Confusing Context With Co-Text And Material Setting [Revised]

Martin (1992: 33):

Evidence for the fact that the different grammatical classes are performing a related discourse function comes from their context: from their co-text — the inclusion of please and the reply allright; and from the context of situation, where one might well observe goods being exchanged.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here again Martin misunderstands grammatical functions (MOOD system features) as grammatical classes.

[2] Here Martin confuses the SFL notion of context — the culture as a semiotic system — with the co-text (language) and the material setting of the speech event.

Martin later (p495) adds to the confusion by reinterpreting 'context of situation' as register, so that the claim here would become, nonsensically, that 'register is where one might well observe goods being exchanged'.

To be clear, 

• the context of situation is an instance of the culture as a semiotic system, and so of the semiotic order of experience;
• "where we might observe goods being exchanged" is the material setting of the interlocutors, and so of the material order of experience; and
• register is a functional variety of language which, in SFL Theory, is modelled as the midpoint on the cline of instantiation of language, not a system of context.