Martin's Reason Why Discourse Semantic Units Cannot Be Defined As Categorically As Grammatical Units [New]

Martin (1992: 59):

A2 Can you get me a beer in light of my impending death from thirst? …

The point is that seen as process, any dialogue is an on-going site of textual dynamism. There is nothing to prevent an interlocutor digging in and negotiating information presented as non-negotiable: my impending death from thirst is not presented for grading in the first example above; but one can imagine contexts in which it is contested, light-heartedly or not.

Because of this dynamism it is not possible to define discourse units as categorically as grammatical ones. There is a system, but its potential for ongoing re-contextualisation means that there will always be rough edges for the analyst. Analysis in other words will inevitably involve interpretation.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is a non-sequitur. The ability to negotiate wording that lies in the Residue of a clause (in this instance: my impending death from thirst) can have no bearing on what constitutes a unit at a higher level of symbolic abstraction. If such a wording is taken up for negotiation, it simply falls within the Mood or Residue of the following clause. In SFL Theory, the semantic unit that such clause realises is a move (proposition or proposal) in an exchange (Halliday 1985: 69-71).

Confusing Unmarkedness And Congruence

Martin (1992: 58-9):

Halliday's (1985) notion of congruence bears on the problems encountered here.  Just as one can argue that there is an unmarked relationship between grammar and phonology whereby tone groups are associated with a single clause, so one might suggest that a similar unmarked relationship holds between a move and a clause complex: generally speaking a move in the exchange will be realised by a clause and its dependents.

Blogger Comment:

This is not congruence.  In SFL theory, congruence refers to a non-metaphorical relation of meaning (semantics) to wording (lexicogrammar).

On the other hand, the unmarked option is 'the form we tend to use if there is no prior context leading up to it, and no positive reason for choosing anything else' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 58), in contradistinction to marked, which means that the option is less frequent and 'carries a special interpretation' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 207).

The realisation of a single clause as a single tone group is unmarked tonality — where tonality refers to the selection of the number and boundaries of tone groups (Halliday 1970).