Mick O'Donnell Confusing SFL's Architecture Of Language With Models

After ChRIS CLÉiRIGh wrote to sys-func on 28/6/22 at 11:54:

When someone uses the architecture of SFL, they mean what the theoretical architecture means. Inconsistencies arise when the architecture is not understood.

Mick O'Donnell responded on sys-func on 28/6/22 at 19:37:

Your language implies that you believe that there is one architecture of SFL. I have always enjoyed the plural nature of SFL, with multiple alternative architectures to choose from.

To me, the biggest threat to SFL as a continuing school is the attitude that only the word of God (MAKH) is true, and everything else is heresy. …

Pluralism is good. Even if it involves different choices in fundamental architecture. Choice is good. What is not good is continual sniping at those who choose to differ from Halliday in details (but not in fundamentals).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, SFL does propose only one architecture for language. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 20) outline its dimensions as follows:

Importantly, all models proposed within SFL Theory use this architecture, including those of Martin and Fawcett. Importantly, because these dimensions are precisely specified, they can be used to identify models that misunderstand the architecture. For example, it can be seen that Fawcett's model (2010: 36) — which O'Donnell supports — misunderstands stratification and confuses axis with instantiation: 

[2] To be clear, here O'Donnell confuses the architecture with models using that architecture. The 'multiple alternatives' are the models, not the architecture.

[3] For me, "the biggest threat to SFL" is the inability of its community of users to understand the theory and, consequently, to detect misunderstandings of the theory.

[4] To be clear, here O'Donnell betrays his own religious orientation by projecting it onto others. Importantly, SFL Theory is a scientific theory, in the sense that its theoretical architecture of language is systematically organised and precisely specified. This means that models within the theory are subject to scientific criteria, not just chosen like the sacred text of a preferred religious sect. 

[5] To be clear, here O'Donnell reduces all the reasoned argumentation on this blog, using hard-won knowledge of SFL Theory, to "continual sniping'. The validity of the argumentation is of no interest to O'Donnell. The pedagogical value of blog is of no interest to O'Donnell.

[6] To be clear, the type of pluralism that O'Donnell advocates is not good. It exemplifies just the type of anti-intellectualism deplored by Asimov:

David Rose On Jim Martin's Self-Correction

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 28/6/22 at 9:01:

This is an opportunity to repeat a correction that JRM has repeated several times since 1992, that this para from ET erroneously equates his genre and register with MAKH’s context of culture and context of situation.

In JRM’s model, systems at the strata of genre, register and language are all instantiated as text, hence ‘all strata instantiate’. A text is at once a pattern of selections in genre, register and language (and other modalities). In this model, there is no situation without text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Rose gives no references to any of the several corrections, and Genre Relations (Martin & Rose 2007: 10-1, 16) — 15 years after Martin (1992) — explicitly equates Martin's stratum of register to Halliday's instance of context (situation) and Martin's stratum of genre to Halliday's system of context (culture), with a realisation relation between system and instance:

See also Jim Martin On Context, Instantiation & Stratification

[2] To be clear, this is a serious inconsistency in Martin's model. Having distinguished language from context, his context is nevertheless instantiated as text (an instance of language, not context).

[3] The word 'hence' here is misleading, because it falsely implies a conclusion reasoned from premisses. Rose merely repeats the meaning of his previous clause as a generalisation. More importantly, 'all strata instantiate' is merely Martin's attempt to understand instantiation; cf. 'all strata make meaning' (semogenesis) as his attempt to understand stratification. Importantly, instantiation is a relation between system and instance, and a distinct dimension from stratification, so each can be described without reference to the other.

[4] This is misleading. The situation-text relation is a feature of SFL Theory: the realisation of context in language at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation. Martin's model, on the other hand, does not include the theoretical category of situation, except in its misconstrual as register; see [1] above.

David Rose Misrepresenting Ruqaiya Hasan's Research

David Rose replied to Geoff Williams on sys-func on 24/6/22 at 11:06: 

Could we describe as two of the most influential pedagogic applications of her research: One oriented to social analysis, using message semantics to demonstrate statistically the class basis of pedagogic codes, including your research in early literacy. And the other oriented to discourse analysis, with cohesion and schematic structure laying a foundation for discourse semantics and genre, that ultimately led to genre pedagogy?

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Rose suggests that the value of Hasan's work is merely that it led to Martin's work. That is, for Rose, the value of Hasan's original research on lexicogrammatical cohesion and Generic Structure Potential is simply that Martin was able to rework it to derive his models of discourse semantics and genre pedagogy.

