David Rose On Ontogenesis And Stratification

David Rose wrote to David Kellogg on sys-func on 27 May 2022 at 7:00:

Where Halliday in the 1970s saw grammar emerging ontogenetically between phonology and semantics, with the appearance of metafunctions, another perspective has the content plane bifurcating into LG and DS to enable extended exchanges.

Rose, D. (2006). A systemic functional approach to language evolution. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 16(1), 73-96.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Halliday (1975), in ontogenesis a child moves from a two-level system to a three-level system, where lexicogrammar "interpolates" between meaning and sounding, and it is this that creates the semantics and phonology of language. Halliday (2004 [1975]: 28):

The paper suggests a sociosemantic interpretation of language development, based on the intensive study of one child, Nigel, from 9 months to 21/2 years. Nigel first developed (Phase I) a two-level system, having sounds and meanings but no words or structures, in which the meanings derived from the elementary social functions of interaction with others, satisfaction of needs and the like. This continued to expand for six to nine months, at which time the child entered the stage of transition to the adult language (Phase 11, corresponding to what is generally taken as the starting-point). This was characterised by the interpolation of a lexicogrammatical level between meaning and sound, and by the mastery of the principle of dialogue, the adoption and assignment of speech roles. It was also marked by a generalisation of the initial set of social functions to form a basic opposition between “language as learning” and “language as doing”.

The transition was considered complete when the child had effectively replaced his original two-level system by a three-level one and moved horn monologue into dialogue; he then entered the adult system (Phase 111). He could now build up the meaning potential of the adult language, and would continue to do so all his life.

[2] This is seriously misleading. The false implication here is that "extended exchanges" are not already a feature of Halliday's model. This is countered by the quote above. This also relates to Martin's conceit that only his model accounts for 'meaning beyond the clause'. In fact, for Halliday, 'meaning beyond the clause' is realised by the systems of cohesion, and it is these grammatical systems that Martin (1992) misunderstands and rebrands as his own systems of discourse semantics. The evidence for this conclusion is presented here.

David Rose Promoting Jim Martin's Misunderstandings Of Realisation, Instantiation And Individuation

David Rose wrote to David Kellogg on sys-func on 27 May 2022 at 7:00:

 ... further from

Martin, J. R. (2009). Realisation, instantiation and individuation: some thoughts on identity in youth justice conferencing. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 25, 549-583. 

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Martin's Figura 13 above is almost identical to a Figure 5 in an earlier publication that was previously examined here. The only difference is the addition of the terms logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis in Figura 13.

Consequently, the theoretical inconsistencies previously identified in Martin's Figure 5 also apply to Figura 13.

Firstly, it presents instantiation and individuation as if they were internal dimensions of meaning potential like stratification. However, the clines of instantiation and individuation model different perspectives on meaning potential as a whole, rather than scales within meaning potential.

Secondly, it misrepresents text as an instance of context (culture) as well as language. In SFL Theory, it is situation that is an instance of context. This relates to Martin's misunderstanding of context as varieties of language, genre and register (which accounts for the superfluous stratum in the figure).

Thirdly, by its vertical dimension, it misrepresents the cline of individuation as applying to text as well as potential. This makes the nonsensical claim that every text is common to all language users, varying according to user.

To these inconsistencies can be added a further theoretical inconsistency created by Martin's inclusion of the terms logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis in Figura 13. This inclusion has the effect of setting up the following proportionalities:

instantiation : logogenesis ::

individuation : ontogenesis ::

realisation : phylogenesis

Now, while the instantiation of the system in text occurs in logogenesis, and the individuation of the system occurs in ontogenesis, the realisation of the system does not occur in phylogenesis. The fundamental inconsistency here derives from the fact that realisation is an internal dimension of the system, whereas instantiation and individuation are perspectival clines on the system as a whole.

David Rose On Jim Martin's 'All Strata Individuate' And 'All Strata Instantiate'

David Rose wrote to David Kellogg on sys-func on 27 May 2022 at 7:00:

Re your desire for ‘yet another dimension--the ontogenetic’, all strata also individuate!

and to Lexie Don on 28 May 2022 at 12:55:

A text instantiates systems in all strata

Systems in all strata instantiate as text

Repertoires individuate reservoirs in all strata

Reservoirs in all strata individuate as repertoires

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'all strata X' is the formula that Martin uses in trying to understand the architecture of SFL Theory:

• 'all strata make meaning' is his attempt to understand stratification;
• 'all strata instantiate' is his attempt to understand instantiation; and
• 'all strata individuate' is his attempt to understand individuation.

The first of these confuses semogenesis (making meaning) with stratification (meaning realised by the realisation of wording in sounding/writing).

The second of these misunderstands the attributive relation between system and instance as something that strata do.

The third of these misunderstands the relation between some unspecified collective meaning potential (reservoir) and an individual meaning potential (repertoire) as something that strata do.

