David Rose On Theories, Communities And Academic Fields

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 23 Feb 2024, at 11:04:

Perhaps we need to consider theories in relation to the communities that affiliate around them. Academic fields are highly structured and metastable...until they aren’t.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this sociological approach says nothing about the validity of a theory that communities "affiliate around", as demonstrated by the community that is bound together by the theory that the Earth is flat, or by the theory that Earth was created on October 22, 4004 BC. But such a sociological approach is nevertheless valuable, to the extent that it enables the comparison of what counts as evidence across different communities.

[2] This confuses field with community. Field is the ideational dimension of the culture as semiotic system, which includes theories, which is distinct from the social structure of a community.

David Rose On 'The Days Of Auld Lang Syne'

David Rose replied to Rosemary Huisman on asflanet on 22 Feb 2024, 20:32:

So the actual structure is a nom gp

the days of auld lang syne

The Scottish National Dictionary gives multiple glosses for syne, including ‘ago’. In which case it’s an ellipsed embedded clause

the days [of old] [[long ago]]

(Qualifier probes are which days? and which days of old?)

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Rose provides constituency and two functions, but no structural analysis. Returning to the original Scots wording, and applying the standard model of SFL Theory, lang syne is an adverbial group that elaborates the prepositional phrase of auld in a paratactic complex that serves as the Qualifier of days:

Both units of the Qualifier realise the meaning 'in the past', with the second elaborating the first, and the relation is paratactic, because neither depends on the other:

The days of auld (old)
The days lang syne (long ago)

However, on the model of Halliday (1994: 193):

 the logical structure is:

David Rose On 'Ago' And Premodified And Postmodified Adverbial Groups

David Rose replied to Rob Spence on asflanet on Feb 2024, at 14:17:

By ‘surface syntax’ do you mean the syntagm face of our structure-&-syntagm (function-&-class) pairings? If so, Qualifier is realised by an embedded clause or prep phrase, which excludes adverbs like ago. From above, the Qualifier function defines its Thing, probed by which (Thing)?, which also excludes adverbs like ago. This was Pin’s point, not subjectively perceived, but a consistently recurring functional criterion. I think you’re right that we need to be ‘strictly consistent about doubled-up Function-and-Class labelling’

For interest here’s another adv gp analysed in this way... 

 

IFG also discusses a type of comparative adv gp, that is post-modified with an embedded clause or phrase. It is isn’t named but I’ve used ‘esphoric’ here by analogy with esphoric reference in nom gps, like the children [in blue hats]

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. In the nominal group some 4,600 million years ago, the Thing years is characterised by the embedded adverbial group ago. The fact that ago can be premodified demonstrates that ago is the Head of an adverbial group.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. In the nominal group some 4,600 million years ago, the Thing years is characterised by the embedded adverbial group ago rather than the embedded adverbial group hence; that is, the Thing is characterised as 'in the past' rather than 'in the future'. See the examination of Pin Wang's argument here.

[3] This is true.

[4] To be clear, on the model of Halliday (1994), there is no submodification in this adverbial group. So:

That is, Rose proposes internal bracketing, or nesting, where there is none, giving the analysis:

α(β(βα)α)β 

which can be expanded as 

αββ ^ αβα ^ αα ^ β

Rose then compounds the error by misinterpreting the nesting as the double embedding of adverbial groups within the adverbial group, without realising that they must be embedded on this analysis. And, again, on the belief that the adverbial groups are not embedded, incongruously proposes 2-unit complexes (duplexes) consisting of units of different ranks: group and word.

[5] To be clear, 'esphora' is Martin's (1992: 123) rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) structural cataphora. See The Inconsistencies Created By Rebranding Structural Cataphora As Esphora.

[6] To be clear, on the model of Halliday (1994), there is no submodification in this adverbial group. So:

That is, Rose proposes internal bracketing, or nesting, where there is none, and includes the Postmodifier in the dependency relations, giving the analysis:

β(β(βα)α)α 

which can be expanded as 

βββ ^ ββα ^ βαβ ^ βαα ^ α

Rose again compounds the error by misinterpreting the nesting as the triple embedding of adverbial groups within the adverbial group, without realising that they must be embedded on this analysis. And, again, on the belief that the adverbial groups are not embedded, incongruously proposes 2-unit complexes (duplexes) consisting of units of different ranks: group and word.

And, even in terms of his own approach, Rose has neglected to analyse his final adverbial group so much as the subjacency duplex #βα.

