Misunderstanding Nominalisation And Reference

Martin (1992: 138-9):

The following text, villified [sic] as "superb balderdash" by Tarzie Vittachi (1989:11), creates numerous generic participants of this kind (nominalised participants in bold face).  None of the participants the grammar constructs are presumed in [3:76], but all have the potential to provide referents for subsequent phoric nominal groups.

[3:76]

The implementation of key targets as operational components of the new strategy — and hence also of the process of negotiation — may be conceived in the time frame of a decade but only in the form of a dynamic process, with different time frames for different components, and with an inbuilt and effective mechanism for review and reappraisal, leading to adjustments and correctives whenever the strategy is seen to deflect from the goals and objectives of development for which it was devised. It should be in the form not of a 'plan of action' but rather of a manifesto, which provides the framework of a sustained commitment to, and implementation of, developmental goals and their operational components, and embodies institutional mechanisms for continuous negotiation, monitoring, appraisal, criticism and modification.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, Martin''s generic vs specific distinction is a confusion of composition (extending: part-whole) and instantiation (elaborating: token-type).  In terms of SFL theory, the relevant dimension here is countability;  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 385):

We could think in terms of a cline of countability, ranging from those nouns (and pronouns) which construe things as fully itemised, at one end, to those which treat them as totally unbounded at the other. Typically, living beings and concrete objects are itemised, abstract entities (and nominalised processes and qualities) are unbounded, with institutions and collectives falling in between.

[2] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 729) describe nominalisation as follows:

Nominalising is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor. By this device, processes (congruently worded as verbs) and properties (congruently worded as adjectives) are reworded metaphorically as nouns; instead of functioning in the clause, as Process or Attribute, they function as Thing in the nominal group.

On this basis, operational, developmental, strategy, mechanism and goal are not nominalisations because they are not processes or qualities (properties) reworded as nouns.

[3] This is manifestly untrue.  For example, of the four highlighted reference items:

• the makes anaphoric demonstrative co-reference to the first mention of strategy;
• it makes anaphoric personal co-reference to the second mention of strategy;
• It makes anaphoric personal co-reference to implementation; and
• their makes anaphoric personal co-reference to developmental goals.

Martin's rebranding of (his misunderstanding of) Halliday & Hasan's (1976) demonstrative and personal co-reference is "reminding phoricity".

"Villified"

Martin (1992: 138-9):

The following text, villified [sic] as "superb balderdash" by Tarzie Vittachi (1989:11), creates numerous generic participants of this kind (nominalised participants in bold face).  None of the participants the grammar constructs are presumed in [3:76], but all have the potential to provide referents for subsequent phoric nominal groups.

[3:76]

The implementation of key targets as operational components of the new strategy — and hence also of the process of negotiation — may be conceived in the time frame of a decade but only in the form of a dynamic process, with different time frames for different components, and with an inbuilt and effective mechanism for review and reappraisal, leading to adjustments and correctives whenever the strategy is seen to deflect from the goals and objectives of development for which it was devised.  It should be in the form not of a 'plan of action' but rather of a manifesto, which provides the framework of a sustained commitment to, and implementation of, developmental goals and their operational components, and embodies institutional mechanisms for continuous negotiation, monitoring, appraisal, criticism and modification.

Blogger Comments:

Here is what Vittachi (1989) actually wrote (available here):

What on earth can that superb balderdash mean, especially to a villager in India or Tanzania even if it was translated into Hindi or Swahili? It was not intended for the man or woman at the receiving end but for the author's fellow elitists. The fact that none of them could decipher it matters not at all. The intention was to mystify everybody, including the writer. It was an exercise in total discommunication.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 272) point out:

So the more the extent of grammatical metaphor in a text, the more that text is loaded against the learner, and against anyone who is an outsider to the register in question. It becomes elitist discourse, in which the function of constructing knowledge goes together with the function of restricting access to that knowledge, making it impenetrable to all except those who have the means of admission to the inside, or the select group of those who are already there.

It is this other potential that grammatical metaphor has, for making meaning that is obscure, arcane and exclusive, that makes it ideal as a mode of discourse for establishing and maintaining status, prestige and hierarchy, and to establish the paternalistic authority of a technocratic elite whose message is 'this is all too hard for you to understand; so leave the decision-making to us.

To be clear, Tarzie Vittachi was an award winning journalist who took personal risks to fight for social justice:

Tarzie Vittachi (September 23, 1921 – September 17, 1993), a Ramon Magsaysay Award-winning journalist (1959), was born in Colombo, Ceylon. He authored two popular columns "Bouquets and Brickbats", and "Fly by Night" in the Ceylon Daily News. He later became the youngest editor (at 32) of the oldest newspaper in Asia, The Ceylon Observer which was founded in 1834. He wrote a book known as Emergency 58 about the Government's involvement in the country's race riots known as 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom that won him the Magasaysay Prize in 1959 and led to his being declared persona non grata. From 1960 to 1965 he was Asian director of the International Press Institute, an organisation of editors devoted to promoting the freedom of the press. He was, at the same time, a correspondent for The Economist, the BBC and The Sunday Times of London and wrote a column for Newsweek. A book about the role of the Children's Fund in arranging truces to protect children in time of conflict, called "Between the Guns," was published posthumously.

Two Bare Assertions Based On A Logical Confusion

Martin (1992: 138):

High levels of nominalisation characterise abstract written English, especially in the context of science, the humanities and administration.  The texts typically involve generic rather than specific reference and so few of the nominalised participants play a role in long reference chains; esphoric the is common in these participant creating nominal groups (e.g. the implementation of key targets as operational components of the new strategy — and hence also of the process of negotiation).

Blogger Comments:

[1] On the one hand, this is a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence, such as the analysis of data.  On the other hand, the distinction between generic and specific reference, which Martin (1992: 103) defines as: 

Generic reference is selected when the whole of some experiential class of participants is at stake rather than a specific manifestation of that class…

though labelled as a relation of delicacy (generic vs specific), confuses part-whole relations ('whole') with token-type relations ('manifestation of a class'), the former, the extending logical relation of composition, the latter, an elaborating logical relation of instantiation; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145-6).

[2] On the one hand, no reason is given why generic reference should affect the length of reference chains, and on the other hand, this is a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence, such as the analysis of data.

[3] To be clear, 'esphoric' reference is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's structural (rather than cohesive) cataphoric reference.

Oversimplifying Nominalisation

Martin (1992: 138):

Certainly the major resource as far as the grammar creating participants is concerned is nominalisation. Through this resource the grammar is able to turn a range of non-participant meanings into participant-like ones.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It is the transitivity system of the clause that is the grammatical resource for construing experience as participants in processes.

[2] This construal of nominalisation is potentially misleading.  Through nominalisation, meanings that are not congruently realised as participants can be metaphorically realised as wordings that construe participants.

The metaphorical form then also embodies semantic features deriving from its own incongruent lexicogrammatical properties, such that the two meanings, "non-participant" and participant, are themselves in an elaborating token-value relation within the semantic stratum, with the metaphorical Token (participant) realising the congruent Value ("non-participant").