Misrepresenting The Directions Of Coding And Mistaking A Verbal Projection Nexus For An Identifying Clause

Martin (1992: 282):

The discussion will now be limited to the semiotic options subclassifying the feature [realise].  These can be divided into a general set which do not specify which strata or ranks are being related and a set which is specific to either the semantics/grammar interface or the grammar/phonology (including grammar/graphology) one…

Both interfaces make a distinction between encoding and decoding, depending on whether the Token is treated as closer or further away from the expression substance than the Value.

GRAMMAR/PHONOLOGY:ENCODING

[5:17]  N-G spells ng. 

GRAMMAR/PHONOLOGY:DECODING

[5:18]  But it actually reads the big dog must be able to see the dog at all times. 

SEMANTICS/GRAMMAR…ENCODING

[5:19]  Spell means 'to represent graphically as' 

SEMANTICS/GRAMMAR…DECODING

[5:20]  'To represent graphically as' defines spell.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This seriously misrepresents decoding and encoding.  The directions of coding are not semiotic options "subclassifying the feature [realise]", and have nothing whatsoever to do with "whether the Token is treated as closer or further away from the expression substance than the Value".

The direction of coding pertains to all identifying processes and simply depends on whether the Value is used to identify the Token (decoding) or the Token is used to identify the Value (encoding), as Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 230) make clear.

Of the three genuine identifying clauses provided, each can be construed as either decoding or encoding, as demonstrated below:

decoding: what word do the letters ‘N-G’ spell?

N-G	spells	ng
Token/Identified	Process: identifying	Value/Identifier
Given		New

encoding: what letters spell the word ‘ng’?

N-G	spells	ng
Token/Identifier	Process: identifying	Value/Identified
New		Given

decoding: what does the word ‘spell’ mean?

spell	means	to represent graphically as
Token/Identified	Process: identifying	Value/Identifier
Given		New

encoding: what word means ‘to represent graphically as’?

spell	means	to represent graphically as
Token/Identifier	Process: identifying	Value/Identified
New		Given

decoding: what meaning defines the word ‘spell’?

to represent graphically as	defines	spell
Value/Identifier	Process: identifying	Token/Identified
New		Given

encoding: what word is defined by the meaning ‘to represent graphically as’?

to represent graphically as	defines	spell
Value/Identified	Process: identifying	Token/Identifier
Given		New

This last  clause is extremely marked, not least because, in the vast majority of instances of identifying processes, it is the Token, not the Value that conflates with Subject in clauses of operative voice.

[2] This is not an identifying relational clause; it is a nexus of verbal clause projecting a quoted locution clause (despite the omitted quotation marks).

but	it	actually	reads (‘says’)	the big dog	must be able to see	the dog	at all times
1				“ 2
	Sayer		Process: verbal	Senser	Process: mental	Phenomenon	Location: time

This instance, therefore, does not construe the 'grammar/graphology interface'.  The logical relation it construes is projection, not elaboration, and the domains that are related are the material order of experience (a sayer saying) and the semiotic order of experience (a wording; i.e. lexicogrammar).

Misrepresenting 'Semiotic'

Martin (1992: 281-2):

The largest class [of exhausting processes] has to do with processes of signification.  These can be grouped into three sets.  One deals with the realisation relationships within semiotic systems; a second handles relationships between non-semiotic manifestations and their meanings; and the third has to do with meanings that are suggested rather than denoted:

REALISE
[5:12] C-A-T spells cat. 

MANIFEST
[5:13] The red stands for the blood that's been shed. 

CONNOTE
[5:14] His behaviour smacked of jealousy.

Blogger Comment:

By definition, the expression of a meaning, as when red betokens bloodshed, is semiotic.  Semiotic means 'relating to signs' and signs are necessarily both content (signifié) and expression (signifiant).

