Misrepresenting Martin (1992) On Discourse Semantics And Contextual Theory

Martin (1992: 587):

So — texts are coherent, cultures are not.  Where does this leave linguistics which is articulated as a form of social action?

Clearly one important job, which has already begun […] lies in deconstructing the naturalisation process.  Systemic functional linguistics has always adressed [sic] this concern, and English Text's development of discourse semantics and contextual theory was undertaken with this goal explicitly in mind.  What seems crucial here is a model which displays the way in which language inflects and is inflected by contextual systems; one model of this kind has been provided.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated by the reasoned arguments in the 550+ analyses on this website, English Text's development of discourse semantics and contextual theory proceeds from multiple misunderstandings of SFL theory — misunderstandings so fundamental and pervasive that they undermine the validity of the work as theory.  In an intelligent, informed academic community that values reason and intellectual integrity, this would be a serious problem.

[2] The relation between language and context is precisely defined in SFL theory as realisation.  This is the relation of intensive identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction.

[3] The contextual model that has been provided confuses context (the culture that is realised by language) with sub-potentials of language itself (registers/genres).  The confusion is along two theoretical dimensions simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.

Affirming The Metastability Of Evolving Dynamic Open Systems

Martin (1992: 585):

Martin 1986 introduces the term contratextuality for texts which directly oppose each other from different positions and this idea has been extended in delicacy by Lemke (1988: 48).  Contratextuality is critically related to semogenesis in ways that are only beginning to be investigated (for a revealing study of the semiotic subversion of genre fiction by feminist writers see Cranny-Francis 1990) and it is probable that work in this area will be among the first to shed light on the vexing question of how text renovates system as dynamic open systems evolve, thereby affirming their metastability.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the semogenesis to which contratextuality is related involves three related processes:

• logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text;
• ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual; and
• phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

[2]  To be clear, on the SFL model, the relation between text and system is instantiation.  In this view, language is a probabilistic system and it is differences in probabilities that define register variation (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 552-6).  Probabilities in the system are manifested as frequencies in the text, and the frequencies in each text minutely nudge the probabilities in the system up or down.

Misconstruing Bernstein's Coding Orientation As Ideology

Martin (1992: 581):

Perhaps the most that can be said at this stage is that from a synoptic perspective, ideology is a system of coding orientations which makes meaning selectively available depending on subjects' class, gender, ethnicity and generation.  Interpreted in these terms, all texts manifest, construe, renovate and symbolically realise ideology, just as they do language, register and genre.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confusion of ideology with coding orientation fixes ideology to the social co-ordinates of language users.  It should be obvious that speakers with similar social co-ordinates can project very different ideologies, and that speakers with very different social co-ordinates can project very similar ideologies.

[2] This misunderstands Martin's own model of stratification.  Taking (meta)metaredundancy into account, the claim — in Martin's terms only — should be:

• language (not text) realises the realisation of ideology in the realisation of genre in register.

[3] In SFL theory, the relation between texts and language, register and genre is neither manifestation, nor construal, nor renovation, nor symbolic realisation.  The relevant theoretical dimension, instead, is the vector of instantiation:

• text is a point of variation at the instance pole of instantiation, 
• register and genre are complementary perspectives on a midway point of variation on the cline of instantiation, and 
• language is the entire cline, since each point on the cline is a perspective on language.

Preparing To Misconstrue Bernstein's Codes As Ideology

Martin (1992: 576-7):

Basically Bernstein's suggestion […] is social class positions subjects to make meaning in distinctive ways depending on context.  Taking up Hallidays' (Thibault 1987: 620) terms quoted above, code "bifurcates" register, with the result that speakers from different classes (or generations, ethnicities and genders) construe context in different ways.  In Bernstein's own terms:

… I shall take the view that the code which the linguist invents to explain the formal properties of grammar is capable of generating any number of speech codes, and there is no reason for believing that any one language code is better than another in this respect. On this argument, language is a set of rules to which all speech codes must comply, but which speech codes are realised is a function of the culture acting through social relationships in specific contexts. (1971/1974: 197)

