a different but hopefully complementary perspective. I’m interested in social context as a semiotic plane that is organised systemically and realised by language, including grammar and discourse systems. Grammar and discourse construe register (field/tenor/mode) in different ways, partly by configuring lexical items. Eg IDEATION configures items in taxonomies, figures and sequences, TRANSITIVITY in processes, participants and circumstances. Each of these contribute general types of patterns to unfolding construals of a field. Lexical items contribute more specific features of register. …
in a nutshell
David
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'context' means the culture construed as a semiotic system. This is distinct from the material setting in which interlocutors create texts. The context is realised by what the interlocutors say (and think).
[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, taking metaredundancy into account, context is realised by the realisation of semantics (meaning) in lexicogrammar (wording).
[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, language construes context — where construes means intellectually constructs — and field tenor and mode are the metafunctional systems of context.
[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, register means a functional variety of language, and it is modelled as a language sub-potential of the content plane (semantics and lexicogrammar). As sub-potentials of language, different registers realise different sub-potentials of context. Thus, context and register differ in terms of stratification (context vs language) and instantiation (potential vs sub-potential).
Rose, on the other hand, confuses register with context (field, tenor and mode), and in doing so, misconstrues language as non-language (his "social context").
[5] To be clear, in SFL theory, lexical items are not configured. What are configured are functions in structures, whereas lexical items are the synthetic realisation of the most delicate lexical systems.
[6] The experiential discourse semantic system of IDEATION is from Martin (1992). As demonstrated in great detail here, and summarised here, it is a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction), lexis as most delicate grammar, and misapplied logical relations.
[7] This is seriously misleading. Figures and sequences are types of phenomenon in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48ff). They do not appear in Martin (1992), where 'activity sequences' —misunderstood from Barthes (1977) — are modelled as field (ideational context), which Martin misconstrues as register.
[8] To be clear, the system of TRANSITIVITY does not configure lexical items "in processes, participants and circumstances". The system of TRANSITIVITY provides the potential for construing experience as a configuration of process, participants and circumstances. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 212, 213):
…experientially, the clause construes a quantum of change as a figure, or configuration of a process, participants involved in it and any attendant circumstances. …
The system of transitivity provides the lexicogrammatical resources for construing a quantum of change in the flow of events as a figure – as a configuration of elements centred on a process.
[9] Here Rose follows Martin (1992) in misconstruing ideational semantics (the meaning construed) during logogenesis as ideational context (the field of culture construed) — which Martin further misconstrues as a dimension of register. For Martin's misunderstandings of context see here; for Martin's misunderstandings of register, see here.
[10] There is a sense in which the wording of this is consistent with SFL theory, even if it is not the meaning that Rose has in mind (see [Part 2]). It is consistent in the sense that registers, in the SFL use of the term, differ in terms of the probabilities of systemic features being instantiated, and given that lexical items realise bundles of the most delicate features, the probabilities of these most delicate features being instantiated are the most delicate means of specifying different registers.
[10] There is a sense in which the wording of this is consistent with SFL theory, even if it is not the meaning that Rose has in mind (see [Part 2]). It is consistent in the sense that registers, in the SFL use of the term, differ in terms of the probabilities of systemic features being instantiated, and given that lexical items realise bundles of the most delicate features, the probabilities of these most delicate features being instantiated are the most delicate means of specifying different registers.
In a nutshell. Case, more like. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04
In a nutshell. Case, more like. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04
In a nutshell. Case, more like. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04In a nutshell.
Case, more like. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04