Misconstruing Unassigned vs Assigned As Single vs Double Agency

Martin (1992: 280, 281):

Identifying clauses can first be divided into those with an additional agent and those without..  This additional agent may have the function of assigning Token to Value…

Blogger Comment:

To be clear, there is only an additional Agent in an identifying clause if it is both assigned and encoding, and this is only possible in operative voice (Halliday 1994: 165).  (In encoding clauses, Token conflates with Agent.)  Unassigned decoding clauses are middle: they have no Agent.

decoding

‘yacht’	means	a light, fast sailing ship
Medium	Process:	Range
Token/Identified	identifying	Value/Identifier

encoding

‘yacht’	means	a light, fast sailing ship
Agent	Process:	Medium
Token/Identifier	identifying	Value/Identified

The accompanying system network (Fig. 5.4.) misconstrues unassigned vs assigned as single agency vs double agency.

Misrepresenting The Model Of Transitivity

Martin (1992: 278):

Where Halliday (1985) justifies his process types largely on the basis of configurations of Agent, Process and Medium, Hasan additionally draws the Beneficiary role into the picture.

Blogger Comment:

The system of process types isn't justified on configurations of Agent, Process and Medium.  Each of these — process types, on one hand, configurations of Agent, Process and Medium, on the other — represents a distinct complementary perspective on transitivity: the transitive and ergative models, respectively.

The transitive model is concerned with the ways in which processes are different, with each type of process 'characterised by process-participant configurations where the functions are particular to that type' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 280).

The ergative model, on the other hand, is concerned with how the process types are all alike; how 'they all have the same grammar' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 281).

Not Recognising The Stratification Of Content: Thesaurus

Martin (1992: 273, 275):

The relationship between words and ideas in a thesaurus is not a stratal one either.  Rather, words are classified notionally…

Roget's system develops the idea of general motion up to the category sailing-ship and then lists some fifty lexical items under this heading; one of these is the lexical item yacht.  This strategy reinforces the notion/wording duality invoked by Roget in introducing his work; but all that is really going on is that his classification is being arrested at a certain point in delicacy. …

Because it is organised according to meaning, a thesaurus provides a more appropriate model of lexical description than a dictionary does …

Blogger Comments:

[1] By definition, in SFL theory, the relationship between words and ideas (mentally projected meanings) is a stratal one.  It is the relation between lexicogrammar and semantics.

[2] Classifying words notionally is classifying words according to the meanings they realise.  The relation between words and the meanings they realise is a stratal one: the relation between lexicogrammar and semantics.

[3] The relation between the idea of a sailing ship and the lexical items that realise it is a stratal one: the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar.

[4] What is actually going on is: a the semantic system is elaborated to 'a certain point in delicacy', and the words that realise semantic categories are listed.  The relation between a semantic category and the words that realise them is a stratal one: the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar.

[5] In being organised according to meaning, a thesaurus provides a semantic taxonomy in which the lexical items that realise each category are listed.  In being organised according to meaning, therefore, it does not provide a model of lexis at the level of wording.  In SFL theory, lexis is modelled as most delicate grammar.  What is appropriate, in SFL terms, is the use of hyponymy as an organising principle.

Not Recognising The Stratification Of Content: Dictionary Definitions

Martin (1992: 273):

The folk-conception of a dictionary entry as a "form" and the definition as its "meaning" is of course a misleading one.  In fact the relationship between words and definitions is not stratal (i.e. words are not being associated with the semantic primes they realise).  All that is going on is that one wording is being reformulated as another.

Blogger Comment:

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 237) see this rather differently, because they apply SFL theory to definitions:

Naming and defining are linguistic exercises, in which the word is Token and its meaning is its Value. … 

a ‘gazebo’	is	a pavilion on an eminence
Token		Value

(= ‘the word gazebo means [names, is defined as] a pavilion on an eminence')

Misconstruing The Context As Register

Martin (1992: 271-2):

Something of the role played by lexical relations is illustrated in [5:1] below.  A mother is talking with her 10 year old son about his experiences at school earlier in the day.  Towards the end the mother realises that she may have misinterpreted the field, and interrupts to clarify the situation.  It is the lexical cohesion that has been misread, not the NEGOTIATION, IDENTIFICATION or CONJUNCTION. …

Meanwhile it suffices to comment that it is the relations between lexical items, not lexical items per se that have been misunderstood.  And the misreading of these relations is the misreading of the text's field. … This means that although considerations of register have been set aside as far as possible in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, with lexical cohesion the register variable field needs to be brought more clearly into the picture.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In the 33-line text, the child begins talking about choosing teams in kickball then switches to playing baseball, upon which the mother realises she had mistaken kickball for soccer.  The first field is identified in the second clause:

In s…kickball we have two captains, right?

and second field is identified in the 25th clause:

I got a home run today.