Without an interpretation of these divergent speech codes, or better, fashions of meaning, contextual theory does indeed run the danger of over-determining, homogenising and thereby reifying semiotic communities.  The notion of 'fashions of meaning' which has been used to relativise context here is based on work by Whorf who differentiated languages and cultures on the basis of different fashions of speaking …

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Bernstein's codes regulate the selection of meanings in the registers that realise situation types.  Halliday (1978: 67, 68):

In terms of our general picture, the codes act as determinants of register, operating on the selection of meanings within situation types: when the systemics of language — the ordered sets of options that constitute the linguistic system — are activated by the situational determinants of text (the field, tenor and mode […]), this process is regulated by the codes. …

It is important to avoid reifying the codes, which are not varieties of language in the sense that registers and social dialects are varieties of language. […] The code is actualised in language through register, the clustering of semantic features according to situation type. (Bernstein in fact uses the term ‘variant’, i.e. ‘elaborated variant’, to refer to those characteristics of a register that derive from the choice of code.) But the codes themselves are types of social semiotic, symbolic orders of meaning generated by the social system. Hence they transmit, or control the transmission of, the underlying patterns of a culture and subculture, acting through the primary socialising agencies of family, peer group and school.

[2] To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, Bernstein's 'fashions of speaking' are registerial varieties, at the level of semantics, as regulated by Bernstein's codes. Halliday (1978: 25):

The ‘fashions of speaking’ are sociosemantic in nature; they are patterns of meaning that emerge more or less strongly, in particular contexts, especially those relating to the socialisation of the child in the family.

[3] This misconstrues under-specifying as over-determining.

[4] This misconstrues under-specifying as homogenising.

[5] This misunderstands the meaning of 'reify'.  The meaning of reify is to convert into, or regard as, a concrete thing; that is, to metaphorically construe a phenomenon that is not a thing as a thing.  To claim that a community is not congruently a thing, is to claim that is either a quality, a process or a circumstance.  Of course, in using the word 'communities' Martin has construed the phenomenon as a thing himself.  On the basis of grammatical reactances, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 193) classify human collectives as things that are intermediate between conscious things and non-conscious semiotic things (institutions):

Human collectives: intermediate between conscious beings and institutions. These can function as Senser in figures of sensing of all kinds, including those embodying desideration; but they accept either singular or plural pronouns, and if singular pronominalise with it (e.g. the family says it is united/ the family say they are united).

Misrepresenting Martin (1992) On Register & Genre

Martin (1992: 575):

The register and genre theory reviewed and developed above represents systemic theory's attempts to model heteroglossia and dialogism; it does this by formulating register and genre as social semiotic systems realised through text, thereby providing an account not simply of how one text relates to another (cohesion across products) but in addition of how one text relates to all the texts that might have been (product in relation to system). …

The interpretation does however need to be qualified in two important respects — namely heterogeneity and semogensis [sic] (i.e. semiotic change). 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is doubly misleading.  Firstly, 'the register and genre theory reviewed and developed above' does not represent systemic theory's attempts.  On the contrary, it is inconsistent with SFL theory, and represents Martin's attempts only.  Secondly, 'the register and genre theory reviewed and developed above' does not model heteroglossia and dialogism.  On the contrary, what is claimed bears little or no relation to heteroglossia and dialogism; see further below.

[2] This is inconsistent, both with Martin's model and with SFL theory.

In terms of Martin's stratification model, register and genre systems are realised by the systems of language, not by text.  In this, Martin confuses the system and instance poles of the cline of instantiation.

In terms of SFL theory, it involves two confusions.  Firstly, the notion of register and genre systems confuses a midway point of variation on the cline of instantiation (register/genre/text type) with the system pole of the cline.  Secondly, it misconstrues the relation between system and text as realisation instead of instantiation.  (This in addition to the inconsistencies entailed by modelling varieties of language as context rather than language.)