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, 'schematic structure' is Martin — e.g. Martin (1992: 505) — not Hasan. For Hasan's critique of Martin's 'schematic structure' — and genre — see her The Conception Of Context In Text (1995).

David Rose On Martin's Argument For Genre And Register

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 21/6/22 at 17:25:

Also in the spirit of lessening confusion (pace Chris), JRM’s 1992 argument for positioning genre ‘above’, configuring selections in field, mode and tenor, is long and very heteroglossic, but this little para presents one angle...

Overall it would appear that "rhetorical purpose" is the wild card in contextual description, being variously categorised under field (Halliday 1965), tenor (Gregory 1967), mode (Halliday 1978a, 1985/1989) and as a separate contextual variable in its own right (Firth 1950 — effects, Ure & Ellis 1977 — role, Fawcett 1980 — pragmatic purpose). The main reason for this is that purpose is difficult to associate with any one metafunctional component of the lexicogrammar or discourse semantics. The effect of a text is the result of all components of its meaning. This makes associating the notion of rhetorical purpose with Bakhtin's more global notion of speech genres an attractive one (cf. Gregory 1982).

H&H … apply the term register from the perspective of language, looking ‘up’ at field, mode and tenor. JRM applies it from the perspective of field, mode and tenor, looking ‘down’ at language (and other modalities). Hence register and genre theory.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Some other examples of Rose 'lessening confusion' can be viewed here.

[2] To be clear, heteroglossia does not guarantee a valid argument. Martin's argument for locating genre above field tenor and mode (misconstrued as register) is examined at

Why The Argument For Register And Genre As Context Strata Is Invalid 

Theoretical Inconsistencies In Modelling Genre And Register As Context Strata

Problems With The Non-Argument For Register As Context

Problems With The Non-Argument For Genre As Context

Problems With 'Genre As A Pattern Of Register Patterns'

Seven Problems With The First Justification For A Genre Stratum

Two Problems With The Second Justification For A Genre Stratum

Eight Problems With The Third Justification For A Genre Stratum

Two Problems With The Fourth Justification For A Genre Stratum

Two Problems With The Fifth Justification For A Genre Stratum

[3] This very paragraph (Martin 1992: 501) is closely examined at Confusing Context With Text Type.

[4] This is misleading, because it misrepresents the difference between Halliday & Hasan's view of register and Martin's view of register as a difference in (trinocular) perspective. It is not true that Halliday & Hasan "apply the term register from the perspective of language, looking ‘up’ at field, mode and tenor". Rather, Halliday & Hasan associate the contextual features of a situation type with the linguistic features of a register, which thus can viewed either 'down' from context or 'up' from language. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 22):

The linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features — with particular values of the field, mode and tenor — constitute a register.

Martin, on the other hand, simply misapplies the term 'register' to the situational features instead of the linguistic features.

[5] The word 'hence' is misleading, because it gives the false impression that the validity of 'register and genre theory' has been supported by the text that precedes it.

David Rose Falsely Implying That Ruqaiya Hasan Endorsed Martin's Model

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 21/6/22 at 13:54: 

Affiliationally (!), it’s flattering to be called the Martin-Rose model, but you’d have to add a lot more names with hyphens. JRM just tried to give me a leg up as a co-author, as a good teacher does (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999, 2004). It would be more accurate to call it the Hasan-Martin model, as so much of it is built on her work. ET mentions her 197 times, with 15 of her publications cited.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the proportionalities here are

Rose : Martin ::

Matthiessen : Halliday

[2] This is very misleading indeed. What is true is that Martin rebranded Hasan's work on cohesion — principally Halliday & Hasan (1976) — as his own model of discourse semantics. What is not true is that Martin's derived model is consistent with Hasan's original work, and what is emphatically not true, is that Hasan endorsed Martin's misunderstandings of her work.

With regard to Martin's model that confuses language varieties with context, Hasan wrote a protracted piece that identified the problems with Martin's approach. See:

Hasan, R. 1995. The Conception of Context in Text. In P. H. Fries & M. Gregory (eds.), Discourse in Society: Systemic Functional Perspectives, Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for Michael Halliday, 183-283. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.

David Rose On Inexplicit Realisations And Lexis

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 21/6/22 at 12:26:

… So how do we model field elements that are not explicitly realised in a text? That is so complex that SFL has avoided trying to describe lexical items, beyond their very general relations, as ‘sets’ vs systems, as delicate grammar, and as lexical relations in discourse.

It’s long worried me, as I would like to describe how we learn to read (comprehend written texts), and that can’t be done without tackling lexis.

In this paper on reading metaphor I’ve suggested we technicalise the term connote for these kinds of relations.