It is not the lexical cohesion that has been misunderstood — not the lexical relations of repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy and collocation.  The mother misread the first field because she misheard 's…kickball' as 'soccer'.  It was the experiential meaning that was misunderstood, not the textual cohesion.

[2] Given what is to come, it is worth mentioning that this use of situation and field is consistent with SFL theory.  The situation is the instance of the context that is realised by the text, and the field is the ideational dimension of context.  Note that this is second order field — what the language is about —which Martin later (op cit: 292) dismisses as less 'appropriate' than his conception of first order field.

[3] This misconstrues context as register.  To use Martin's words (p260): 'this short-coming is a very serious one indeed'.  In SFL theory, field is not a register variable, field is a dimension of context, and context is more symbolically abstract than language.  Register, on the other hand, is not more abstract than language; register is a text type: a functional variety of language (not of context) that varies with the situation type (context) being realised.

The relation between language and context is realisation: an identifying relational process.  The relation between language as system (potential) and language as register (subpotential) is instantiation: an ascriptive relational process.

The relation between context (situation type) and register (text type) is realisation.  The lower order of symbolic abstraction, text type (language), realises the higher order, situation type (context).

Misrepresenting The Chapter 4 Model Of Conjunction

Martin (1992: 271):

To this point, the point of departure for exploring discourse systems has been a grammatical one: general MOOD classes (realising NEGOTIATION), closed system nominals (tracking participants) and clause complex structures (used extensively to code conjunctive relations in spontaneous spoken monologue).  In this chapter on the other hand the point of departure is lexis.  It is the contribution made by open system items to discourse structure that is under consideration.  This is an ambitious undertaking, in at least two respects.  First, lexis has received less attention in functional linguistics than has grammar, and so there is less to build on… .  And second, the scope of experiential meaning coded through lexis in any language is vast, which fact alone makes it harder to bring under analytic control.  Nevertheless, lexical relations have an important role to play in discourse structure.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents what was done in chapter 4.  Non-trivially, the chapter applied Halliday's logical semantic relation of expansion — not clause complex structures — without distinguishing whether it was deployed structurally in logical complexes, or non-structurally to cohesively mark textual transitions.  Trivially, the model was applied to written as well as spoken mode, and to dialogue as well as monologue.

[2] It is true that the systems of sufficient delicacy to account for lexis have not been developed in SFL theory.  As Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: 46) have estimated:

It would take at least 100 volumes of the present size to extend the description of the grammar up to that point [of maximum delicacy] for any substantial portion of the vocabulary.

On the other hand, SFL theory models the discourse function of lexis as lexical cohesion, in which the types of lexical relations include those of repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy and collocation.

[3] In SFL theory, the experiential meaning "encoded through lexis" is brought "under analytic control" by

• construing meaning as a higher level of abstraction than the lexicogrammar, and 
• modelling lexis as most delicate grammar, such that grammatical systems represent the most general of the systems whose ultimate specification is lexical items.

Confusing Cohesive Relations With Logogenesis

Martin (1992: 267):

A further parallel has to do with the distinction between reference to participants as opposed to text reference and external as opposed to internal conjunction:

TEXT REFERENCE : INTERNAL CONJUNCTION ::

PARTICIPANT REFERENCE : EXTERNAL CONJUNCTION

Both text reference and internal conjunction construct text as part of rather than as an interpretation of the world. 

