically cohesive relations in his reference chain, which thus accounts for the string/chain overlap.

[3] On the basis of what was said above, this amounts to arbitrarily splitting up lexical cohesion into two kinds of cohesive links, and mistaking one of them for grammatical reference.

[4] The consequences for this arbitrary division are less dire when it is understood that strings and chains are actually both largely concerned with lexical cohesion.

The Confused Notion Of "Interpersonally Oriented Textual Metaphor"

Martin (1992: 417):

Textual metaphors are not however tied to logical meaning.  They are commonly interpersonally oriented as well, deployed particularly for expressing an interlocutor's attitude to meanings being made:

meta-message relation	That point is just silly!
text reference	That’s ridiculous!
negotiating text	What a stupid point you just made!
internal conjunction	Indeed, she just made a complete mess of it.

Blogger Comments:

[1] By definition, a textual metaphor would involve textual meaning (semantics) being incongruently realised as textual wording (lexicogrammar).  Metaphorical grammatical realisations of logical meaning — e.g. as circumstantial processes — constitute ideational metaphor.

[2]  This blurs the distinction between what is claimed to be textual metaphor and various (congruent) grammatical realisations of negative attitude:

just	mood Adjunct of intensity (counterexpectancy: limiting)
silly	Attribute
ridiculous	Attribute
stupid	Epithet
mess	Thing

[3] The notion of 'negotiating text(ure)' as textual metaphor derives from mistaking monologic texts that acknowledge the addressee for dialogic texts, as explained in a previous post here.

Misconstruing Ideational Metaphor

Martin (1992: 408):

Text [6:22] is further revised to highlight metaphorical internal conjunctions as [6:25] below.  Internal relations are realised four times as nouns (for a number of reasons, another example, as a final point, as a result of these factors) and once as a verb (to begin).

[6:25]	metaphorical internal conjunction
	a.	I think Governments are necessary at different levels for a number of reasons.
	b.	They make laws, without which people would be killing themselves,
	c.	and help keep our economic system in order.
	d.	To begin, the Federal Government fixes up problems that occur in the community.
	e.	Another example is that the State Government looks after schools,
	f.	preventing vandalism and fighting.
	g.	As a final point the Local Government is important to look after rubbish:
	h.	otherwise everyone would have diseases.
	i.	As a result of these factors, Governments at several administrative levels are necessary.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of SFL theory, of the five purported instances of internal conjunction, there are only two genuine instances (to begin 'firstly'; as a final point 'finally').

Of the three with no conjunctive relations, the first involves ideational metaphor: relator as Thing (reasons) within a circumstance of Cause: reason (for a number of reasons); the second involves anaphoric comparative reference (another); and the third involves anaphoric demonstrative reference (these) within a circumstance of Cause: reason (as a result of these factors).

The general confusion here — apart from misconstruing these as logical metaphors — is that of mistaking the textual manifestation of expansion in lexicogrammar, cohesive conjunction, for the semantic system of expansion — as explained in previous posts.

for	a number of reasons
minor Process	Range

a number of	reasons
Numerative	Thing

Another example	is	[[that the State Government looks after schools]]
Value/Identified	Process: relational	Token/Identifier

Another	example
Deictic (anaphoric comparative reference)	Thing

As a result of these factors	Governments at several administrative levels	are	necessary
Cause: reason	Carrier	Process: relational	Attribute

as a result of	these factors
minor Process	Range

these	factors
Deictic (anaphoric demonstrative reference)	Thing