[2] To be clear, in Martin's model, which Rose is here promoting, varieties of language, genres and registers, are context as opposed to language when stratified, but return to language when instantiated, since text is an instance of language, not context. In some academic fields, such self-contradictions would be sufficient grounds to invalidate the model.

[3] To be clear, this misunderstands individuation as something that repertoires do to reservoirs, which contradicts the previous misunderstanding of individuation as something strata do. To the extent that the process of individuation is the development of an individual repertoire of meaning potential, the relation between this and a collective reservoir of meaning potential is created by ontogenesis. In Rose's terms, it is ontogenesis that individuates (meaning potential).

[4] To be clear, this contradicts the previous two misunderstandings by misunderstanding individuation as something that reservoirs do. See [3] above.

David Rose On 'Affect' As Exclusively Discourse Semantic

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 26 May at 14:42:

Check out Clare Painter’s work on interpersonal lg development, from a discourse semantic perspective 

http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/textspecial/painter-ontogenic.pdf 

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading. To be clear, in the above cited paper, Clare Painter applies the notion of AFFECT to human protolanguage. The fact that this is possible demonstrates that such a system is not even restricted to language, let alone discourse semantics. The semantics of human language is but one manifestation of a basic distinction that precedes and transcends language: inclination (attraction) vs disinclination (aversion).

Most fundamentally, this distinction is a feature of perceptual semiotic systems. On Edelman's model of brain function, the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, the experience of an animal is perceptually categorised on the basis of inherited values that have proved adaptive to its ancestors, such as the positive or negative value of the perception of a light source. So, depending on the inherited value, an animal will be inclined to ("like") or disinclined to ("dislike") a perceived light source, and its (non-semiotic) behaviour accordingly satisfies the specific value in its perceptual system.

Further, the like/dislike distinction is manifested in non-semiotic social systems — on Halliday's linear taxonomy of systems (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 507-9) — such as those of eusocial insects: bees, ants and termites. In such cases, the context-specific exchange of (perceptual) like vs dislike values, via pheromones, is a means of co-ordinating behaviour, and so is a means of social organisation.

Furthermore, the like/dislike distinction is manifested in social semiotic systems, such as the protolanguage of social semiotic species, including humans, in giving positive or negative value to the symbols being exchanged.

The like/dislike distinction in human language, then, is just the latest manifestation of a more general phenomenon. Its application to human protolanguage, therefore, is not taking a specifically discourse semantic perspective.

David Rose Promoting Jim Martin's Misunderstandings Of Instantiation And Stratification

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 24 may 2022 at 18:56:

All strata instantiate!

Martin, J. R. (2009). Realisation, instantiation and individuation: some thoughts on identity in youth justice conferencing. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 25, 549-583.

Martin, J. R. (2010). Semantic variation: Modelling realisation, instantiation and individuation in social semiosis. New discourse on language: Functional perspectives on multimodality, identity, and affiliation, 1, 34.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, instantiation is the relation of system to instance. The process of instantiation is the selection of features, and the activation of realisation statements, in logogenesis, the unfolding of text.

[2] To be clear, Martin's Figure 3 misunderstands the cline of instantiation in three ways. Firstly, in misrepresenting the cline as a hierarchy of generality, it blurs the distinction between delicacy (type of x) and instantiation (token of x). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15):

Note that it is important to keep delicacy and instantiation distinct. … The difference is essentially that between being a type of x (delicacy) and being a token of x (instantiation). Both may be construed by intensive ascription.

Secondly, it misrepresents different perspectives on the same scale of diatypic variation, genre/register and text type, as different points on the cline. To be clear, register is diatypic variation viewed from the system pole of the cline, whereas text type, and genre in this sense, is diatypic variation viewed from the instance pole of the cline.

Thirdly, it misconstrues reading variation as instantial of text variation. Importantly, a reading is not an instance of a text, because, viewed from the system pole, a reading is not a subpotential of a text, and viewed from the instance pole, a text is not a 'reading type'.

[3] To be clear, Figure 4 presents Martin's misunderstanding of stratification. Put most succinctly, Martin mistakes the content plane of Hjelmslev's connotative semiotic for the entire connotative semiotic, and fills his connotative with varieties of a denotative semiotic: register and genre. 

That is, Martin misconstrues functional varieties of language as the context of language, and thereby distinguishes varieties of language from language. (This is analogous to distinguishing functional varieties of cattle — dairy, beef — from cattle.)

However, this distinction is contradicted in Figure 4, where the two systems of context, genre and register, are nevertheless both instantiated as text, an instance of language. (Figure 4 conceals this self-contradiction by not labelling genre and register as context.)

Martin's model becomes more explicitly nonsensical when the instantiation clines of genre and register in Figure 4 are filled out in the detail provided in Figure 3, yielding:

• genre system >> genre/register of genre >> text type of genre …
• register system >> genre/register of register >> text type of register …

In sharp contrast, Halliday (2005 [1995]: 254) provides the original coherent model: