Misrepresenting Abstraction

Martin (1992: 520):

Keeping this in mind, the logical independence of action/reflection and activity/thing is outlined in Table 7.7.

Table 7.7. Degrees of abstraction for activities and things
	activity	thing
monitoring	commentary	evaluation
	We are doing.	That’s pretty.
reconstructing	recount	description
	I/we did.	It was pretty.
generalising	procedure	report
(timeless)	It does.	They’re attractive.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The term "logical independence" misrepresents cross-classification. This cross-classification table shows the interrelation between two variables.

[2] The claim here is that:

'action/reflection' = 'degrees of abstraction' = 'monitoring/reconstructing/generalising'.

Halliday's mode feature distinction of 'language in action' vs 'language in reflection' does not correspond to degrees of abstraction (Token-Value relations).  That is, one does realise the other.

As previously explained, the proposed mode features of monitoring, reconstructing and generalising are not degrees of abstraction (Token-Value relations) — whether or not they are distinguished by tense.

[3] The distinction between "activities and things", as presented here, is actually the experiential distinction between material processes and attributive relational processes and the interpersonal distinction between the absence and presence of evaluation (variously labelled evaluation, description and report).

∞

The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the ideational dimension of semantics (activities and things) of registers.  The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

Confusing Strata And Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 519-20):

The potential source of confusion here has to do with the fact that genre-structured texts tend to be heavily nominalised, and through grammatical metaphor construct fields as thing-like, whether referring to activities or not.  Abstract modes in other words interpret social reality through semiotic resources that in less abstract modes would be applied to things — texts are organised around semiotic space instead of experiential time or place.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses ideational context (field) with ideational content (grammatical metaphor) of registers. The confusion is thus simultaneously along two theoretical dimensions: stratification and instantiation.

[2] The term 'abstract mode' confuses context (textual metafunction) with content (ideational metafunction).  The confusion is thus simultaneously along two theoretical dimensions: stratification and metafunction.

[3] This confuses context (textual metafunction) with content (ideational metafunction — construing experience).

[4] The term 'social reality' blurs the distinction between ideational metafunction (construing experience as meaning) and the interpersonal metafunction (enacting intersubjective relations as meaning).

Confusing Mode (Context) With The Ideational Semantics Of Registers

Martin (1992: 519):

Experientially, the distinction between texts which focus on activities and those which focus on things is also independent of the action/reflection dimension under construction here.  Activity was taken as the base line in introducing this dimension of mode above, with organisation around sequence in time as the key variable.  The same distinctions can however be applied to thing oriented discourse, with place (including composition and setting) rather than the time the critical parameter.  It is possible to comment (typically evaluatively) on people, places and things as one experiences them (monitoring); similarly one can reconstruct objects through description and generalise about them as generic classes in reports.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the ideational dimension of semantics (activities and things) of registers.  The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

[2] To be clear, commenting (± evaluating) ≠ monitoring.

The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes is termed Humpty Dumptyism.

Misconstruing Degrees Of Abstraction

Martin (1992: 518):

This crossclassification of mode by MOOD is outlined in Table 7.6.

Table 7.6. Degrees of abstraction for proposals and propositions
	proposal	proposition
monitoring	guidance	running commentary
(present)	Do.	We are doing.
(future)		We’ll just do.
reconstructing	projected instruction	recount
(past)	S/he told me to do.	I/we did.
generalising	manual	implication sequence
(timeless)	You do.	It does.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, proposals and propositions are classifications of speech functions (semantics), not mood (lexicogrammar).  The confusion is stratal.

[2] The proposed mode features of monitoring, reconstructing and generalising are not degrees of abstraction — whether or not they are distinguished by tense.  Different levels of abstraction can be construed as identifying relations, with the lower level as Token and the higher level as Value.  This is not the case with monitoring and reconstructing or with reconstructing and generalising.  As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615) point out:

General terms are not necessarily abstract; a bird is no more abstract than a pigeon.

[3] See the most recent previous posts for critiques of these text types cross-classified for "mood" and mode features.