David Rose Adding Classes To His Analysis Of An Adverbial Group

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 20 Feb 2024, at 20:30:

Adding classes doesn't tell us much more about this adv gp

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Halliday (1994: 210), there is no submodification in this adverbial group:

So

As can be seen, the dependency relations all obtain between words.

[2] To be clear, Rose proposes internal bracketing, or nesting, where there is none, giving the analysis:

β(β(β(βα)α)α)α 

which can be expanded as 

ββββ ^ βββα ^ ββαβ ^ ββαα ^ α

Rose then compounds the error by misinterpreting the nesting as the triple embedding of adverbial groups within the adverbial group, without realising that they must be embedded on this analysis. And, on the belief that the adverbial groups are not embedded, incongruously proposes 2-unit complexes (duplexes) consisting of units of different ranks: group and word.

David Rose On Focus As Phonology And Jim Martin's Fastidiousness

David Rose replied to Rob Spence on asflanet on 20 Feb 2024, at 12:31:

I think you’ll find the term ‘focus’ is used in phonology for the name of a system information focus, whose features are realised by relations between the Tonic function and lexicogrammar. (More hill than ditch ;-) Focus isn’t used as a function term.

I think you’ll also find that Jim has always been fastidiously careful about distinguishing terms between strata, which I guess he learnt from Michael (all those years ago), and has been teaching others, as the canon has proliferated (all these years since).

He is also fastidiously careful about acknowledging those whose work he and colleagues are building on. How to show respect for others is nicely modelled in current work on register systems, carefully framed in relation to that of Halliday (53 refs), Hasan (42), Carmel Cloran, Cate Poynton and others...

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, INFORMATION is a system of lexicogrammar, not phonology. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 115):

… the system of INFORMATION. This is a system not of the clause, but of a separate grammatical unit, the information unit (cf. Halliday, 1967a, 1967/8; Halliday & Greaves, 2008: Section 5.1). The information unit is a unit that is parallel to the clause and the other units belonging to the same rank scale as the clause.

The misunderstanding of INFORMATION as phonology can be sourced to Martin (1992: 384, 401).

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. To be clear, 'focus' refers to the lexicogrammatical element of structure that is realised by tonic prominence (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 116). Halliday (1992: 371):

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Martin uses the most of the terms from lexicogrammatical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976) in rebranding it as his discourse semantics. Evidence here.

[4] To be clear, Martin (hypocritically) criticises Halliday for 'not distinguishing terms between strata'. Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 232):

… confusion invited by the use of grammatical terminology for semantic description in several SFL publications, particularly those dealing with grammatical metaphor (e.g. Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999).

But, in any case, the objection is based on a misunderstanding. A functional grammar interprets grammatical form in terms of its function, which is to realise meaning. In grammatical metaphor, the meaning of a grammatical form is incongruent with the meaning being realised. It is the use of meaning terminology on both strata that enables the systematic description of grammatical metaphor. And, as Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237) point out:

Of course, what we are recognising here as two distinct constructions, the semantic and the grammatical, never had or could have had any existence the one prior to the other; they are our analytic representation of the overall semioticising of experience — how experience is construed into meaning. If the congruent form had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form.

[5] For the motivation behind this theological term for what in science would be called 'the standard theory', see The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

[6] This misleads through what it omits. It is true that Martin generally acknowledges his sources, though he doesn't always acknowledge that an idea comes from his source rather than himself. Evidence here. But more importantly, having acknowledged his sources, Martin then renames their ideas so that all future references will be to his work and not theirs, thereby giving himself credit for the ideas of others. See for example, here (Martin 1992) and here (Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna 2022).

[7] To be clear, Martin named these scholars because they provided the source of his ideas. Martin then rebranded 'register' as his stratum of context, so all references to register by his readership refer to his model rather than Halliday's original model. Moreover, Martin's model of register is full of self-contradictions. For example, his register is context, not language, despite register being a functional variety of language (cf. beef and dairy cattle not being categorised as 'cattle'); and though it is context, not language, it is instantiated as text, which is language, not context. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

David Rose On Theory As Theological

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 18 Feb 2024, at 12:36:

Theories are also constellations of icons that adherents affiliate around (thanks Michelle Z and Ken Tann). Basil Bernstein recognised the roots of secular theories in medieval theology, following Durkheim (‘the fundamental categories of science are of religious origin’, 1915:418) and Max Weber (the original ‘legitimation’ theorist). Here’s BB in 2000...