[3] This is misleading in terms of both register and genre.  In terms of register, any chance of providing an account how one text relates to another is undermined by Martin's numerous misinterpretations of field, tenor and mode systems, as demonstrated in many previous posts.  In terms of genre, Martin merely provides two simple taxonomies of factual and story genres (text types).  Martin nowhere presents any account of how his formulation of register and genre relates one individual text to another.

[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, cohesion is not a relation between 'products' (texts).

[5] This is the opposite of what is true.  This is precisely what Martin's model does not do.  In SFL theory, the relation of texts to text potential — of instances to system — is modelled as the cline of instantiation.  Martin's model is inconsistent with the cline of instantiation, due to the fact that it misconstrues the midway point on the cline (register/genre), not as language, but as systems of context, and as such, as higher levels of symbolic abstraction than language.  This follows from not understanding either stratification or instantiation, as demonstrated many times in previous posts.

[6] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) identify three types of semogenic processes:

• logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text;
• ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual; and
• phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

Misconstruing Heteroglossia And Dialogism As System And Process

Martin (1992: 574-5):

Like Firth, Bakhtin was interested in the heterogeneous nature of speech communities (for which he developed the notion of heteroglossia); and like Firth he saw this heterogeneity manifested in all texts (for which he developed the notion of dialogism*, using the metaphor of dialogue to capture the sense in which different voices converse as texture).

* Endnote #30 (p590):

The distinction between heteroglossia and dialogism in Bakhtin's writing is unclear; here heteroglossia is associated with system and dialogism with process.  Bakhtin himself however did not work with the Hjelmslevian notion of system and process, and was unlikely to have developed an opposition of this kind in light of his objections to Saussure's opposition of langue and parole.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents Bakhtin and misunderstands his notion of heteroglossia.  According to the glossary in Bakhtin (1981: 428), 'heteroglossia' is the notion that the same wording has different meanings according to context:

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.

[2] This misrepresents Bakhtin and misunderstands his notion of dialogism.  According to the glossary in Bakhtin (1981: 426), 'dialogism' is the notion that all utterances are made in the context of other utterances, with which they interact:

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.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, texture is the property of being a text (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 2).

[4] The distinction between heteroglossia and dialogism in Bakhtin's writing is made clear by an appended glossary (Bakhtin (1981: 423-34).

[5] Here Martin maps his misunderstanding of heteroglossia onto the SFL notion of system, and his misunderstanding of dialogism onto the SFL notion of process.  Further complexity is added to these misunderstandings and inconsistencies when it is remembered that Martin has throughout misinterpreted the SFL notion of process — the instantiation of the system in the instance — as the axial realisation of system in structure, as demonstrated in previous posts.

[6] Bakhtin would not have associated heteroglossia with system and dialogism with process because such a mapping is wildly inconsistent with each pair of oppositions.

Misrepresenting Martin (1992)

Martin (1992: 574):

The first point that needs to be made is that the interpretation of language and context here is indeed multi-structural and polysystemic.  System/structure theory has been re-involved in the description on a number of different levels — rank, stratum and plane — most of which involve metafunctional diversity and so can be analysed simultaneously as particle, wave and prosody; in addition, synoptic and dynamic perspectives on text as system and text as process have been introduced.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, context is interpreted here as types of language, rather than as context, with the result that, being context, these types of language are not considered language.

[2] This is misleading, in that it overstates what has actually been done.  Almost none of the systems that Martin has provided specifies structural realisations.  This is partially disguised by the fact that some networks do include realisation statements; however, these merely provide textual instances of the feature.

• Of Martin's 49 discourse semantic system networks, across four metafunctions, only 4 specify structural realisations, and all are confined to the interpersonal metafunction.
• Of Martin's 11 register system networks, not one specifies any structural realisations; that is, no register structures are specified by register systems.
• Martin provides 0 genre systems — only taxonomies of types (factual and story genres); that is, no genre structures are specified by genre systems.

[3] This is misleading, in that it overstates what has actually been done.  Martin has not provided a rank scale for his planes of register and genre, and in the case of the stratum of discourse semantics, only one of the four metafunctional systems, the interpersonal, includes a rank scale: exchange and move.  The ranks discussed in the experiential dimension of discourse semantics — the clause and group — are ranks of a different stratum: lexicogrammar. 

