Misrepresenting Hasan And Confusing Strata And Metafunctions

Martin (1992: 382-4):

Hasan's more delicate classification of texture creating resources is summarised in Table 6.2 (Table 5.1 from Hasan 1985: 82).  Grammatical parallelism is added to Halliday's structural resources, alongside THEME and INFORMATION systems. … Hasan's table provides a useful point of comparison for the model of text forming resources proposed in English Text.  These resources are outlined by strata in Table 6.3.  The fact that English Text assumes a stratified content plane accounts for most of the difference in categorisation.

Table 6.3. English Text’s organisation of text forming resources in English
Discourse Semantics	Lexicogrammar	Phonology/Graphology
negotiation	substitution & ellipsis	information
identification	theme
conjunction & continuity		tone concord & tone sequence
ideation	collocation

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is manifestly untrue, not least because Hasan, along with Halliday, long ago stratified the content plane into semantics (meaning) and lexicogrammar (wording).  Halliday & Hasan (1976: 5):

Language can be explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels of coding, or 'strata': the semantic (meanings), the lexicogrammatical (forms) and the phonological and orthographic (expressions).

[2] In SFL, the 'text forming resources' are those of the textual metafunction.  Martin's negotiation is a system of the interpersonal metafunction, Martin's conjunction & continuity is a system of the logical metafunction, and Martin's ideation is a system of the experiential metafunction.  The confusion is complexified considerably by

• the fact that Martin's (experiential) ideation is partially a relocation of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction) from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics;
• the fact that Martin's (logical) conjunction & continuity is partially a relocation of cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction) from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics, and partially a relocation of clause complexing (logical metafuction) from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics; and
• the fact that Martin's (textual) identification, while partially being a relocation of cohesive reference (textual metafunction) from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics, involves units (participants) that are of the experiential metafunction. 

[3] In SFL, substitution–&–ellipsis is a (cohesive) resource of the textual metafunction.  Here it is aligned with negotiation, a system of the interpersonal metafunction.

[4] In SFL, collocation is a (lexically cohesive) resource of the textual metafunction.  Here it is aligned with ideation, which for Martin, is a system of the experiential metafunction.

[5] In SFL, information is a textual system of the lexicogrammatical stratum.  Here it is misconstrued as an interpersonal system of the phonological/graphological stratum.  That is, it is misconstrued in terms of both metafunction and stratification, and in the latter case, misconstrued as expression rather than content.  This adds a new level to the ongoing misunderstanding of stratification.

Misrepresenting Interstratal Relations

Martin (1992: 379):

The interaction of discourse semantic and lexicogrammatical structures will be taken up in Chapter 6 below in an attempt to underline the way in which the two strata contribute independently, dependently and interdependently to the process whereby meanings are made as text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, the "interaction" between these two levels of symbolic abstraction, these two perspectives on the content plane, is realisation: either congruent or metaphorical.

[2] The logical relation of interdependency is irrelevant to interstratal relations; the only logical relation between strata is elaboration (the intensive relation of identity).  The notion of semantics and lexicogrammar being independent aligns with the Chomskyan view of 'autonomous syntax', which contradicts the previously espoused view of a natural relation between content strata.

[3] To clarify, the process whereby meaning potential becomes actualised as the meanings of a text is termed instantiation — the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements — as occurs during the semogenic process of logogenesis, the unfolding of the text.  Logogenesis occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

Self-Contradiction

Martin (1992: 378-9):

Realisation then is a technical concept embracing all these meanings.  Grammaticalising the concept through Token°Value structures such as field is realised through the ideational resources of lexicogrammar should not be taken as delimiting in any way the meaning of realisation as outlined above.  Technically it may in the long run prove helpful to replace the term realisation with a less directional term like redound (cf. Halliday in Thibault 1987: 619: "it shows just how the context of situation 'redounds with' (construes and is construed by) the semantic system."

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is not true.  See previous posts.

[2] This is the theoretical meaning of 'realisation'.  The lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token) realises (Process: relational: identifying: intensive: symbol) the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).

[3] This misunderstands stratification.  Field, like the rest of context, is realised in semantics realised in lexicogrammar.  However, because Martin's "field" is actually semantics, it is (inadvertently) true to say that it realised in lexicogrammar.

[4] Realisation is the fundamental relation of semiotic systems (see Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 447).  It is the relation between the signified and the signifier, the two complementary sides of a linguistic sign.

[5] This is a direct contradiction of the claim made on the previous page.  Martin (1992: 378):

During any such consideration of the consideration of one level of meaning in another, it needs to be kept in mind that as a theoretical construct realisation is not directional.

[6] Note that the strata in Halliday's formulation are semantics and context, not discourse semantics and register.

[7] Construing is distinct from realising.  To construe is to intellectually construct.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

The word “construe” is used to suggest an intellectual construction — though one that, of course, we then use as a guide to action.

To say that the context of situation 'redounds with' the semantic system is to say that the context of situation intellectually constructs and is intellectually constructed by the semantic system.

Misconstruing 'A Realises B' As 'A Is A Metaphor For B'

Martin (1992: 378):

Finally (point (iv) above) lexicogrammar has been taken as naturally related to field, and thus as a resource of metaphors for interpreting this register variable.  The concept of taxonomy was derived from Carrier°Attribute and Classifier°Thing structures; the notion of nuclear configurations was abstracted from TRANSITIVITY and experiential grammar at group rank; and the idea for activity sequences was taken from extending and enhancing clause complexes.

Blogger Comments:

 [1] In 'point (iv) above', A realises B is interpreted as A symbolises B, which is the only accurate interpretation, out of the four provided.

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

However, this is then misinterpreted as equivalent to A is a metaphor for B.  Symbolisation is only metaphorical when there is an incongruent realisation between the two levels of symbolic abstraction; congruent realisations are not metaphorical.

[2] SFL takes the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar as natural.  As previously demonstrated, Martin's "field" is actually within ideational semantics.

[3] This confuses incongruent relations between content strata in the linguistic model with the use of metaphor by a theorist while creating a model.

[4] As previously explained, field is not a register variable.  Field is the ideational dimension of context; context is more symbolically abstract than language; language realises/symbolises context.  Register is language, not context; register is a functional variety of language that realises/symbolises a functional variety on context (a situation type).

[5] Hyponymic and meronymic taxonomies are constructed on the expansion relations of elaboration and extension, respectively.  These relations also obtain within clauses and within groups.  In this chapter, like the last, they were misinterpreted.

[6] As previously demonstrated, these involved mistaken applications of the expansion relations of elaboration and extension.

[7] Activity sequences were misconstrued as context, rather than semantics.  It is semantics that is realised by lexicogrammar.  In SFL theory, clause complexes in the lexicogrammar realise sequences in the semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 104-127).

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).