∞

The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the interpersonal dimension of linguistic content — semantics (speech function) and lexicogrammar (mood) — of registers.  The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

Misrepresenting The Distinction Between Hortatory And Analytical Exposition

Martin (1992: 518):

The same MOOD opposition is relevant to the genre-structured texts, distinguishing hortatory ('so change your ways') from analytical ('so this is how things are') exposition.

Blogger Comment:

This purports to cross-classify exposition texts, hortatory vs analytical, according to (Martin's) mode and mood: imperative vs indicative, respectively. However, this misrepresents the distinction between these two types of exposition, both of which involve the presentation of arguments.  The text structure (semantics) that realises a hortatory exposition (context: mode) is typically:

1. Thesis
2. Arguments
3. Recommendation

whereas the text structure (semantics) that realises an analytical exposition (context: mode) is typically:

1. Thesis
2. Arguments
3. Reiteration

The function of a hortatory exposition is to explain to the reader that something should or should not happen or be done — not to command the reader — whereas the function of an analytical exposition is a to persuade the reader that an idea is important.

∞

The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context. Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the interpersonal dimension of linguistic content — semantics (speech function) and lexicogrammar (mood) — of registers. The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

Miscategorising Text Types

Martin (1992: 518):

Similarly reconstruction may be either an account of what someone was told to do or what they did, and generalising texts may be either macro-proposals (e.g. assembly manuals) or macro-propositions (e.g accounts of how a product works).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This purports to cross-classify texts according to (Martin's) mode and mood: imperative vs indicative.  However, an account of what someone was told to do — just like an account of what someone did — is "indicative" in these terms, not "imperative"; the "imperative" lies in the 'telling what to do', not in the accounting of it.

[2] This is inconsistent with the meaning of the word 'generalise': to make a general or broad statement by inferring from specific cases.  That is, generalisations are propositions, not proposals, and, moreover, neither 'assembly manuals' nor 'accounts of how a product works' constitute text types that can be accurately termed "generalising".

The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes is termed Humpty Dumptyism.

∞

The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the interpersonal dimension of linguistic content — semantics (speech function) and lexicogrammar (mood) — of registers.  The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

Miscategorising Texts By Mode

Martin (1992: 518):

It is important not to confuse the semiotic space under construction here with either of two independent dimensions; the interpersonal distinction between proposals and propositions, and the experiential distinction between activities and things.  Pursuing the MOOD opposition first, monitoring texts for example can be 'imperative', telling someone what to do (e.g. ærobics class), or indicative, telling someone (e.g. a small child) what is going on (or is about to).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, "the interpersonal distinction between proposals and propositions" is one of speech function (semantics), not mood (lexicogrammar).  The difference between the systems is stratal.

[2] A text that tells someone what to do is not a monitoring text.  Synonyms of 'monitor' include: 

observe, watch, keep an eye on, keep track of, track, keep under observation, keep watch on, keep under surveillance, surveil, check, keep a check on, scan, examine, study, record, note, oversee, supervise, superintend

[3] In an ærobics class, the language that 'tells people what to do' is instructing, not monitoring.  Further, the rôle of language (Hasan 1985/9) in such a situation type is ancillary, not monitoring.  (Martin distinguishes monitoring from ancillary.)

[4] Telling someone what is about to happen is predicting, not monitoring.

The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes is termed Humpty Dumptyism.

∞

The fundamental confusion here is that the discussion is presented as theorising mode, the systems of the textual metafunction at the level of context.  Here, instead, the discussion is concerned with the interpersonal dimension of linguistic content — semantics (speech function) and lexicogrammar (mood) — of registers.  The confusion is thus simultaneously along three theoretical dimensions: stratification, metafunction and instantiation.

Confusing Contextual Potential With Semantic Sub-Potentials

Martin (1992: 518):

It is important not to confuse the semiotic space under construction here with either of two independent dimensions; the interpersonal distinction between proposals and propositions, and the experiential distinction between activities and things.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The 'semiotic space under construction here' (pp 508-23) is purported to be mode, the system of the textual metafunction at the level of context — though Martin misconstrues this as a dimension of register.  As previously explained, this confuses contextual potential with semantic sub-potentials. That is, the confusion is along two dimensions simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.