Rose, D. (2021). Reading metaphor: Symbolising, connoting and abducing meanings. Linguistics and Education, 64, 100932.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, what Rose, following Martin, regards as 'field' is ideational semantics in SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

… Martin, where"field" corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base …

[2] To be clear, this is a matter of inexplicit realisations of semantic features being instantiated in a text.

[3] To be clear, this is not simply a matter of lexis. A lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate grammatical features, just as the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the phonological features [voiced, bilabial, stop]. Modelling this phenomenon systemically entails identifying the system, with the choice of in/explicit realisation, that has been instantiated in the text (data).

[4] To be clear, lexis as most delicate grammar means that lexical items are specified by the most delicate grammatical features, and lexical sets are the paradigmatic organisation of the lexical items thus specified. 'Lexical relations in discourse', on the other hand, is the use of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between lexical items to create textual cohesion. In Rose's source, Martin (1992), the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar is confused with lexical cohesion; evidence here.

[5] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'lexical item'. See, for example:

• Misconstruing (Abridged) Grammatical Structures As Lexical Items
• Mistaking (Partial) Grammatical Units For Lexical Items

[6] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'metaphor'. See, for example:

• Foreshadowing Misunderstandings Of Grammatical Metaphor
• Reducing All Grammatical Metaphor To Elemental Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Elemental Ideational Metaphor As Logical Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor

David Rose Strategically Misrepresenting Karl Popper

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 20/6/22 at 19:15

...well, it’s been 30 years so far since ET. But is resolution or refutation really necessary? A model is valid if it works, according to Popper and MAKH. Maybe we should just be looking at differences in appliability, and labelling models by those criteria, or by internal features that afford them.

and to Fran Christie at 21:49:

Keeping in mind that the lexicogrammar is at the base of every model. Then perhaps the grammatico-semantic model is good for large scale statistical analyses of corpora as RH pioneered, while the discourse semantic model is good for metafunctional analyses of text structuring.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. As a logician, Popper ascribed validity to arguments, not to scientific theories. Nor did Popper regard scientific theories as verifiable. Theories remain provisionally corroborated while experiments fail to falsify them. 

[2] Here Rose is actually deploying the logical fallacy that Popper drew specific attention to:

If A then P;

P;

Therefore A.

Popper's point is that, if theory A predicts phenomenon P, and phenomenon P is observed through experiment, this does not prove that theory A is true. That is, just as the appliability of the Ptolemaic model of the solar system did not prove that model true, the appliability of Martin's model does not prove his model "valid".

Importantly, Martin's stratification model is not falsifiable by experiment, and so, is not scientific in Popperian terms. Moreover, it is invalidated by its own internal contradictions, as demonstrated elsewhere on this blog and here.

[3] To be clear, the 'grammatico-semantic' model is Halliday's model of the semantics that the lexicogrammar construes. The discourse semantic model, on the other hand, is Martin's (1992) rebranding of Halliday's lexicogrammatical systems of cohesion and semantic system of speech function. Evidence here.

David Rose On SFL Theory

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 19/6/22 at 15:50:

It would be good to have a conversation about approaches to verticality as SFL develops as a discipline. … Another question is the nature of verticality in SFL. Is it one of Basil’s hierarchical knowledge structures, expanding in generality and abstraction to integrate new knowledge, or is it among Peter Wignell’s ‘warring triangles’ of the social sciences?

BB’s essay Vertical and horizontal discourse remains stunningly prescient...

‘Opposition between theories in hierarchical knowledge structures is played out in attempts to refute positions where possible, or to incorporate them in more general propositions. At some point, sometimes later than sooner, because of special investments, a choice is possible provided the issue can be settled by empirical procedures.

...in the case of a horizontal knowledge structure... A new language offers the possibility of a fresh perspective, a new set of questions, a new set of connections, and an apparently new problematic, and most importantly, a new set of speakers... This new language can then be used to challenge the hegemony and legitimacy of more senior speakers.’

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, SFL Theory is not a social science; it is a science of social semiotic systems. It is a science in the sense of being wholly systematically organised, with relations within the theory unambiguously specified.

Because of this, valid theorising in SFL is not a matter of gang warfare ('warring triangles'). The architecture of SFL theory provides the means of assessing the validity of any hypothesis proposed about the structure of the theory.

David Rose Seriously Misrepresenting Halliday & Hasan (1976)

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 16/6/22 at 9:47:

It would be interesting to know why he stuck with the same stratal model, of semantics without discourse, and context without systems, despite JRM’s 1992 massive empirical description of these strata’s systems.

