David Rose Explaining Why "All We Have Is Text Analysis"

David Rose replied to John Bateman on Sysfling on 25 Mar 2023 at 14:24:

Re ‘purport’, I think this depends on one’s model of semiosis – whether ‘context’ is modelled systemically, or is conceived as lying outside semiotic systems. The latter view comes out e.g. in Serge’s observation...

we have a family of communicative situations which are reflected in specific genres

The former view holds that a genre *is* ‘a family of communicative situations’, that there is no dichotomy between text and situation. Or more technically, a genre is a feature in a semiotic system that is motivated by a set of structures at that stratum, that configure selections in field, tenor and mode systems.

That’s where I’m coming from when I say that all we have is text analysis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in Hjelmslev's glossematics, 'purport' is located on both the content and expression planes of a semiotic, where it contrasts, in each case, with 'form' and 'substance'.

[2] This is very misleading indeed. In Halliday's systemic-functional model of language, where situation types are realised by registers/text types (genres), context is not conceived as lying outside semiotic systems. In this model, the culture is modelled as a semiotic system, and situations are instances of that semiotic system.

[3] To be clear, this is a self-contradictory misrepresentation of Martin's self-contradictory model of context. For example, Martin (1992: 495) aligns genre with context of culture, not situation:

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.

Moreover, in Martin's model, all strata, even context, are instantiated as text, despite the fact that texts are instances of language, and the fact that Martin distinguishes his context from language, despite each context stratum being a variety of language. So even in this confused model, there is a dichotomy between text and situation, since text is an instance of any stratum, and situation is the stratum of register (or as Rose would have it: genre).

[4] There are several problems here. First, because a genre is functional variety, it is not a system, but one subpotential of a system. Full systems, like those of semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology are not functional varieties. 

Second, the notion that systems are motivated by structures, that is: from below, is contrary to the theoretical approach of SFL, where structures are "motivated" from above. For example, clause structure is interpreted from above: in terms of the meanings (Actor, Process etc.) that its constituents (nominal group, verbal group etc.) realise.

Third, the structures that are said to motivate genre systems (e.g. Orientation^Record) are not of that stratum, but of the semantic stratum, which is two strata below the genre stratum in Martin's model, since they describe the sequencing of meanings that are instantiated in text.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, configurations of field, tenor and mode characterise situation types that are realised by registers of language. Rose, however, here presents Martin's model, which confuses registers with the contexts they realise, and misunderstands semantic structures as structures of genre, with genre misunderstood as context instead of text type.

On this confused model, then, semantic structures are realised by contextual features, instead of the other way round, directly contradicting the meaning of 'realisation'.

[6] Indeed.