David Rose Misrepresenting Axis As Key To Semantics-Grammar Relations

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 18/7/22 at 21:11:

Axis is key...

Michael Halliday is the only linguist who has given priority to the paradigmatic axis and organised the theory and description of language around this axis... but at the same time, he maintains the connection with the syntagmatic, by means of realisation statements specifying fragments of structure, and the account of structure he developed is a sophisticated unification of different metafunctional strands of organisation.

Matthiessen, C. M., Wang, B., Ma, Y., & Mwinlaaru, I. N. (2022). Systemic Functional Insights on Language and Linguistics. Springer

...two very basic theoretical concepts in SFL, metafunction and rank, are in fact based on the even more fundamental dimension of axis... stratification, alongside metafunction and rank, is based on way in which systems bundle together with one another - axis in other words is key.

Martin, J. R., Wang, P., & Zhu, Y. (2013). Systemic functional grammar: a next step into the theory–axial relations. Beijing: Higher Education.

In broad terms, a system is a set of relations of abstraction and generality. Its features are generalisations based on recurrent similarity of function at higher strata. From this instantial perspective, a system is an accumulation of instances over time scales of phylogenesis and ontogenesis.

Rose, D. in press. Designing pedagogic registers: Reading to Learn. In J.R. Martin, D. Caldwell & J. Knox (eds.) Developing Theory: A Handbook in Appliable Linguistics and Semiotics. London: Bloomsbury, 103-125

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this quote from Matthiessen et al. (2022) is a statement on how SFL gives priority to the paradigmatic axis, with metafunctional structures of the syntagmatic axis specified by realisation statements associated with features in systems.

[2] To be clear, this quote from Martin et al. (2013) makes the false claims that stratification is based on the way systems bundle together, and that axis is fundamental to stratification, metafunction and rank.

On the first claim, stratification is based on the principle of realisation. Different strata constitute different levels of symbolic abstraction.

On the second claim, axis, stratification, metafunction and rank are distinct dimensions, each with distinct ordering principles, independent of those of the other dimensions. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 20,32):

[3] Some of the problems with this diagram were identified in the earlier post David Rose Misunderstanding Generalisation And Abstraction.

[4] To be clear, this quote from Rose (in press) presents several misunderstandings. Regarding the first sentence, it is delicacy that is the ordering principle of system, whereas (symbolic) abstraction is the relation between systems of different strata.

The second sentence confuses instantiation ('recurrent') with stratification ('higher strata'). To be clear, the features of a system represent the potential choices of instantiation for a specified entry condition.

Regarding the third sentence, a system is built up at all three timeframes, including that of logogenesis, 'the creation of meaning in instantiation, maintained as a changing instantial system'. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384-5):

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 can call this an instantial system. … the instantial system is built up successively by the generation process; but as it is developed, it in turn becomes a resource for further instantiation.