Martin (1992: 486-7):
This interplay of embedding, taxis and MOOD was exploited in text [6:30] to focus modal responsibility on the sitting member, as analysed above. … So while the member is textured as modally responsible, he is never experientially responsible. Where he could be, in the congruent version of [6:30g] for example, he is realised as the possessor of a nominalised modulation:
My responsibility is to make sure that the life style we enjoy is maintained and improved.(— Is it?)
… Mapping interpersonal responsibility onto experiential responsibility (i.e. agency) as in the congruent version of [6:30g] places the member rather more at risk:
I must make sure that the life style we enjoy is maintained and improved.(— Must you?)
It is for this political consideration that the text is structured as an interpersonal massage, rather than an experiential message.
Blogger Comments:
[1] In the said analysis, the modal responsibility of the Subject (metalanguage) was confused with an instance of responsibility in the text (language) projected by the speaker. Evidence here.
[2] In SFL theory, 'texture', the property of being a text, is created by the textual metafunction. Here it is misapplied to the interpersonal metafunction — modal responsibility.
[3] Because modal responsibility is interpersonal meaning, the experiential agency of the Subject has no bearing on the interpersonal meaning. The difference between the two versions of [6:30g] is that in the first, my responsibility carries the responsibility for the the validity of the proposition, whereas, in the second, I (the speaker) carries the responsibility for the the validity of the proposition. In neither version is the member "at risk" — because that's not what modal responsibility means.
[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'message' refers to the semantic unit of the textual metafunction — not the experiential — that is realised in the lexicogrammar as the thematic structure of the clause.
[3] Because modal responsibility is interpersonal meaning, the experiential agency of the Subject has no bearing on the interpersonal meaning. The difference between the two versions of [6:30g] is that in the first, my responsibility carries the responsibility for the the validity of the proposition, whereas, in the second, I (the speaker) carries the responsibility for the the validity of the proposition. In neither version is the member "at risk" — because that's not what modal responsibility means.
[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'message' refers to the semantic unit of the textual metafunction — not the experiential — that is realised in the lexicogrammar as the thematic structure of the clause.
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