It’s also 6 decades since MAKH proposed ’solidary’ relations between metafunctions and field/tenor/mode as contextual dimensions (following Firth and Malinowski), and 3 decades since JRM proposed field/tenor/mode systems as connotative semiotics realised metafunctionally by language and other modalities (following Hjelmslev). The last decade has seen rapid progress in describing these ‘register’ systems and modalities, by rising stars like Jing Hao, Yaegan Doran, Erika Matruglio, Michelle Zappavigna ...
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[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue on several counts. Firstly, Halliday did not project the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because metafunctions did not feature in Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961).
Secondly, Halliday did not project the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because context, in the SFL sense, did not feature in Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961). Scale & Category Grammar was organised as follows:
Fourthly, Halliday did not follow Malinowski in projecting the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because Malinowski died long before Halliday had theorised the metafunctions. What is true is that Halliday later took Malinowski's notions of context of culture and context of situation and built them into his model of stratification, using Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic.
[2] This is very misleading indeed, because it falsely credits Martin with Halliday's work. Firstly, it was Halliday, not Martin (1992), who first proposed that the culture as semiotic system could be modelled, using Hjelmslev's ideas, as the content plane of a connotative semiotic, with language, a denotative semiotic, as its expression plane.
To be clear, for Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is a semiotic system that has a denotative semiotic system as its expression plane. Martin (1992), while claiming to be following Hjelmslev (p493), reduces the connotative semiotic to only its content plane, context, and models it as varieties of a denotative semiotic, register and genre, which on Hjelmslev's model, are located on the expression plane of the connotative semiotic.
[3] To be clear, since Martin misunderstands context systems (field, tenor, mode) as register (sub-potentials of language that realise context), any descriptions by these former students of Martin cannot be regarded as progress in the development of a coherent theory, however rapid.
Postscript: Martin has not publicly corrected any of the false attributions credited to him by Rose.
Secondly, Halliday did not project the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because context, in the SFL sense, did not feature in Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961). Scale & Category Grammar was organised as follows:
Thirdly, Halliday did not follow Firth in projecting the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because, although Halliday's Scale & Category did "follow" Firth in many respects, Firth died long before Halliday had theorised the metafunctions or context as the culture as semiotic system.
Fourthly, Halliday did not follow Malinowski in projecting the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because Malinowski died long before Halliday had theorised the metafunctions. What is true is that Halliday later took Malinowski's notions of context of culture and context of situation and built them into his model of stratification, using Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic.
[2] This is very misleading indeed, because it falsely credits Martin with Halliday's work. Firstly, it was Halliday, not Martin (1992), who first proposed that the culture as semiotic system could be modelled, using Hjelmslev's ideas, as the content plane of a connotative semiotic, with language, a denotative semiotic, as its expression plane.
To be clear, for Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is a semiotic system that has a denotative semiotic system as its expression plane. Martin (1992), while claiming to be following Hjelmslev (p493), reduces the connotative semiotic to only its content plane, context, and models it as varieties of a denotative semiotic, register and genre, which on Hjelmslev's model, are located on the expression plane of the connotative semiotic.
[3] To be clear, since Martin misunderstands context systems (field, tenor, mode) as register (sub-potentials of language that realise context), any descriptions by these former students of Martin cannot be regarded as progress in the development of a coherent theory, however rapid.
∞
Postscript: Martin has not publicly corrected any of the false attributions credited to him by Rose.