Particularly so, as he and RH made it abundantly clear in Cohesion in English in 1976, that the ‘cohesive’ resources they describe are discourse semantic systems, e.g...

‘The concept of cohesion is set up to account for relations in discourse... what is in question is the set of meaning relations which function in this way: the semantic resources which are drawn on for the purpose of creating text.’

They also made explicit the stratal relation between these systems and LG...

‘The means of expressing these various types of cohesion are, as we have seen, drawn from a number of areas of the lexicogrammatical system, which have in common merely the fact that they contribute to the realisation of cohesion.’

They had begun to flesh out the semantic stratum as discourse semantic systems, as he had done for LG and PH. But Cohesion in English was written as a basic introduction to the resources, without describing the systems. The imbalance in research and theory between LG and DS ‘cohesion’ systems is stark in Table 1 below. However CinE then became the point of departure and constant reference for JRM’s metafunctional description of the systems in English Text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the short answer as to why Halliday "stuck with his own stratal model", rather than adopt Martin's, is that Halliday understood his own model, whereas Martin never has (evidence here).

[2] These claims are misleading, because they are untrue. Firstly, Halliday's semantics is not "without discourse"; like all strata, it is a means of theorising and analysing discourse. For Halliday (2008: 78):

“discourse” is text that is being viewed in its sociocultural context, while
“text” is discourse that is being viewed as a process of language.

Secondly, Halliday's context is not "without systems"; like all strata, it is modelled as a cline from system to instance.

[3] This is very misleading. On the one hand, Martin's "massive empirical description" involved confusing context with functional varieties of language: register and genre (in the sense of 'text type' rather than 'mode'). And on the other hand, there are no genre systems in Martin (1992). See Martin's Reasons For Not Devising Genre Systems.

[4] This is very misleading. On the one hand, 'discourse' here refers to the data to be modelled, not to a discourse semantic stratum. On the other hand, the systems that realise cohesion are located on the lexicogrammatical stratum. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 6):

Cohesion is a semantic relation. But, like all components of the semantic system, it is realised through the lexicogrammatical system; and it is at this point that the distinction can be drawn. Some forms of cohesion are realised through the grammar, and others through the vocabulary. … We can refer therefore to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion.

This is also made plain in the second quote that Rose presents above, though he misunderstands the stratal location of the systems.

[5] This is very misleading indeed. The function of Table 1 is to locate cohesion in the overall model: within the textual metafunction on the lexicogrammatical stratum. The fact that Rose has removed the title of the table which makes this plain, suggests that this is a deliberate act of (self-)deception. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 29):

[6] This is misleading. The sense in which Halliday & Hasan (1976) is the 'point of departure' for Martin (1992) is that Martin misunderstood their systems, relocated them from textual lexicogrammar to different metafunctions on his stratum of discourse semantics, and rebranded them as his own systems; evidence here.

David Rose Seriously Misrepresenting Halliday On Semantics And Context

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 15/6/22 at 15:54:

His own research focused on phonology and grammar, expanding the model into metafunctions, axis and delicacy. This helps explain why phonology becomes an inner language level by 2004, rather than an ‘interlevel’. Both grammar and phonology are fleshed out as metafunctional, axial systems.

In contrast, semantics remains as ‘interlevel’, lacking the axial relations of LG and PH systems. Instead, its organisation is realised only interstratally by lexicogrammatical systems. Its descriptions derive from grammatical research, including H&M 1999, and RH’s ‘message semantics’.

As an ‘interlevel’ semantics ‘interfaces’ with the tenor, field and mode of contexts. As context is ‘extra-textual’, tenor, field and mode are not organised systemically, but are described instead as notes on ‘settings’, in various publications from the 1970s on.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, Halliday's initial notion, in Scale & Category Grammar, of phonology and semantics as 'interlevels' arises from taking substance, form and situation as the levels of his model. Halliday (2002 [1961]: 39):

Importantly, the notion of phonology and semantics as 'interlevels' does not feature in any subsequent publication, and in his very next paper (Halliday 1963), phonology is explicitly identified as a 'level'. Halliday (2002 [1961]: 39):

Such problems are probably most acute at this level, but similar ones arise also at other levels, notably phonology, which has other additional classification problems of its own.

[2] To be clear, the notion of 'axial systems' is nonsensical. System is simply ordering on the paradigmatic axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 20, 22).

[3] This is very misleading indeed. On the one hand, the term 'semantics' has always referred to a level of language, a stratum, in SFL Theory. On the other hand, it seriously misrepresents the SFL model of semantics. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures.

