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.