Serious Problems With Martin's Mood System [New]

Martin (1992: 34, 35):

The MOOD systems considered to this point are outlined below (Fig. 2.2)…

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, there are several serious flaws with Martin's MOOD network that make it entirely untenable. 

Firstly, it misrepresents a non-structural textual grammatical system, ellipsis-&-substitution, as part of the structural interpersonal grammatical system of MOOD. Martin later (p100-1)) compounds his error by relocating this "interpersonal" system back to the textual metafunction in his system of IDENTIFICATION on his stratum of discourse semantics. That is, Martin incongruously claims that ellipsis-&-substitution functions interpersonally at the level of grammar, but textually at the level of discourse semantics.

Secondly, the upper network bizarrely proposes that a clause can be both a declarative and a WH- interrogative, and such a clause has the option of WH- ellipsis, which, contrary to Martin's claim, has not been "considered to this point". To be clear, the selection of WH- ellipsis is limited to WH- clauses.

Thirdly, the lower network bizarrely proposes that 

• mood ellipsis ("implicit") is a subtype of residue ellipsis,
• clause ellipsis is a subtype of mood ellipsis, and
• substitution is a subtype of mood ellipsis.

Strategically Misrepresenting The Relation Between Speech Function And Mood [New]

Martin (1992: 34):

Following Halliday (1984a) the semantic inventory of interacts outlined above can now be expanded into four pairs, which will be referred to provisionally, following work in ethnomethodology (e.g. Schegloff & Sacks 1973), as "adjacency pairs":

The grammar then makes available resources for tying an initiation to a response (ellipsis and substitution) and for orienting the exchange to goods and services or information and to giving or demanding (declarative, interrogative and imperative). These resources do not however stand in any biunique relation with a particular move in dialogue, so two levels of analysis are needed to relate system and text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday (1985: 69) provides two types of response, expected vs discretionary, with different terms for the expected responses of offers (acceptance), commands (undertaking) and questions (answer), stipulating that only the last of these is essentially a verbal response:

[2] To be clear, ignoring the fact that there may be no verbal response to offers, commands and statements, and so no adjacency pairs, the tying of an initiation to a response by ellipsis-&-substitution is a cohesive tie, which is a resource of the textual, not the interpersonal metafunction. See Halliday (1985: 295-302).

[3] This is misleading. The grammatical MOOD selections (declarative, interrogative and imperative) realise selections in semantic SPEECH FUNCTION systems of COMMODITY (goods-&-services vs information) and INITIATING ROLE (giving vs demanding). 

However, if Martin had used the word 'realise', it would have disclosed the fact that the content plane had already been stratified by Halliday — a fact he is trying to keep from the reader — since realisation is the relation between strata.

[4] This is misleading. With the exception of offers, there is a "biunique" relation between SPEECH FUNCTION selections (semantics) and MOOD selections (grammar) except in the case of interpersonal metaphor. It is grammatical metaphor that motivates the stratification of the content plane into semantics and lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 237), which is the main reason why Halliday stratified the content plane before Martin came along to try and take the credit.

Using A Textual Grammatical System To Argue For An Interpersonal Semantic System [New]

Martin (1992: 33-4):

Furthermore, as can be seen from the examples above, the relevance of the co-text is also grammaticalised in English. The relevant systems have to do with clause ellipsis and substitution and are described in detail in Halliday and Hasan (1976). There are two major patterns to be considered. The first can be established with respect to the more general MOOD functions Mood (including Subject, Finite and Mood Adjuncts) and Residue (including Predicator, Complement and other Adjuncts) and illustrated as follows:

Get me the new one, please. — Allright, I'll get it for you.

Get me the new one, please. — Allright, I will Residue.

Get me the new one, please. — Allright Mood Residue.

The first response (Allright, I'll get it for you.) is full, though potentially elliptical. The second (Allright, I will.) ellipses the Residue. The third (Allright.) ellipses both Residue and Mood functions. Alternatively, the Mood and Residue functions together may be substituted with so or not.

Will he make it? — Maybe so.

Will she win it? — Perhaps not.

The second pattern is found in the environment of wh interrogatives of both the first order and second order (echo) types; again, both elliptical and potentially elliptical structures are found:

Which is the new one? — This one's the new one.

Which is the new one? — This one.

This is the new one. — Which one's the new one?

This is the new one. — Which one?

As before, there is no one to one relation between grammatical class and discourse function. Responses may be either elliptical or not, as illustrated. In addition, elliptical clauses may initiate dialogue, with ellipsed information typically recoverable from the non-verbal context:

//2 Coming? // — Yes, I am.

//1 Leaving now. // — Oh, are you?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is nonsensical. The "relevance of the co-text" cannot be "grammaticalised". Grammaticalisation is essentially a move from the lexical end of lexicogrammar to the grammatical end, as when 'content words' become 'function' words.

[2] To be clear, Martin is here arguing that there is no 'one to one relation' between interpersonal semantics and interpersonal lexicogrammar. This would require demonstrating that there is no 'one to one relation' between the selection of SPEECH FUNCTION features and their realisation in the selection of MOOD features. However, instead, Martin presents only textual systems of the grammar, ellipsis-&-substitution, and does so without regard to the semantic systems they realise. 

Moreover, Martin cannot relate ellipsis-&-substitution to his interpersonal semantics because he subsumes ellipsis-&-substitution within his textual system of IDENTIFICATION (p100-1),  his rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's cohesive reference.

[3] Again, Martin misunderstands grammatical functions — here: ellipsis-&-substitution — as grammatical classes (forms).

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.