[2] The 'interpersonal distinction between proposals and propositions and the experiential distinction between activities and things' are distinctions of the other metafunctions at the level of semantics.  The confusion here is thus stratificational.  In SFL theory, the proposal vs proposition distinction is one of speech function, whereas the "activities vs things" distinction corresponds to the elemental distinction between process and participant (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 177).

Under-Acknowledging Hasan As Theoretical Source

Martin (1992: 517-8):

With this reservation in mind, a preliminary grid can be established as in Table 7.5 — with exemplary texts noted (Hasan 1985/9: 58 uses the opposition ancilliary [sic] / constitutive to establish a closely related continuum). 

This grid distinguishes field-structured from genre-structured texts and subclassifies field-structured texts according to how much of the social action is constructed by language. 

Texts in which most of the social action is realised non-verbally are referred to as ancilliary [sic]; texts in which most of the social action is realised linguistically are further divided into those in which language monitors what is going on (e.g. sports commentary), those in which it reconstructs what has gone on (e.g. biography) and those in which the language generalises about what goes on (e.g. recipes).

Genre-structured texts are divided into those which review field-structured texts (e.g. movie reviews), and so are partially determined by their activity sequences, and theoretical texts which are not organised around a sequence of events in any respect (e.g. editorials).  This scale arranges texts with respect to iconicity and the amount of ideational meaning that needs to be made explicit to realise the field.

Blogger Comments:

[1] More accurately, Hasan's (1985) ancillary/constitutive distinction is the source of Martin's (1992) theorising here.

[2] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Martin is classifying text types (registers/genres) according to how semantic structure varies with the mode features of situation types (context). That is, three theoretical dimensions are entangled here:

• stratification (context realised by semantics),
• axis (system realised by structure), and
• instantiation (text types and situation types)

[3] A recipe does not "generalise about what goes on".  As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 356) point out, a recipe is a procedural text, a 'macro-operation consisting of a number of micro-operations'.

[4] To be clear, a movie review of a text is a review of just the script of a movie.

[5] An editorial is merely an opinion piece.  The classification of an opinion piece as a theoretical text is consistent with Martin's approach to theory, as demonstrated over and over again by these critiques.

Confusing Genre (Text Type) With Field (Context)

Martin (1992: 517):

…it needs to be kept in mind that in referring to the iconic texts as field-structured, what one is saying is that for this group of texts it is difficult to distinguish genre and field — looking from the perspectives of social process (genre) and activity sequence (field) amounts to very much the same thing (in other words the model of context developing here overdetermines the classification of these text types).  With genre-structured texts, on the other hand, the organisation of the text is very different from the organisation of activity sequences to which the text may refer.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To translate this into SFL theory, the claim here is that there is a text type (register) for which the structure at the level of the semantic stratum is organised according to field (the ideational dimension of context).

[2] To translate this into SFL theory, the claim here is that, for this text type (register), it is difficult to distinguish between text type (genre) and the ideational context of language (field).  One reason why it is difficult to distinguish between text type and context, in Martin's model, is because the model confuses text type (register/genre) with context.

[3] The reason why "looking from the perspectives of social process (genre) and activity sequence (field) amounts to very much the same thing" is that Martin has redefined genre as field. In SFL theory, social processes fall within the definition of field.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 33):

field – what’s going on in the situation: (i) the nature of the social and semiotic activity; and (ii) the domain of experience this activity relates to (the ‘subject matter’ or ‘topic’)

The following table clarifies the theoretical inconsistency.  In SFL theory, field is located at the intersection of context and system (culture), whereas text type (genre/register) is located at the intersection of semantics and instance type.

The confusion is thus along two scales simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.  Moreover, there is a further confounding inconsistency with regard to metafunction, since this discussion is purported to be about mode, the system of the textual metafunction at the level of context.

Multiple Violations Of Theoretical Dimensions

Martin (1992: 517):

Labelling these text types field-structured and genre-structured is potentially misleading;*

* Endnote #16 (p589):

The distinction does not divide texts into those realising field and those realising genre; all text [sic] realise both field and genre in the model of context developed here.  The argument is rather that with field-structured texts, field (activity sequence) and genre (schematic structure) overdetermine text organisation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, to say that text types are either field-structured or genre-structured is to say that semantic structure varies registerially according to whether it is organised by field (ideational context) or genre (text type/register).  In SFL theory, semantic structure realises semantic system (axial relation), and semantics realises context (stratal relation).  See also [4] below.