[4] This confuses theory with description. To be clear, the SFL model of semantics is a theory of the meanings that lexicogrammar makes possible. Description, in contrast, is the application of the theory to linguistic data.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, semantics both realises context and construes it. On the latter point, culture is modelled as an intellectual construction of language (and other social semiotic systems).

[6] This is very misleading indeed, because it is the opposite of what is true. In SFL Theory, context is modelled as system, subsystem/instance type and instance, as set out in Halliday (2005 [1995]: 254): 

[7] This confuses (material) setting with (semiotic) context of situation. Halliday, in Halliday & Hasan (1989: 14), provides one example of a situational description:

David Rose Seriously Misrepresenting Halliday's Model Of Context

David Rose responded to ChRIS CLÉiRIGh on sys-func on 14/6/22 at 9:57:

It’s illuminating to follow the path of his model. …

Despite the empirical developments you mention, in metafunctions and axis, his stratal model remained essentially identical for the next 40 years... 1961 ‘situation’ becomes ‘context’ and 1961 ‘context’ becomes ‘semantics’... semantics remains an ‘interlevel’ between lexicogrammar and ‘extra-textual’ context.

The symmetry of the model was appealing and persuasive, with (lexico)grammar at the centre. In 1961, phonology was also an ‘interlevel’ with phonetics. By 2004, phonetics becomes the ‘interlevel’, to maintain the symmetry...

[2004 On Grammar as the Driving Force from Primary to Higher-Order Consciousness]

This is the same model drawn by CMIMM in IFG3/4, as co-tangential circles.

As ‘context’ is modelled as an asemiotic ‘extra-textual’, ‘eco-social environment’, this model is incommensurable with semiotic models such as JRM’s 1992 description of register and genre as connotative semiotics.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See Rose's previous misrepresentations of Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961):

David Rose Misrepresenting Michæl Halliday On Meaning
David Rose Crediting Jim Martin With Michæl Halliday's Ideas
David Rose Misunderstanding Halliday's Distinction Between Value And Meaning
David Rose On Exchange, Marxian Theory And Halliday (1961)

[2] To be clear, the sys-func post that Rose is responding to made no mention of empirical developments nor 'axis'. Instead, it listed aspects of Halliday's second theory, Systemic Functional Grammar, that did not feature in Halliday's first theory, Scale & Category Grammar; specifically:

The theory does not include system networks, nor metafunctions, and the elements of clause structure are simply Subject, Predicator, Complement and Adjunct. The theory also does not distinguish realisation from instantiation, the word 'exponence' being used to cover both of the later concepts.

[3] To be clear, for some, Halliday's stratal is model "appealing and persuasive" because of its explanatory power and its consistency with the rest of the theory, rather than its "symmetry". Symmetry does not guarantee either explanatory power or theoretical consistency.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The figure from Halliday (2004) relates language to its material order environments, ecosocial and bodily, whereas the figure from IFG is only concerned with the semiotic order: language and its semiotic context (culture).

[5] This is very misleading indeed. Halliday's 'context' is the culture as a semiotic system. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

Context is the 'semiotic environment' of language (and other sociosemiotic systems such as image systems [maps, diagrams, etc.]);

Halliday (1978: 2):

This in summary terms is what is intended by the formulation 'language as social semiotic' It means interpreting language within a sociocultural context, in which the culture itself is interpreted in semiotic terms…

[5] This is true. Moreover, Martin's derived model is not only inconsistent with Halliday's original model, it is inconsistent with itself, as demonstrated many times here and elsewhere on this blog.

David Rose Misunderstanding Instantiation, Theory And Application

David Rose replied to David Kellogg on sysfunc on 11/6/22 at 23:07:

Indeed, as a semiotic system is merely a snapshot of recurring instances, a semiotic theory is merely a snapshot of recurring applications. As a system evolves with changing instances, so a theory evolves with its applications.

Returning for a moment to Nigel, his Dad documents the features he produces, but explains their functions in terms of discourse with others...

The two tones, rising and falling, were functionally quite distinct. With the rising tone, the meaning was 'somebody do something!', 'I want (some particular good or service)'; some answer, in deeds or (increasingly, over time) in words, was being demanded and had to be forthcoming for the speech act to have been, in Nigel's view, successful (i.e. he would go on saying it until it was responded to). I referred to this type as 'pragmatic'. With the falling tone, the meaning was 'that's the way things are'; no response was expected, although the listener often provided one - 'yes, that's a green bus', 'no, that's blue/that's a van' and so on. I called this type 'mathetic' because they had a learning function; where the pragmatic foregrounded the instance (do that now!), the mathetic assigned the instance to a system ('that's a case of ...'), locating it within a semantic space made up of categories and relationships. [2004]

and to Kieran McGillicuddy on 12/6/22 at 8:18:

Heh heh, no that’s the system-text analogy. Features in systems generalise recurrent instances, as Nigel’s Dad says Nigel was doing below [above]. They’re always only snapshots in time.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, the relation of system to instance is the relation of Attribute to Carrier (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 145). In characterising system as a snapshot of instances, Rose misconstrues system as a representation of instances, and so misconstrues the relation of system to instance as a relation of Token to Value.

