Let’s try to clear up the confusion between situation/culture and register/genre, since it still befuddles sysflingers in my generation...A ‘context of situation’ is a specific instance of a general ‘context of culture’. These terms were borrowed a century ago by Firth, from the anthropologist Malinowski. They were handy metaphors, long before SFL had a model of tenor, field and mode realised in metafunctions of language, or of semiotic systems instantiated as texts. In contrast, genre and register are terms in SFL theory.
A genre is a configuration of recurrent selections in tenor, field and mode systems, that is recognised by members of a culture. These are all cultural systems, so ‘context of situation’ is not an appropriate cover term for tenor, field and mode. Instead, the term ‘register’ was appropriated to include tenor, field and mode systems. Genres are realised by selections in register systems. Systems of genre are realised by systems of register, which are realised by systems of language and other modalities.That’s the perspective of realisation between strata, a synoptic view. Instantiation is more dynamic. As a text unfolds, it instantiates selections in genre systems, register systems and language systems, in each moment.These are all semiotic systems (systems of meanings), so there is no longer any need for notions of ‘culture’ or ‘situation’ outside of meaning. But metaphors like ‘context of situation and culture’ can be very sticky. How about we prise them loose.
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Having previously claimed there are no important differences between the models of Martin and Halliday & Hasan, here Rose proposes replacing Halliday's model of context with Martin's.
[1] To be clear, this confusion began when Martin (1992: 495) incongruously proposed replacing the instantiation relation between culture and situation with a realisation relation between genre and register:
The tension between these two perspectives will be resolved in this chapter by including in the interp[r]etation 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.
[2] To be clear, the only ones befuddled are those who trust Martin to understand SFL Theory for them. See The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.
[3] This misleading, because it confuses instantiation with delicacy. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 144-5):
One participant elaborates another one along the dimensions of delicacy, realisation, or instantiation. In other words, the elaboration sets up a relationship either of generality (delicacy), of abstraction (realisation), or of token to type (instantiation): see Table 4(4).
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[4] This is very misleading indeed. The claim here is that 'genre' and 'register' are (genuine) SFL terms, whereas 'context of culture' and 'context of situation' are not, because they are merely "handy metaphors" that precede SFL Theory. The truth is that all four terms are used in SFL Theory.
Halliday models context as the culture as a semiotic system, with situation as an instance of culture. The term 'register' is used by Halliday for a subpotential of language, varying for context, whereas Martin misunderstands register as a system of context.
The term 'genre' was introduced by Hasan, at first to refer to a rhetorical mode, but then to refer to a register that realises a rhetorical mode, whereas Martin misunderstands genre as a system of context.
[5] This misunderstands stratification. Martin's model posits his genre as a higher level of symbolic abstraction than his register, so his genre can not be a configuration of selections from his lower stratum, anymore than lexicogrammar can be a configuration of phonological selections.
Moreover, the process of selection is the process of instantiation, so selections refer to instances, and recurrent selections refer to instance types, not to systems of potential. So the theoretical point that Rose misunderstands here is that a situation type — i.e. "recurrent" selections of tenor, field and mode — is realised by a text type.
[6] This is a very serious misunderstanding of stratification and instantiation. To be clear, 'context of situation' is an appropriate term because it refers to an instance of the context of culture, the systems of tenor, field and mode.
[7] To be clear, it was Martin who rebranded Halliday's context as register. This "appropriation" was not appropriate, because it models a functional variety of language as not being language. This is tantamount to claiming that dairy cattle and beef cattle are not cattle. More technically, in Hjelmslev's terms, it mistakes a variety of a denotative semiotic for (the content plane of) a connotative semiotic.
[8] This confuses stratification with instantiation. To be clear, the claim here is that genres (systems) are realised by instances of registers, since selecting in register systems is the instantiation of register systems.
[9] To be clear, this contradicts the previous statement, since here genre and register are both described at the system pole of the cline of instantiation. However, the claim is that systems like story genres are realised by systems like status and contact relations between the speakers producing the story.
[10] To be clear, here the claim is that genres like narratives, anecdotes etc. are not language.
[11] To be clear, Rose's 'synoptic view' of realisation between strata is confused with the 'dynamic view' of instantiation. See [5], [6] and [8] above.
[12] This misunderstands both instantiation and stratification. Firstly, a text does not instantiate selections in systems; a text is the instantiation of systems, and selection is the process of instantiation. Secondly, a text cannot be the instantiation of Martin's genre and register systems, since text is an instance of language potential, whereas genre and register systems are not language potential, but context potential.
[13] This is very misleading because it is untrue. In SFL Theory, context of culture is not "outside of meaning". Context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system, a system of meaning, and a situation is an instance of that system.
[14] To be clear, since context of situation and culture, when understood, are consistent with SFL Theory, and Martin's misconstrual of language varieties as not language is not, the intelligent response would be try to understand what the terms context of situation and culture mean, and "prise loose" Martin's self-contradictory model.
[15] To be clear, on the one hand, this diagram of Martin's model misrepresents text, an instance of language, as also being an instance of context, which Martin opposes to language. On the other hand, this diagram strategically omits the term that would make its other inconsistencies more obvious: 'register' is omitted from the stratum of field, tenor and mode, and from each cline of instantiation. If the term 'register' is given its place in Martin's model, then it yields:
- a system of genre,
- a register/text type of genre,
- an instance of genre,
- a system of register,
- a register/text type of register,
- an instance of register,
- a system of language,
- a register/text type of language,
- an instance of language (text).
then it yields such anomalies as:
- a genre/register of genre,
- a text type of genre,
- a genre/register of register,
- a text type of register.
∞
See also
- The Practice Of Public Bluffing In The SFL Community
- David Rose Negatively Appreciating The Deployment Of Logic
- David Rose Positively Judging 'Being Wrong'
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