[2] This blurs the distinction between stratification and instantiation.  It is language (semantics-lexicogrammar-phonology) that realises field (context).  Text is an instance of language, which realises an instance of context (situation).

[3] In SFL theory, the relation between text and genre, in the sense of text type, is instantiation, not realisation.

[4] The 'model of context developed here' confuses the context of language with functional varieties of language, with the latter modelled twice, as register and genre — two levels of symbolic abstraction — with register realising genre.  In SFL theory, register and genre (text type) are the same phenomenon, viewed from opposite ends of the cline of instantiation.

[5] As previously noted, this confuses strata: semantics (activity sequences) with context (field).

[6] In terms of SFL theory, this confuses text type (genre) with the structural dimension of the semantic stratum (schematic structure).

Confusing Context Potential (Mode) With Language Sub-Potentials (Registers)

Martin (1992: 517):

One way to scale texts along this action/reflection dimension of mode is to take the activity sequences aspect of field as a base line and see to what extent texts are structured with respect to these sequences.  Texts can then be divided into those organised primarily with respect to activity sequences (iconic texts) and those organised along different lines (non-iconic texts).

Blogger Comments:

[1] There is a general blurring here of the distinction between different features of mode (context stratum) and the different registers (text types) that realise situation types.  That is, the blurring is of two dimensions simultaneously: stratification (context is confused with language) and instantiation (general potential is confused with registerial variation).  This, in fact, summarises the problems with Martin's misconstrual of context as register.

[2] As previously demonstrated, this notion of 'activity sequences' confuses ideational semantics, meanings of language, with field (the ideational context of language).  This misunderstanding arose through confusing the meanings of a conversational text that recounted the procedure of 'parading a dog for judging' (language) with the cultural practice (context: field) of 'parading a dog for judging', in which language plays an ancillary rôle (context: mode).

Confusing Material Order Phenomena With Textual Semiosis

Martin (1992: 516-7):

Experientially mode mediates the degree to which language is part of or constitutive of what is going on.  In text [4:2] for example, most of the meanings are made verbally (excepting the exophoric reference discussed above).  At the dog show itself however, language would have a much smaller rôle to play in the showing area, where most of the meaning is realised through action, not words. … Showing a dog and describing how a dog is shown are in other words very different modes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses metafunctions.  The system of mode, and thus all its feature oppositions, is a resource of the textual metafunction.

[2] In SFL theory, mode does not "mediate".  Oppositions such as constitutive vs ancillary are features of mode.  Mode enables both field and tenor.

[3] This dimension of mode — the opposition of constitutive vs ancillary — corresponds to Hasan's (1985/9: 58) system of LANGUAGE RÔLE:

First, there is the question of the LANGUAGE RÔLE — whether it is constitutive or ancillary.  These categories should not be seen as sharply distinct but rather as two end-points of a continuum.

[4] The exophoric references, of course, were also made verbally.  Exophoric reference is a linguistic resource.  In this case, the exophoric references were made to manual gestures on a table surface.

[5] This confuses material order phenomena: what people do, with semiotic order (meta)phenomena: what people say.  This confusion is further confounded by associating the material doing with Hasan's language rôle (textual semiosis).

Misunderstanding Orders Of Experience

Martin (1992: 514-6):

… it is important to stress that the [mode] distinctions drawn here are semiotic, not material ones.*  It is obviously just as possible to write dialogue (drama) as it is to sit monologuing with a friend; similarly both dialogue and stream of consciousness appear in books, but both types of meaning are radically different from their surrounding semiosis.  The physical channel itself is not the point of mode.  Mode is a semiotic construct and functions in our culture as a resource for constructing interaction.  It is difficult to label mode features without slipping into realism.  The network above is nevertheless a system of meaning, not a classification of modern technologies of communication (which in the model being developed here would be the responsibility of field).

* Endnote #15 (p589):

Hasan (1985/9: 58) distinguishes between medium (semiosis) and channel (substance) to make a closely related point.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, mode is a dimension of context, and context is the culture construed as a semiotic system.  The rest of this quote demonstrates that Martin does not understand what it means to construe mode as semiotic, rather than material, as will be explained below.

[2] This is misleading on two counts.  Firstly, Martin's glosses of Hasan's medium vs channel as semiosis vs substance misrepresents Hasan's model.  As dimensions of mode, both are semiotic systems.  Secondly, by claiming (falsely) that Hasan makes a related point to the one Martin is making, Martin gives the false impression that his (mis)understanding is aligned with, and supported by, Hasan's work.

[3] This distinction is presented as if it demonstrates the way in which mode distinctions are semiotic rather than material — presumably because different modes can be associated with the same material setting.  

However, there is an important distinction being neutralised here — between different orders of experience.  "Monologuing" with a friend is first-order experience, whereas a dialogue between characters in a drama is second-order experience with respect to its author and his friend.

[4] The notion of "monologuing with a friend" — rather than dialoguing — suggests either that the friend doesn't get a word in, or that each speaker is talking past the other, creating entirely separate texts.  This is not the first time that Martin has misunderstood the distinction between monologue and dialogue; evidence here.

[5] The distinction between "dialogue and stream of consciousness in books" and "their surrounding semiosis" is between different orders of experience.  "Their surrounding semiosis" is first-order experience, whereas "dialogue and stream of consciousness in books" is second-order experience with respect to "their surrounding semiosis".

[6] Here Martin is purporting to demonstrate that mode is semiotic rather than material.  However, the two examples he provides involve distinctions in orders of experience, and are presented inconsistently.  The first example neutralises the difference between them (see [3] above), whereas the second example acknowledges the difference without recognising the nature of the difference (see [5] above).

[7] More accurately, mode is a dimension of culture as a semiotic system.

[8] More accurately, mode enables both field and tenor (context), just as textual meaning enables both ideational and interpersonal meaning (semantics), and textual wording enables both ideational and interpersonal wording (lexicogrammar).

[9] Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that some aspect of our reality is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.  In SFL theory, context is a semiotic system — the culture — that is construed by the language that realises it.

More broadly, SFL maintains that all experience is construed as meaning.  For there to be meaning, there must be experience available for construal.

[10] The system of mode is a semiotic system, but, in terms of stratification — the levels of symbolic abstraction — it is a system of context (culture), not meaning (semantics).

[11] Field is the ideational dimension of context: the field of activity and the subject matter with which it is concerned — 'what’s going on, and what is it about?' (Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 320).  A classification of modern technologies of communication, on the other hand, is the ideational meaning that realises a field.

Misunderstanding Bakhtin's 'Dialogic' And 'Heteroglossic'

Martin (1992: 513):

This dialogic* perspective on writing is outlined in Fig. 7.7.

*Endnote #13 (p589):

Dialogic is used here in opposition to monologic referring to the extent to which the text involves turn-taking.  This is not to be confused with Bakhtin's use of the term to refer to texts as heteroglossic, weaving together several discourses.

Blogger Comment:

This misunderstands Bakhtin's terms 'dialogic' and 'heteroglossic'.  The glossary provided in Bakhtin (1981: 428, 426) clarifies each term and the distinction between them:

HETEROGLOSSIA
The base condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance. It is that which insures the primacy of context over text. At any given time, in any given place, there will be a set of conditions — social, historical, meteorological, physiological — that will insure that a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other conditions; all utterances are heteroglot in that they are functions of a matrix of forces practically impossible to recoup, and therefore impossible to resolve. Heteroglossia is as close a conceptualisation as is possible of that locus where centripetal and centrifugal forces collide; as such, it is that which a systematic linguistics must always suppress.

DIALOGISM
Dialogism is the characteristic epistemological mode of a world dominated by heteroglossia. Everything means, is understood, as a part of a greater whole — there is a constant interaction between meanings, all of which have the potential of conditioning others. Which will affect the other, how it will do so and in what degree is what is actually settled at the moment of utterance. This dialogic imperative, mandated by the pre-existence of the language world relative to any of its current inhabitants, insures that there can be no actual monologue. One may, like a primitive tribe that knows only its own limits, be deluded into thinking there is one language, or one may, as grammarians, certain political figures and normative framers of "literary languages" do, seek in a sophisticated way to achieve a unitary language. In both cases the unitariness is relative to the overpowering force of heteroglossia, and thus dialogism.