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, the relation of theory to application is not one of instantiation. A theory affords potential applications whose instances are actual applications. That is, the instantiation relation is between potential and actual applications.

[3] To be clear, this is a false analogy because the relation of theory to application is not the relation of potential to instance; see [2] above.

[4] This is misleading. In the quote, Halliday is distinguishing the pragmatic and mathetic functions of tone choice in Phase II of ontogenesis. Moreover, for Halliday (2008: 78):

“discourse” is text that is being viewed in its sociocultural context, while “text” is discourse that is being viewed as a process of language.

But for Rose, using the word “discourse” validates Martin's model of discourse semantics.

[5] This is misleading. The word 'generalise' fails to distinguish instantiation from delicacy. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15, 145):

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 …

Halliday (2008: 84) further differentiates delicacy and instantiation in terms of type of complementarity: focus vs angle:

In […] grammar and lexis, […] the complementarity is one of focus, based on the scale, or vector, of delicacy. System and text, on the other hand, form a complementarity of angle, based on the vector of instantiation.

[6] This is misleading, because it is untrue. What Halliday actually wrote in this quote was:

where the pragmatic foregrounded the instance (do that now!), the mathetic assigned the instance to a system ('that's a case of ...'), locating it within a semantic space made up of categories and relationships.

David Rose Denying The Revisionism Of Martin's Discourse Semantics

After David Kellogg wrote on sys-func on 8/6/22 at 6:50:

e) … The idea that the "discourse semantics" of Martin and Rose is somehow "implicit" in the examples of MAKH is a classic revisionist move on the part of Rose. In this case, it's an extremely weak revisionist move, since the theoretician (MAKH) is also the primary data gatherer and data interpreter, and he explicitly rejects this possibility. …

 

David Rose responded To David Kellogg on sys-func on 8/6/22 at 17:10:

DK’s argument seems reasonable until perhaps point e) when for some reason, judgement overtakes reason (which DK himself might admit;).

Far from revisionism, each of us can do no more than apply and extend the old man’s work, which is what makes us an SFL family (though we may have favourites among our siblings;). My own clumsy wordings were merely an invitation to look again at his evidence, from another perspective. So what does himself say?

Nigel at 14mths... ‘Here for the first time a system of experiential meaning (three personal names) becomes separated from, and freely combinable with, a system of interpersonal meaning (two moods). This is the child's first step towards a lexicogrammatical stratum.

…by 18 months he has embarked on the transition to the mother tongue. Some signs are disappearing, while the others have become lexicalised and have formed the basis of a rapidly expanding vocabulary, now around a hundred items…

In the month from 1;6 to 1;7 Nigel's lexicogrammatical resources expanded very quickly, extending beyond single words to utterances of two words and then three… In the next two weeks, however, a remarkable change took place… Any rising tone utterance demanded a response… A falling tone utterance, on the other hand…was semiotically self-sufficient and with these Nigel did not press for a response…’ [Halliday 2004]

I should have added earlier that infants of course engage in exchanges with carers, but they are mainly controlled by the adult. The resources MAKH documents enable the child to start controlling them. It interests me that MAKH does in fact make their discourse semantic function explicit.. ‘Any rising tone utterance demanded a response’, i.e. initiating a knowledge exchange.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See David Rose Evoking Negative Judgement Of David Kellogg.

[2] To be clear, the work of Martin, which Rose incessantly promotes, is not so much revisionism of Halliday's original work as appropriation. This is because Martin simply relabels Halliday's work (SPEECH FUNCTION and COHESION) as his own (discourse semantics). The "other" perspective that Rose invites his reader to take is Martin's appropriation (NEGOTIATION) of Halliday's model (SPEECH FUNCTION); see further below.

[3] To be clear, Rose's metaphor of an SFL family, and Martin's interest in affiliation, bonding and rallying round icons betrays their true philosophical orientation. Bertrand Russell, in his History Of Western Philosophy (pp 21-2), provides an explanation of both Martin's foregrounding of social cohesion and heroism, and his hostility to scientists:

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.  With this difference, others have been associated.  The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically.  They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred.  They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.  The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion.  This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of what we recognise as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought.  In changing forms, it has persisted down to the present day, and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.