Blogger Comment:

In SFL theory, 'constructing text' is logogenesis, the unfolding of the text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation as systemic potential is actualised though the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements.  The ideational selections are a construal of experience of the world as meaning.  The text is part of the world both materially (e.g. soundwaves, pages, pixels) and semiotically (the content plane that realises the cultural situation).

Reference and conjunction, on the other hand, in SFL theory, are systems of the textual metafunction on the content stratum of lexicogrammar.  They are resources for relating elements in the text through cohesive relations rather than by structural means.

Misrepresenting The Discourse Systems Of Conjunction & Identification

Martin (1992: 265-6):

In this chapter, an account of a third major discourse system, CONJUNCTION, has been presented; in addition the relatively minor system of CONTINUITY was briefly reviewed.  CONJUNCTION represents the discourse semantics of clause complex relations, much as IDENTIFICATION underlies nominal group DEIXIS and NEGOTIATION underlies MOOD.  The association of these discourse systems with metafunctions and their unmarked realisation in lexicogrammar is summarised in Table 4.16.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The discourse system of continuity is presented as system of the logical metafunction.  It was demonstrated in earlier posts that most markers of continuity were not conjunctions marking logical relations, but adverbs serving as adjuncts that realise interpersonal functions.  (It was also shown that elements serving experiential and textual functions were also misconstrued as continuity items.)

In SFL theory, continuity refers to a cohesive system, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction, that marks relations by means of continuatives.  (In the discourse semantic model of conjunction, this SFL textual system was subsumed under the logical relation of addition.)

[2] Contrary to this claim, the proposed system of conjunction does not represent the discourse semantics of clause complex relations.  It was demonstrated in previous posts that the model does not discriminate between structural logical relations between clauses in a clause complex and nonstructural textual relations of conjunctive cohesion between (groups of) messages.  In the former case, it was shown that the model represents a logically invalid reorganisation of clause complex relations; in the latter case, since it is not clause complexes that are being modelled, it is not a model of clause complex relations.

[3] Contrary to this claim, as demonstrated in previous posts, the system of identification is not a discourse model of the use of deixis in the service of cohesive system of reference.  Whereas grammatical reference is a system for marking the identifiability of elements in a text, discourse semantic identification is instead concerned with tracking the persistence of specific instantial participants through a text.

[4] Contrary to the theoretical architecture of SFL theory and the principle of symbolic abstraction, this use of the term 'underlies' places the higher level of symbolic abstraction (the discourse semantic systems of identification and negotiation) below the lower level of symbolic abstraction (the grammatical systems of deixis and mood).

[5] In SFL theory, cohesive conjunction is a system of the textual metafunction, not the logical metafunction.

[6] This again confuses markedness — as in: Subject is the unmarked Theme in declarative clauses — with congruence: non-metaphorical realisations of the semantics in the lexicogrammar.

Confusing Textual Conjunction With Logical Relations

Martin (1992: 264-5):

The realisation of conjunctive relations within clauses causes problems for the definition of messages provided in 4.6 above where ranking, non-projected clauses were proposed as constituting the event-line in reticula.  The following messages from [4:199] can be used to illustrate the problem (nominalisations in bold-face).

[4:199] j. Let's be clear: I personally favour the initiative

            k. and ardently support disarmament negotiations to reduce the risk of war.

… It may be argued that the conjunctive relations in [4:1999j-k] are too deeply buried to worry about.  But this objection will not hold for [4:204] where they are explicitly realised through circumstantial relations (through and resulting from) in clause structure. …

[4:204] a.  Government and police sources agreed that the force's problem is lack of morale through a lack of discipline resulting from the absence of a strong figurehead.

The projection in this text is just a clause long in its written form, but can be unpacked into a three message clause complex as follows:

[4:205] (= SPOKEN PARAPHRASE of the projection in [4:204])

a.  the police force has problems

b.  because they aren't being disciplined

c.  because the force doesn't have a strong commissioner.

