David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings Of Individuation

David Rose responded to a Halliday quote on Bernstein's code posted by ChRIS CLÉiRIGh on sys-func on 3/8/22 at 13:49:

The complexity of relations between code, register and language seems to be resolving with studies in individuation, such as this paper of yours...

Martin, J. R., Zappavigna, M., Dwyer, P., & Cléirigh, C. (2013). Users in uses of language: embodied identity in Youth Justice Conferencing. Text & Talk, 33(4-5), 467-496.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is not the case, as demonstrated below.

[2] To be clear, Martin is responsible for the misunderstandings (see below) in this paper. Cléirigh's contribution was to provide the model of body language that Martin & Zappavigna (2019) rebranded as their model of paralanguage. Evidence here.

[3] To be clear, Martin's model of individuation confuses an elaboration relation within language with an extension relation between language users. To explain:

Firstly, in this context, Bernstein's notion of reservoir and repertoire refer to the language of users, not to the language users themselves. The two differ in terms of order of experience: a language user is a first-order phenomenon, whereas the language that a user projects is a second-order phenomenon (metaphenomenon).

Secondly, the relation between reservoir and repertoire is elaboration, since varying repertoires are different subtypes of a reservoir, whereas an affiliation relation between language users, as association, is a subtype of extension (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146).

[4] To be clear, Martin's Figure 4 takes the fundamental confusions outlined above and adds to them. On the one hand, if Bernstein's distinction is viewed as a cline of individuation, then in SFL terms, the cline is

reservoir — reservoir subpotential/repertoire type — repertoire

where each point on the cline is the stratal hierarchy of systems

context — semantics — lexicogrammar — phonology.

On the other hand, Figure 4

• treats a persona (a language user) as an individuation of culture (context potential);
• inserts a subtype (master identity) between culture and its named subtype (subculture);
• models affiliation as an elaborating relation between persona and culture, instead of an extending relation perpendicular to the cline (between personas, between subcultures etc.)

∞

For Halliday's distinction between socio-semiotic meaner and social persona, and Lemke's (1995) examination of the 'notion of the individual human subject', see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 610-1).

See also David Rose On Jim Martin's Individuation.