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.