David Rose On What Counts As Grammar And What Counts As Discourse Semantics

At 09:33 on 9/5/14, Margaret Berry asked David Rose on sys-func:

how do you decide what counts as grammar and what counts as discourse semantics?

To which David Rose replied at 09:37:

What a great question! And what counts as discourse semantics or register?

and later at 12:50:

Technically, entry conditions for grammatical systems must be a grammatical rank.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It's an obvious and fundamental question, and one that should yield a ready answer, since it would have formed the basis of theorising discourse semantics as a stratum of language; yet Rose gives the impression, through his initial exclamation and ultimate inability to answer the question, of never having considered it before.

Since Martin (1992) proposes discourse semantics as a stratum above lexicogrammar on the content plane, and strata represent levels of symbolic abstraction, "what counts as discourse semantics" is linguistic content that is more symbolically abstract than "what counts as lexicogrammar".  Because the relation between strata is one of realisation, "what counts as discourse semantics" is realised by "what counts as lexicogrammar", and "what counts as lexicogrammar" realises "what counts as discourse semantics".

This means that the systems of each stratum have to be accounted for with respect to those of the other.  This includes specifying congruent lexicogrammatical realisations of discourse semantic features and distinguishing them from metaphorical realisations.

It also means that relations between grammatical units, such as clauses, need to be first specified at that level of abstraction, that is: lexicogrammar, and such relations then be related to the discourse semantic features they realise.  It is not sufficient to model the relations between clauses only at the level discourse semantics.

[2] What counts as discourse semantics or register only becomes problematic when register, a functional variety of language, is misconstrued as a stratum of context above semantics (Martin 1992), and thus, misconstrued as being more symbolically abstract than semantics (as argued elsewhere on this site).  The problem is further compounded by misconstruing context as language — Martin's register and genre — instead of as a semiotic system that is realised in language (as argued elsewhere on this site).  One potential pitfall of this latter misconstrual is that discourse analysts, in dealing with texts, run the risk of confusing field and tenor, the ideational and interpersonal dimensions of the situational context, with the ideational and interpersonal meanings of the text itself.  This confusion is one source of Rose's difficulty of distinguishing "what counts as discourse semantics" from "what counts as register".

[3] This raises the issue of entry conditions for discourse semantic systems.  It is a theoretical requirement that the entry conditions for all systems be specified.

David Rose On "Metalanguage"

At 11:44 on 8/5/14 David Rose wrote to sysfling:

One reason I think why children can readily recognise clauses from an experiential perspective, is the tacit metalanguage in their own grammar… who or what it's about, what they're doing, where, when, how. But these are not directly related to transitivity categories, which are specified by process type or ergativity. Rather they are discourse semantic elements, that Ruqaiya Hasan has referred to as 'message parts', and Jim Martin as nuclear relations. 

From this existing intuitive knowledge of children it is a simple step to consciously recognise a clause as a process involving people and things in places and times.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The elements Rose talks about — 'who or what it's about, what they're doing, where, when, how' — are not "the tacit metalanguage in their own grammar".  Metalanguage is not "in their own grammar".  Metalanguage is language about language.  In this instance, the metalanguage is Rose's language about the language of children, not the language of children.

[2] On the SFL model, these are experiential meanings, and as such, are indeed directly related to  the "transitivity categories" of the lexicogrammar; as meanings, they are of a higher stratum of symbolic abstraction, semantics, and thus related to lexicogrammar by realisation.

Shooshi Dreyfus On Circumstantial Relational Processes

Shooshi Dreyfus wrote on 5 May 2014 to sys-func:

… I can't, (for some reason to do with what feels like ignoring the grammar to make way for the semantics, though perhaps that's not quite it) come at a circumstantial relational process (perhaps only because I have never heard of one – excuse my ignorance – point to them to read about please) …

Blogger Comment:

Circumstantial relational clauses are discussed in An Introduction To Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 240-4).  Relational clauses are:

• either attributive or identifying (MODE OF RELATION), and
• either intensive, possessive or circumstantial (TYPE OF RELATION).

A system network for relational clause systems appears on page 217.