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.