Blurring Distinctions

Martin (1992: 510-1):

Two-way visual context [contact?] means that any attendant semiosis that is realised visually can be brought into play (kinesics, proxemics, the social action in which the speaker/listener dyad is engaged and so on).  This increases the potential for a text to depend on its material context, as part of the accompaniment to what is going on.

Blogger Comment:

This confuses two distinct notions in SFL theory:

1. the rôle of language as constitutive or ancillary (mode), and
2. the relevance of the material setting in manifesting the (semiotic) context of situation.

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 278):

The setting, on the other hand, is the immediate material environment. This may be a direct manifestation of the context of situation, and so be integrated into it: if the situation is one of, say, medical care, involving a doctor and one or more patients, then the setting of hospital or clinic is a relevant part of the picture. But even there the setting does not constitute the context of situation …

Not Acknowledging Hasan As Intellectual Source

Martin (1992: 510):

In effect, mode is the semiotic construction of communication technology. As far as interpersonal space is concerned, what is critical is the way in which various channels of communication affect the kind of interaction that is possible between speaker and listener. This is conditioned by the kind of feedback that is possible, depending on whether or not the speaker and listener can see each other and at the same time whether or not they can hear each other.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, communication technology provides the material means of expanding the semiotic system of mode.

[2] The unacknowledged source of these ideas is Hasan (1985/9: 58):

The second factor to be considered under mode is that of PROCESS SHARING.  Is the addressee able to share the process of text creation as it unfolds, or does the addressee come to the text when it is a finished product?  Here again, there are degrees of process sharing from the most active — as in dialogue — to the most passive — as in a formal lecture.  The degree to which process sharing can occur is closely related to CHANNEL. … The first channel I will call PHONIC, the second GRAPHIC.

At the memorial to honour the life and work of Ruqaiya Hasan, Martin accused Hasan — falsely — of not having acknowledged her sources.  Evidence here.

Misunderstanding Mode

Martin (1992: 509-10):

Experientially mode mediates the semiotic space between action and reflection. Exemplifying again from [4:2], for the most part this text is constitutive of its field, which it generalises as an abstract procedure.  For this reason the processes are for the most part timeless (i.e. simple present tense in English) and the participants involve generic or generalised reference.  From [4:17tt] however, through to [4:17bbb], the text shifts its mode and becomes dependent on another text — the imaginary representation of the showing area on the coffee table to which the speaker refers exophorically: here, that way, like that, over there.  Correspondingly, the tense shifts as well, from simple present to present in present (is standing), as it has occasionally elsewhere in the text ([4:2e, h, j, z, gg]).  The text in other words becomes more dependent on its context — more a part, and less purely constitutive of what is going on.  Putting this in general terms, mode mediates contextual dependency — the extent to which a text constructs or accompanies its field.

17.	tt.		So, if your judge is standing here,
	uu.		we walk away from him that way.
18	vv.		That is [[so the judge can get the hind movement of your dog]].
19.	ww.		Then we usually walk sideways like that
	xx.		so as he can see [[the dog moving all over]]
	yy.		and then we walk back to the judge
	zz.		so as he can see the front movement.
20.	aaa.		After that he usually tells you
	bbb.		to wait over there.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The notion that mode "mediates" is mistaken and leads to multiple confusions, as shown in previous posts.  To be clear, one of the dimensions of mode is the cline from language in action to language in reflection (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 354).

[2] The text does not "generalise" its field as an abstract procedure.  In terms of mode (Martin's genre) the text is a recount of a (concrete) procedure.  In terms of field, the subject matter of the text is dog shows.

[3] A text does not 'shift its mode' when it is accompanied by gestures.  A spoken text ± gestures is a spoken text.

[4] The spoken text is not dependent on the gestures that accompany it.  The truth is the exact opposite: it is the gestures that are dependent on the spoken text for their interpretation.  The independence of the spoken text is demonstrated by the intelligibility of the written version — exophoric references notwithstanding.

[5] This claim is not supported by the data.  Of the three instances of exophoric reference, the tense changes only once: in the first.

[6] This misconstrues synonymy (part /constitutive) as antonymy (more a part /less constitutive).