[4] To be clear, Rose's argument is again that initiating and responding moves validate Martin's discourse semantic model, in preference to Halliday's semantic model, because these are exclusively features of his system of NEGOTIATION. The problem here is that, since Martin's discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION is appropriated from Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, initiating and responding moves were previously modelled by the original system. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 136):

[5]  To be clear, in SFL theory, the commodity that is given or demanded in an exchange is not knowledge but either information or goods-&-services, and in SFL theory, 'knowledge' is modelled as meaning. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: x):

we are saying that cognition "is" (that is, can most profitably be modelled as) not thinking but meaning: the "mental" map is in fact a semiotic map, and "cognition" is just a way of talking about language. In modelling knowledge as meaning, we are treating it as a linguistic construct: hence, as something that is construed in the lexicogrammar. Instead of explaining language by reference to cognitive processes, we explain cognition by reference to linguistic processes. … a semantic approach, where "understanding" something is transforming it into meaning, and to "know" is to have performed that transformation.

David Rose On The Ontogenetic Stratification Of Content And Context

 David Rose wrote to sys-func on 6/6/22 at 13:43:

If we look at his examples of Nigel’s protolanguage, each microfunctional utterance is a simple sign, initiating or responding, as David K quotes below. The mother-tongue examples are then multi-move texts. The Phase II breakthrough of recombining tones with ‘words’ enables multi-move exchanges of knowledge as well as action. It is a simultaneous breakthrough into the metafunctions of grammar and discourse semantics. This is not foregrounded in MAKH’s discussion, as his systems focus on cataloguing nascent grammatical features. But it is apparent in the examples. The disassociation and recombination of content and expression planes enables the bifurcation of the content plane into grammar and discourse. It also enables the bifurcation of the context plane into register and genre.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Rose is presenting his argument that the semantics that emerges in the ontogenetic move into tri-stratal language is the discourse semantics of Martin, not the semantics of Halliday. The argument rests on the unstated assumption that initiating and responding moves in multi-move exchanges is consistent with Martin's discourse semantics, but not with Halliday's semantics. This, of course, is untrue. Halliday models this through the semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, and Martin's discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION is merely Halliday's system misunderstood and rebranded as Martin's model. The evidence for this assessment is available here (English Text) and here (Working With Discourse).

[2] This is misleading. Kellogg's quote from Halliday (1974) says nothing whatsoever about initiating and responding with "microfunctional signs" in protolanguage. It concerned with the transition stage (II) between protolanguage (I) and language (III):

"There is, with Nigel, a discontinuity in the expression, as well as, of course, the discontinuity that arises from the introduction of a third level of coding into the system. But there is no discontinuity in the content. The social functions that have determined the protolanguage--satisfying immediate needs, controlling people's behaviour, being 'together', expressing the uniqueness of the self, exploring the world of the non-self and creating a world in the imagination — all these evolve gradually and naturally into the social contexts and situation types that we characterise as semiotic structures; and the semantic system, the meaning potential that derives from these functions, evolve likewise. The progressive approximation of the child's meanings to those of the adult through interaction with and reinforcement by older speakers, begins before these meanings are (necessarily) realised through the words and structures of the adult language, and continues without interruption. Without this continuity, the semantic system could not function effectively in the transmission of the social system from the adult to the child."

("A sociosemiotic perspective on language development", in Collected Works of MAKH Vol. 4, p. 109)

[3] This is misleading. It is not true that Halliday failed to detect discourse semantics because he was focused on the grammar. As his publications on ontogenesis confirm, he was concerned with both lexicogrammatical form and its function of realising meaning — and necessarily so, since he claims that 'the two originate as one'. Headings in the article cited by Kellogg, A Sociosemiotic Perspective On Language Development (Halliday 1974), include:

2 A Functional Semantics

3 Meaning And The Environment

5 Lexicogrammatical And Semantic Structures

Moreover, with the exception of NEGOTIATION (rebranded SPEECH FUNCTION), the discourse semantic systems in Martin (1992) are not semantic, but rebrandings of the lexicogrammatical systems of REFERENCE (confused with DEIXIS), LEXICAL COHESION (confused with clause nuclearity) and COHESIVE CONJUNCTION (confused with CLAUSE COMPLEXING). The evidence for this assessment is available here.

[4] To be clear, on the one hand, this a bare assertion, unsupported by argument, and on the other hand, it misrepresents Halliday's research. Halliday (2004 [1993]: 336-7) identifies the dissociation of associated variables as one of three semogenic strategies that become available after the content plane has become stratified into semantics and lexicogrammar. And it is semantics, not discourse semantics that emerges in the "bifurcation of content", for reasons that include those provided in [1] and [3] above.

