David Rose Misrepresenting Halliday On Semantic Structure

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 19/7/22 at 10:24:

Re semantics/grammar relations and axis...

Halliday (1972), cited in Hasan, Cloran, Williams, & Lukin (2005), is a key document in the history of SFL, as it is the foundational text for the semantic network research project, and excuses semantic networks from the axial realisation statements required for grammar and phonology. The key discussion on semantics/grammar relations are extracted here (p21-24). It concludes by suggesting approaches to describing semantic system and structure, but this was ‘a matter of speculation’. This conclusion could also be taken as foundational for the study of discourse semantics.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1972). Towards a sociological semantics. Urbino: Università di Urbino.

(cited as Halliday 1973b in...

Hasan, R., Cloran, C., Williams, G., & Lukin, A. (2005). Semantic networks: The description of linguistic meaning in SFL. In Continuing discourse on language: a functional perspective (pp. 697-738). Equinox Publishing.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. In this very early paper from 1972, Halliday is considering arguments for and against the theoretical value of including semantic structure in the model. In the time since then, semantic structure has been part of SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures.

[2] This is misleading. On the one hand, in the model of discourse semantics (Martin 1992), the system networks do not include realisation statements that specify discourse semantic structures. On the other hand, in the model of discourse semantics (Martin 1992), the notion of structure is deployed inconsistently. 

For NEGOTIATION, the system derived from Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, structure is the internal syntagmatic dimension of a unit, which is consistent with the notion of structure within and beyond SFL Theory. 

However, for IDENTIFICATION, IDEATION and CONJUNCTION, the systems derived from the lexicogrammatical systems of COHESIVE REFERENCE, LEXICAL COHESION and COHESIVE CONJUNCTION, units do not have internal structure, but instead link up to each other to form structures. This anomaly arises from the fact that cohesive relations are not structural relations.