[4] The level that does not involve metafunctional diversity is genre.  Metafunction is thus another dimension in which the model is inconsistent with the architecture of SFL theory, which follows from the misinterpretation of genre as context.

[5] To be clear, these are the favoured modes of structural realisation only, varying according to metafunction.  Significantly, these were introduced in the section on genre, the plane without metafunctional diversity. 

[6] This confuses text with language.  Text is only the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.  Language is the entire cline, from systemic potential to actual instance, with every point on the cline providing a different perspective.

'Text as system', therefore, is the instantial system; i.e. the system of an actual text, not the system of the language as a whole.  It is the instance viewed from the system pole.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384): 

If we look at logogenesis from the point of view of the system (rather than from the point of view of each instance), we can see that logogenesis builds up a version of the system that is particular to the text being generated: the speaker/writer uses this changing system as a resource in creating the text; and the listener/reader has to reconstruct something like that system in the process of interpreting the text — with the changing system as a resource for the process of interpretation. We call this an instantial system.

'Text as process', on the other hand, is the process of instantiation that occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation during logogenesis.  As previously explained, Martin misconstrues 'process' as structure, the syntagmatic axis, "viewed dynamically".  That is, he confuses the instantiation of the system as instance with the axial realisation of the system as structure.

Misunderstanding Realisation

Martin (1992: 574):

In general terms Firth privileged text over system (see Halliday's comments in Thibault 1987: 603) and it was left to Halliday to develop system/process theory in a way that placed potential and actual on an equal footing, related through the dialectic of realisation. …

Setting aside for a moment the problems of formalising realisation as a dialectic, English Text has for the most part followed Halliday's lead in refusing to privilege either system or process.  The attention paid to system however does run the risk of being read as involving an over-deterministic interpretation of language, register and genre as homogeneous systems.  This (mis)reading needs to be seriously addressed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the relation between potential and actual, which is instantiation, not realisation.

[2] This misunderstands the notion of realisation.  Realisation is an intensive identifying relational process that relates different levels of symbolic abstraction.  It is the relation, for example, between strata, on the one hand, and between axes, on the other.

It also misunderstands the notion of dialectic, which refers to the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions. Its synonyms include reasoning, argumentation, contention, logic; discussion, debate, dialogue, logical argument.

[3] The notion of "formalising realisation as a dialectic" is therefore nonsensical, at best.

formalising (‘making formal’)		realisation	as a dialectic
Process: relational	Attribute	Carrier	Rôle: guise

[4] There is a concealed confusion here, in as much as Martin (1992) uses the term 'process' to mean structure, viewed dynamically, rather than the process of instantiation.  In terms of system vs structure, SFL theory, as the name implies, does give priority to system.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49):

Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organising principle adopted is one of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features.

[5] To be clear, SFL theory maps out the dimensions of language as a resource of choices for making meaning.

[6] Here diatypic varieties of language, register and genre, are again presented as not being language.

Misconstruing One Mode System As Register And Another As Genre

Martin (1992: 571-2):

… and Halliday's second order opposition of medium to rhetorical genre is English Text's opposition between genre and mode.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents Halliday's 'rhetorical mode' as 'rhetorical genre'.  For Halliday, rhetorical mode is context, whereas genres are text types — registers viewed from the instance pole — which can be identified, in part, by the rhetorical modes they realise.

[2] Assuming Martin has these in reverse order, the proposal here is to reconstrue

• Halliday's mode system of medium (spoken vs written etc.) as his registerial system of mode, and
• Halliday's system of rhetorical mode (expository vs persuasive etc.) as his system of genre.

That is, two systems of potential at the same level of semiotic abstraction — context — are reconstrued as different levels of semiotic abstraction — genre realised by register — which, in SFL theory, are complementary perspectives on sub-potentials of language.  The confusions here are thus along two dimensions simultaneously: stratification and instantiation.

Consequently, on this second tendered piece of evidence, Martin's claim that his model of register and genre avoids additional complications in Halliday's model is the exact opposite of what is true.