[5] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by argument, a mere statement of belief. Moreover, Martin's model of context is invalidated by multiple self-contradictions. For example, Martin's model of stratification asserts that functional varieties of language, register and genre, are context not language. This is analogous to claiming that functional varieties of cattle, beef vs dairy, say, are not cattle.

And, as previously explained, Martin's model mistakes the content plane of a connotative semiotic for the entire connotative semiotic, and fills this connotative with varieties of a denotative semiotic. That's three interlocking inconsistencies. Or, most abstractly, Martin's model mistakes a token–type relation (instantiation) for a value–token relation (realisation).

Adding to these multiple levels of confusion and inconsistency, Martin's model also misconstrues the instantiation relation, at the level of context, between culture and situation as a realisation relation between genre and register. Martin (1992: 495):

The tension between these two perspectives will be resolved in this chapter by including in the interpretation of context two communication planes, genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation), with register functioning as the expression form of genre, at the same time as language functions as the expression form of register.

David Kellogg On The Stratification Of The Content Plane

After ChRIS CLÉiRIGh clarified Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26, 237) on sys-func on 6/6/2022 at 12:21:

What I take them to mean is that lexicogrammatical form and its function originate as one. As they say, if it weren't for grammatical metaphor, semantics and lexicogrammar could probably be modelled as function and form. The relation of function to form is one of symbolic identity: they are two perspectives on the same phenomenon, like the form and function of a chair.

On Halliday's model, a child's content plane before the move into language is very different from the semantic stratum of language. 

 

David Kellogg replied on sys-func on 6/6/22 at 13:00:

That's what I thought he meant too, Chris. But here is MAKH talking about Nigel's transition from Phase I (bistratal) language into Phase II (tristratal):

"There is, with Nigel, a discontinuity in the expression, as well as, of course, the discontinuity that arises from the introduction of a third level of coding into the system. But there is no discontinuity in the content. The social functions that have determined the protolanguage--satisfying immediate needs, controlling people's behaviour, being 'together', expressing the uniqueness of the self, exploring the world of the non-self and creating a world in the imagination — all these evolve gradually and naturally into the social contexts and situation types that we characterise as semiotic structures; and the semantic system, the meaning potential that derives from these functions, evolve likewise. The progressive approximation of the child's meanings to those of the adult through interaction with and reinforcement by older speakers, begins before these meanings are (necessarily) realised through the words and structures of the adult language, and continues without interruption. Without this continuity, the semantic system could not function effectively in the transmission of the social system from the adult to the child."

("A sociosemiotic perspective on language development", in Collected Works of MAKH Vol. 4, p. 109)

… I think his attempt (if it is his attempt rather than Christian's attempt) to use logic rather than historical materialism here doesn't work for me. The differentiation of the content plane isn't a logical operation — it's a historical one, and, seen as something that happens first between people and then is neurologically encoded within them, it is a process that is just as material as the (corresponding) differentiation of the expression plane into phonetics and phonology and subsequently into phonetics and graphology. These weren't logical operations: logic was an afterthought. As Halliday says (and as Engels said), logic is just history with the messy bits left out.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the Halliday & Matthiessen quote is concerned with lexicogrammatical form and its function as two perspectives on the same phenomenon. This is theoretically distinct from the process of ontogenesis as outlined in the Halliday quote.

[2] This misrepresents Halliday's model. For Halliday, the stratifying of the content plane is both an historical process, at ontogenetic and phylogenetic timescales, and a social process ("something that happens between people").

[3] To be clear, the neurological encoding is simultaneous with the social interaction. The former takes a biological system perspective, the latter takes a social system perspective.

[4] To be clear, contrary to the implication here, Halliday stresses the importance of understanding language as physical, biological, social and semiotic. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

It can be studied as a physical system, in acoustics and in the physical aspect of articulation (air pressure measurements and so on). It can be studied as a biological system, in the physiological aspect of articulation and in the neurophysiology of the brain. It can be studied as a social system, as the primary mode of human interaction. And of course it can be studied as a semiotic system, in the core areas of lexicogrammar, phonology and semantics. If linguistics is conceived of as a discipline — that is, as defined by its object of study (in this case, language) — then it must encompass within itself theories and methods of all four different kinds.

[5] This misrepresents Halliday's model. For Halliday, the ontogenetic stratifying of the content plane is not a "logical operation". This confuses the process of stratifying, with the relation between strata: elaborating identity.