As can be seen from these examples, unpacking the grammatical metaphors characteristic of written text will have dramatic consequences for any text's conjunctive structure.  But not unpacking them means that a good deal of the logical structure of many texts will be missed. …

As suggested above, Rhetorical Structure Theory does not appear to have addressed this issue.  In practice, relational propositions which are realised within clauses through TRANSITIVITY relations are simply ignored. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses conjunction with logical semantic relations.  In SFL theory, conjunctive relations are the non-structural deployment by the textual metafunction of the logical semantic system of expansion.  It is merely one of the many manifestations the transphenomenal fractal types, expansion and projection, in the system.  Conjunctive relations don't obtain within a clause, but logical semantic relations do, as in the relations between the clause nucleus and other participants and circumstances.

[2] In terms of SFL theory, there is no conjunctive relation in [4:199] — there is neither a conjunction nor a conjunctive Adjunct — linking the clause complex to the opening simplex.

[3] Unpacking a metaphorical clause into a more congruent clause complex is irrelevant to the conjunctive relations in a text, because, in SFL theory, there are no conjunctive relations obtaining either in a clause or in a clause complex.

[4] The issue is ignored because it only arises because of a misunderstanding of SFL theory.

[5] Logical relations are not relational propositions.  A proposition is a speech function (interpersonal semantics) that is realised in clause mood.

Confusing Semantic Relations With Logogenesis

Martin (1992: 263-4):

Summarising these observations as discourse maxims one might come up with the following:

i.  Sort out what you've said (worry about what's next as it comes).

ii. Keep surfacing (don't get too embedded or too deeply dependent).

Whatever the moral drawn or how framed, there is abundant evidence that texts are produced progressively by speakers who constantly monitor what they say as they say it and for the most part make retrospective connections between new messages and what has already been said.  The deep regressive structures proposed by Rhetorical Structure Theory are thus inappropriate as a model of text production and need to be complemented by a more process oriented account.  The flatter, covariate structures proposed by English Text on the other hand seem more promising as a first step in the development of dynamic representations.

Blogger Comments:

This is the final section of a critique of Rhetorical Structure Theory.  

[1] This stage of the argument provides some advice on how to organise spoken texts, in terms of a moral to be drawn from observing two texts.

[2] This stage of the argument presents a commonsense observation as an investigative finding.

[3] Retrospective connections are deemed appropriate, but regressive structures inappropriate, for a model of text production, on the basis of the discourse maxims and commonsense observation.

[4] This confuses the semantic relations in a text with the unfolding of the text (logogenesis).

[5] The relative "flatness" of the English Text model reflects the fact that it is less able to account for the depth of dependencies in a text.

As argued previously, covariate "structures" are not structures.  They are units (messages) conjoined by logical relations, but the conjoined units do not form an integrated whole. (A reticulum is a representational device, not a linguistic structure.)

Maintaining That Clause Simplexes "Cause Problems For The Clause Complex Analysis"

Martin (1992: 262):

A number of passages from [4:2] will be reviewed; some of these were commented on in 4.1 above because they cause problems for the clause complex analysis, in spite of the fact that Halliday's system was specifically designed to handle the dynamics of clause combining.

Blogger Comment:

The passages that were commented on (1992: 162-3) were not clause complexes, but clause simplexes involving cohesion, and so do not "cause problems for the clause complex analysis".   Of the four, only one involved a conjunctive relation; the other three deployed demonstrative reference.  See previous critiques here and here.

Confusing Textual Relations With Logogenesis

Martin (1992: 261-2):

The text is repeated below to highlight the significance of regressive dependency and depth in RST analysis.  Note for example that the second message, Tempting as it may be, is a satellite to [4:199c], which is in turn part of a satellite to [4:199g-i], which is in turn part of a satellite to [4:199n].  Before this clause could be generated in other words the text would have to be processed backwards from its end message to one of its deepest points. …

