Misconstruing Metafunctions As Modules [New]

Martin (1992: 55, 56):

For various reasons this multivariate approach to move structure will not be pursued here. These reflect in general the modular approach to text structure underlying English Text, …

Equally important, as far as modularity is concerned, is the fact that negotiation provides just one of four perspectives on text structure elaborated in the model of discourse semantics presented here.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, here and elsewhere (pp90, 268, 269, 390, 488), Martin misconstrues each of the metafunctions and each of the strata proposed by SFL Theory as 'interacting modules'.

Importantly, metafunction and stratification are global dimensions of the theory (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 20, 32). Each are complementary perspectives on the same phenomenon. As different perspectives on the same phenomenon, they cannot "interact".

For example, the three metafunctional systems and structures of the clause are three perspectives on the same phenomenon (the clause).

Likewise, the two strata of the content plane, semantics and lexicogrammar, are two perspectives on the same phenomenon (the content plane), differing in terms of symbolic abstraction (identity + elaboration).

By the same token, the two planes of language, content and expression, are two perspectives on the same phenomenon (language), differing in terms of symbolic abstraction.

Confusing Paradigmatic Features With Syntagmatic Structure [New]

 Martin (1992: 53, 52):

To begin, it is useful to compare Burton's analysis of a basic action exchange with that developed in 2.3 above. The English Text analysis developed to this point is presented first, with full feature specifications at exchange and move rank.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Feature specifications for exchange rank were not developed in 2.3 above, and Martin does not provide a system network of features for exchange rank.

[2] To be clear, Figure 2.13 misrepresents paradigmatic features as syntagmatic structures (exchange structure), and posits the same features at both ranks ('negotiating', 'exchanging'). Cf. positing the PROCESS TYPE 'material' at both clause and group rank.

The Inconsistency In Treating Genre As A Connotative Semiotic [Revised]

Martin (1992: 51):

The rank scale at the level of discourse proposed originally by Sinclair and Coulthard included three additional ranks, two above the exchange (lesson and transaction) and one below (move).  Considerations at the ranks of lesson and transaction will be handled under the heading of genre in this book and will be taken up again in Chapter 7, along with a discussion of why genre is treated as a[n] underlying connotative semiotic rather than a higher rank at the level of discourse semantics…

Blogger Comments:

Treating genre as a connotative semiotic is inconsistent with the meaning of both genre and connotative semiotic.  Because 'genre' is a variety of language, and language is a denotative semiotic, 'genre' is a variety of a denotative semiotic. And because a connotative semiotic is a semiotic system whose expression plane is language (Hjelmslev 1961), 'genre', as a variety of language, is located on the expression plane of a connotative semiotic, not on its content plane (context).