Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Reconstitutes B'

Martin (1992: 338):

It [this chapter] has also attempted to renovate (point (iii) above) linguists' interpretation of grammar and meaning by configuring the grammar as Agent in a material process with meaning as the Medium produced: grammar makes meaning (cf. learning how to mean, making meaning, meaning making resource etc.).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here a statement about how the theorist has gone about modelling language is presented as an example of a relation in the model itself (i.e. realisation).

[2] In 'point (iii) above', A realises B is interpreted as A reconstitutes B, which is, in turn, glossed as A continually renovates B.  In such an interpretation, the intensive identifying process of A realises B:

A	realises	B
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

is misconstrued as an assigned attributive relational process:

A	continually	renovates (‘makes new’)		B
Agent/Attributor	Manner: quality	Process: relational: attributive: intensive	Range/Attribute	Medium/Carrier

In SFL theory, instead of characterising realisation, this is more a statement about the relation between the instance and the system: the notion that in logogenesis, through instantiation, each instance alters system probabilities.  Halliday (2008: 119):

Each instance minutely perturbs the probabilities of the system. Any part of the system may remain stable over long periods of time; but the system as a whole is metastable: it persists by continually evolving within its overall eco-social environment.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 555) 

Historical change in language is typically a quantitative process, in which probabilities in systems at every level are gradually nudged in one direction or another, now and again becoming categorical so that some systemic upheaval takes place. Each instantiation of a tense form, say, whenever someone is speaking or writing in English, minutely perturbs the probabilities of the system …

[3] This continues the confusion of semogenesis (making meaning) with stratification (realising meaning) — a confusion which makes Martins' model of stratification theoretically untenable.

stratification: intensive identifying relational process

grammar	realises	meaning
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

semogenesis: creative abstract material process

grammar	makes	meaning
Agent	Process:	Medium
Actor	material: creative	Goal

Note that this material process does not exemplify the relational process of 'point (iii) above'.

Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Makes B Come To Be'

Martin (1992: 378):

Clearly this chapter has meant a number of things that have never been meant before; it has been involved in constructing the field of lexical relations (point (ii) above) as much as realising immanent meanings that have been previously construed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As the critiques of this chapter demonstrate, there are valid reasons why these things 'have never been meant before'.  This chapter is purported to model experiential semantics, but instead:

• confuses two lexicogrammatical dimensions: lexical cohesion (textual metafunction) and lexis (delicacy),
• confuses semantics with context (field),
• models experiential structure as logical and interpersonal relations between units that are defined according to a misapplication of expansion relations.

[2] In 'point (ii) above', A realises B is interpreted as A constitutes B, which is, in turn, glossed as A makes B come to be.  In such an interpretation, the intensive identifying process of A realises B:

A	realises	B
Token	Process: relational: intensive: symbol	Value

is misconstrued as the caused existential process A makes B come to be:

A	makes	B	come to be
Creator	Process	Existent	existential

In SFL theory, this gloss is closer in meaning to the process of instantiation, where potential is actualised ('made actual'). However, instantiation is not an interstratal relation.

[3] The notion of 'realising immanent meanings that have been previously construed' relates to the distinction, in logogenesis, between recycling already codified meanings and constructing new ones.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 24):

The production of discourse by an individual speaker or writer can be seen as a dialectic between these two semiotic activities: between (i) recycling elements, figures and sequences that that individual has used many times before, and so for him or her are already fully codified, and (ii) constructing new ones that are being codified for the first time (and some of which may remain codified for future use — especially with a child who is learning the system).