It would perhaps be unfair to suggest that RST analysis treats [4:199] as a text that unfolds backwards from its end instead of working forwards from is beginning.  The picture is in fact more complex than this, involving both progressive and regressive dependencies.  However, it is clear that Rhetorical Structure Theory is not at all concerned with the way in which text unfolds as a process, with what has been realised taken as a point of departure for what comes next.  Somewhat ironically, given the similarity between the RST interpretation and clause complex analysis, rhetorical structures are very synoptic in orientation.  They account for text as a finished, pre-conceived, edited product.  The model has been developed mainly in the context of providing an account of written texts, so this development is hardly surprising.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses textual relations within a text (the concern of RST) with logogenesis: the unfolding of text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

Moreover, if 'regressive dependency' were a problem for RST, it would also be a problem for Martin's 'logical' model, as the following quote (1992: 240) makes clear:

Conjunctive structures have been treated in other words as typically anaphoric, as reference chains.  Conjunctions do sometimes point forward however.

See the (20/8/15) critique of this here.

[2] The suggestion is, more importantly, inaccurate, based, as it is, on the confusion of textual semantic relations with logogenesis.  It would perhaps be unfair to suggest that the assessment is more hypocritical than critical.

Criticising Others For Not Making The Same Mistakes

Martin (1992: 260):

The critical point is that because it so closely modelled on clause complex interdependency, Rhetorical Structure Theory cannot at present handle simultaneous conjunctive structures in text.  Since internal and external conjunction very commonly assign simultaneous layers of structure to a text, much as experiential and interpersonal metafunctions in the grammar do for the clause, this short-coming is a very serious one indeed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated in previous posts, the "simultaneous" conjunctive structures only arise from theoretical misunderstandings of Martin, such as 

• mistaking parataxis for addition,
• misapplying the logical semantic category concessive,
• mistaking interpersonal functions for conjunctive functions.

[2] As demonstrated in previous posts, Martin has misunderstood Halliday & Hasan's (1976) distinction between internal and external conjunction throughout, misconstruing it as the distinction between 'constructing text' and 'constructing field'.

[3] An important difference here is that the experiential and interpersonal structures of the clause are different metafunctional angles on the same unit, whereas any simultaneous conjunctive structures would be from just one angle: Martin's logical.

[4] Given the above, no shortcoming in RST has been identified, serious or otherwise.

Misconstruing Circumstantial Comparison As Conjunctive Comparison

Martin (1992: 258-9):

Equally serious is Rhetorical Structure Theory's claim that conjunctive relations in text can be reduced to a single chain.  The short-comings of this position can be demonstrated with respect to [4:3] above.  Consider first the relationship between clause complexes 2 and 3:

[4:3] 2.c. Modern capitalism thrives on expansion and credit,
           d. and without them it shrivels.
        3.e. Equally however, it requires the right context,
           f. which is an expanding world economy:
          g. a national economy is distinct and severable from other national economies in some senses but not all. 

These are simultaneously related through internal comparison and concession.  The third clause complex is assigned the same status in the argument as the second through the internal comparative conjunction equally, at the same time as it is related to it by however: 'although I've just argued that modern capitalism thrives on expansion and credit and without them shrivels, it is equally important to say that it requires the right context, which is…'.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The conjunctive relation here is neither comparison nor concession, and there is only one relation, not two.  The conjunctive relation, which is marked by however, is extension: addition: adversative ('on the other hand'), not concessive ('despite this').

[2] The adverb — not conjunction — equally functions experientially as a circumstance of Manner: comparison.  Like all circumstances of Manner, it 'construes the way in which the process is actualised' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 267), as demonstrated by its unmarked textual agnate:

However, it equally requires the right context.

The circumstantial Adjunct equally also contributes to the texture structurally, as marked Theme, while the conjunctive Adjunct however contributes non-structurally, as a marker of cohesive conjunction.  (The punctuation also suggests both are packaged as contrastive New information.)

equally	however	it	requires		the right context
circumstantial Adjunct	conjunctive Adjunct	Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement
Manner: comparison		Carrier	Process: relational		Attribute
Theme: marked	Rheme

[3] If this were the meaning, then the function of equally would be interpersonal, not logical (or textual), since it enacts an evaluation of the proposition.