The Commonality Of Reference Structures And Negotiation Structures

Martin (1992: 156):

Reference structures make use of semantic dependency structures of this kind.  Phoric items depend on the co-text they presume, but are not themselves predicted by it.  Given a nominal group realising a participant in a text, there is no way of knowing whether or not it will be presumed, aside from the occasional selection of presenting reference marking certain participants as central to a discourse (signalled through this, these, a certain and certain).  The dependency relation between presuming and presumed is thus very like that between a tracking or challenging move and the move on which it depends.

Old Blogger Comments:

[1] The use of dependency (logical metafunction) for reference (textual metafunction) creates a theoretical inconsistency.  It misconstrues textual meaning as ideational meaning.

[2] The dependency relations do not form structures; they merely obtain between units.

[3] Martin's insight here is that a reference item depends on there being a referent to refer to.  To be clear, this is distinct from the SFL notion of dependency, and from the functional relation between the reference item and its referent.

[4] Martin's insight here is that there is no way of predicting which elements in a text will subsequently be referred to.

[5] As explained in previous posts, "presenting reference" does not involve reference. It is the first appearance of a potential referent. See Misconstruing The Absence Of Reference As "Presenting" Reference.

[6] For the confusions on which this false claim is based, see Confusing Experiential Content With Textual Reference.

[7] To be clear, Martin's argument is: A is very much like B, where

• A = a reference item depends on there being a referent to refer to, and
• B = an interruption (tracking or challenging move) depends on there being a move to interrupt.

Martin's Insight That Interruptions Depend On There Being Something To Interrupt

Martin (1992: 156):

In addition, dependency structures were introduced to account for tracking and challenging moves which are not strongly predicted by initiations; indeed, interlocutors may formulate interacts so as to avoid them.  So while the tracking move in [3:101] depends on the interact it tracks, it is not expected by it.

[3:101]

K1  Ben won.
cf   — Who?
rcf  — Ben Johnson
K1f — Wow! 

Old Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, the use of dependency (logical metafunction) for NEGOTIATION (interpersonal metafunction) creates a theoretical inconsistency. It misconstrues interpersonal meaning as ideational meaning.

[2] As previously explained, such dependency relations do not form structures; they merely obtain between units.

[3] To be clear, tracking and challenging moves are classified as interruptions to adjacency pairs (Martin 1992: 67).  Thus, Martin's claims here are simply that:

• initiating moves don't "strongly predict" or "expect" interruptions, and 
• interruptions "depend" on there being something to interrupt.

Misconstruing 'Multivariate' & Metafunctional Inconsistencies

Martin (1992: 156):

NEGOTIATION was approached from both a multivariate and covariate perspective in Chapter 2.  The notion of constituency between exchange and move was developed to account synoptically for sequences of up to five moves.  These moves are mutually predicting as set out in their constituency structures.  In [3:100] the initiation expects a response and the response presumes its initiation:

[3:100]

K2 Who won?
K1 — Ben did.

Blogger Comment:

[1] This confuses multivariate structures (of a rank) with constituency (rank hierarchy).  The constituency relation between exchange and move is the relation between levels in a rankscale.  A multivariate structure, on the other hand, is 'a configuration of elements each having a distinct function with respect to the whole' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 331).

Further, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 384) point out:

… the relationships among the elements in a multivariate structure can be characterised as segmental from an experiential point of view but as prosodic from an interpersonal point of view and as cumulative from a textual one.

That is, on the SFL model, the relation between elements in the multivariate structure realising interpersonal systems, like NEGOTIATION, are prosodic.  Since this is a proposition Martin elsewhere (1992: 549) supports, Martin is here inconsistent with his own model.

[2] To be clear, the notion of 'covariate structure' derives from Lemke (1985).  In Lemke (1988: 159) he acknowledged that 'covariate' is not a type of structure:

My own 'covariate structure' (Lemke 1985), which includes Halliday's univariate type, is for the case of homogeneous relations of co-classed units, and should perhaps be called a 'structuring principle' rather than a kind of structure.

[3] To be clear, these are merely statements about two alternative features in a closed system.

Misconstruing 'Multivariate' & Metafunctional Inconsistencies

Martin (1992: 156):

NEGOTIATION was approached from both a multivariate and covariate perspective in Chapter 2.  The notion of constituency between exchange and move was developed to account synoptically for sequences of up to five moves.  These moves are mutually predicting as set out in their constituency structures. … In addition, dependency structures were introduced to account for tracking and challenging moves which are not strongly predicted by initiations; indeed, interlocutors may formulate interacts so as to avoid them. … Reference structures make use of semantic dependency structures of this kind. 

Blogger Comment:

[1] This confuses multivariate structures (of a rank) with constituency (rank hierarchy).  The constituency relation between exchange and move is the relation between levels in a rankscale.  A multivariate structure, on the other hand, is 'a configuration of elements each having a distinct function with respect to the whole' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 331).  Further, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 384) point out:

… the relationships among the elements in a multivariate structure can be characterised as segmental from an experiential point of view but as prosodic from an interpersonal point of view and as cumulative from a textual one.

[2] The use of dependency (logical metafunction) for NEGOTIATION (interpersonal metafunction) creates a theoretical inconsistency.  It misconstrues interpersonal meaning as ideational meaning.

[3] The use of dependency (logical metafunction) for reference (textual metafunction) creates a theoretical inconsistency.  It misconstrues textual meaning as ideational meaning.

[4] The dependency relations do not form structures; they merely obtain between units.

Some Of The Theoretical Problems With Participant As The Entry Condition To The System Of Identification

Martin (1992: 155-6):

IDENTIFICATION has the semantic entity participant as its entry condition; its unmarked realisation is a nominal group and the people, places and things this encodes all have the potential to participate as Agent or Medium in clause structure at some point or other in a text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Participant as the entry condition to the IDENTIFICATION system creates a host of serious theoretical inconsistencies.  For example, 

• metafunction: participant is an experiential function, whereas IDENTIFICATION is a textual system;
• delicacy: the features of the system do not elaborate the entry condition, participant, but  (purported) relations between participants; (cf. the entry condition 'clause' for the systems that elaborate the clause);
• function: participant is the entry condition for circumstantial features (manner/extent).

[2] To be clear, Martin's entire argument to justify IDENTIFICATION as discourse semantic, rather than lexicogrammatical, rests solely on "stratifying with respect to nominal group structure".

[3] To be clear, places are circumstantial meanings, not participants.

[4] To be clear, this does not define any semantic unit, let alone participant, since, through grammatical metaphor, all meaning has "the potential to be construed as an Agent or Medium in clause structure at some point or other in a text."

Metafunctional Inconsistencies

Martin (1992: 155):

NEGOTIATION is an interpersonal system; it focusses on the discourse semantics of MOOD.  IDENTIFICATION on the other hand is a textual system; it focusses on the discourse semantics of nominal DEIXIS.

Blogger Comment:

In terms of metafunction, nominal group DEIXIS, in the system network of DETERMINATION, is an interpersonal system.  Deixis is concerned with relations to the here–&–now of the speaker and listener.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 180):

… the structures of both types of group constitute a kind of path between the interpersonal reference point, reflected in the Deictic or Finite, and the experiential one, reflected in the Thing or Event.

REFERENCE, on the other hand, like all cohesive resources, is a system of the textual metafunction.  As a means of referring, it is concerned with the textual status of identifiability.

In contrast, the discourse semantic system of IDENTIFICATION is concerned with referents of the same identity in the unfolding of a text; 'reference chains' would be more accurately termed referent chains.  The relations between the referents in chains is construed in terms of dependency, a resource of the logical metafunction.