Weaving An Illogical Argument Around A Misinterpretation Of Halliday

Martin (1992: 570):

Probably the main theoretical weakness as far as modelling [the system of genres that constitute our context of culture] is concerned lies in interpreting both system and process as what might metaphorically be referred to as "negotiation".  This stems in part from a fundamental weakness in the dynamic modelling of the exchange; but it projects from there onto difficulties in dealing with tenor (the ways in which interlocutors treat in status, contact, affect), with genre (the interplay through which participants consummate, frustrate or abandon a genre) and on to ideology where tension among coding orientations vies with power, deprivation and systemic inertia to engender evolution.  As Halliday comments in Thibault (1987):

I would interpret the power relations in a particular situation, when we represent that situation in terms of field, tenor and mode, by building into our representation that fact that the situation may be different things for different interactants.  The total picture is obviously going to bring in all angles; but in any typical context of situation in which there is a power relationship of inequality, then the configuration embodied in that situation is different from the way it is seen from either end.  This means, of course, that the register that is being operated by the interactants will be bifurcated, although we may choose to characterise the register of the situation as a whole by building in both strands.  (1987: 620-1)

It remains to develop ways of building in "both strands" that show how text negotiates with system, and different systems with each other; lacking a model of this metasystemic dynamism, contextual theory remains dangerously incomplete.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The main theoretical weakness, as far as modelling "the system of genres that constitute our context of culture" is concerned, actually lies in Martin's confusion of context potential (context of culture) with language sub-potentials (genres/text types/registers), as explained in previous posts.  There has since appeared an entire book devoted to promoting this misunderstanding: Genre Relations: Mapping Culture (Martin & Rose 2008).

[2] This confuses potential (system) and the instantiation of potential (process) with interpersonal semantics, the system–&–process whereby interlocutors enact intersubjective relations as meaning.  Note that Martin's argument is that it is this interpretation that is the main theoretical weakness as far as modelling genre systems is concerned.

probably	the main theoretical weakness	lies in	[[interpreting both system and process as [[ what might metaphorically be referred to as "negotiation"]] ]]
	Identified / Value	Process: relational	Identifier / Token

[3] The claim here is that the source (cause) of this theoretical weakness — the (mis)interpretation — is a fundamental weakness in the dynamic modelling of interpersonal semantics.

this	in part	stems from	a fundamental weakness [in the dynamic modelling [of the exchange] ]
Identified / Token	Manner: degree	Process: relational: causal: reason	Identifier / Value

[4] The claim here is that the theoretical weakness — the (mis)interpretation — extends to difficulties in modelling tenor, genre and ideology.

[simplified]

it	projects	from there onto difficulties [[[in dealing with tenor …  genre … ideology … ]]]
Carrier	Process: relational: spatio-temporal	Attribute: circumstantial

[5] This misunderstands Halliday.  The Halliday quote is concerned with the question of modelling contexts in which two interlocutors see the same situation as different configurations of field, tenor and mode.  These are the two strands that Halliday refers to.

[6] There can be no such "negotiation".  Text and system are the same phenomenon viewed from opposite poles of the cline of instantiation.

Misconstruing Language Sub-Potentials As Constituting Context Potential

Martin (1992: 570):

For ideological reasons, mapping out the system of genres that constitute our context of culture is a pressing task — and there is no reason in principle to expect it to be a more complex one than mapping lexicogrammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] From the perspective of SFL theory, the term 'system of genres' confuses potential (system) with sub-potentials (genres).  The confusion is along the cline of instantiation.

[2] In SFL theory, genres do not constitute the context of culture.  Genres, as language, realise context; genres as text types, realise situation types.  That is genres are sub-potentials of language that realise sub-potentials of the culture as a semiotic system.  The relation between genre (language sub-potentials) and context of culture (context potential) is therefore along two theoretical dimensions simultaneously:

• stratification (context vs language), and
• instantiation (potential vs sub-potential).

	potential	sub-potential / instance type	instance
context	context of culture
language		genre