The religious field is constituted by three positions which stand in various relations of complementarity and opposition. In the religious field, we have the prophets, we have the priests, and we have the laity. The rule is that one can only occupy one category at a time. Priests cannot be prophets, and prophets cannot be priests, and the laity cannot be either. There is a natural affinity between prophets and laity, and there is a natural opposition between prophets and priests. These are the lines of opposition structuring the religious field.

If we look at the structure of the pedagogic field, we also have basically three positions that provide analogues to the prophets, priests and laity. The ‘prophets’ are the producers of the knowledge, the ‘priests’ are the recontextualisers or the reproducers, and the ‘laity’ are the acquirers. Thus, we have the structure of the pedagogic field.

Icons like immanence and transcendence are borrowed directly from theological beliefs about the relation of spirit to matter, for which adherents could be excommunicated or worse :-( Bateson’s metatheorising was explicitly theological, rebadging god as ‘mind’ which he believed was immanent in the ‘supreme cybernetic system’. In Lexie’s quote below, he is concerned with the theological question of ‘truth’.* In contrast, Lemke is more interested in the ‘usefulness’ of theories, or as MAKH would call it, ‘appliability’.

* Distinct from philosophical argumentation about truth value of propositions, which is closer to Chris’ yes/no questions of ‘validity’ here.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is sociology: a model of human behaviour. It doesn't distinguish theories (metaphenomena) from favourite football teams, favourite tennis players, favourite pop stars or favourite gurus (phenomena). Nor does it distinguish academics from sports fans, pop music fans or devotees of gurus. That is, it is a model of behaviour with no regard for the intellect and reasoning behind the behaviour.

[2] Synonyms of 'adherent' include:

follower, supporter, upholder, defender, advocate, disciple, votary, partisan, friend, member, stalwart, fanatic, zealot, believer, worshipper, attender, fan, admirer, enthusiast, devotee, lover, addict, aficionado, hanger-on, groupie, buff, freak, fiend, nut, maniac, booster, cohort, rooter, janissary, sectary

[3] To be clear, not theology and not mediæval. Not theology, because theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective. Not mediæval, because, as the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell points out, science fulfils the cosmological function of mythology, and because mythology involves the use of lexical metaphor to reconstrue meaning construed of experience, this dates back to the beginning of metaphor which, according to Halliday was made possible by the stratification of the content plane, which he claims turned Homo … into Homo sapiens (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 25).

[4] To be clear, this a sociological model of the social structure of a pedagogic field. That is, it is a model of teachers and teaching, not of the semiotic process of theorising.

[5] To be clear, from an epistemological perspective, 'immanence' and 'transcendence' are orientations to meaning in Western thinking. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415, 416):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules;

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource. …

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models. These external differences are associated with internal differences as well.

(i) First, the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach.

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

[6] Rose's interpretation of Bateson is rejected by an expert on Bateson's work. See here. 

[7] To be clear, Ptolemy's Earth-centred model of the known Universe in terms of epicycles was appliable but invalid. Copernicus's Sun-centred model was less appliable, but more valid. Appliability is no guarantee of theoretical validity.

The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's geocentric model, developed in the 2nd century CE, served as the basis for preparing astrological and astronomical charts for over 1,500 years. The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age, but from the late 16th century onward, it was gradually superseded by the heliocentric model of Copernicus (1473–1543), Galileo (1564–1642), and Kepler (1571–1630). There was much resistance to the transition between these two theories. Some felt that a new, unknown theory could not subvert an accepted consensus for geocentrism.

[8] This is very misleading indeed. On the one hand, the truth value of propositions is the concern of the logico-philosophical tradition, not the rhetorical-ethnographic tradition in which SFL is located. On the other hand, validity is not simply a question of whether propositions are true or false. Validity is a matter of whether conclusions follow from premises. For example,

Given these epistemological assumptions, is this theory valid?

Given this theoretical model, is this application of the theory valid? 

∞

See also The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

David Rose On The Absence Of Published Criticism Of Each Other’s Work

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 14 Feb 2024, at 10:37:

An interesting feature of SFL, in contrast to some other linguistic schools, is an absence of published criticism of each other’s work. You can see this ethic of learning from each other and getting on with it continually in Halliday’s interviews. …

And again at 13:27:

The point is that linguistics sits in the humanities and has inherited its habits, especially philosophy’s notions of truth and falsehood. SFL’s approach to observing and theorising is closer to how science works.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. Martin (1992) criticises Hasan's work on cohesion, Hasan (1995) criticises Martin's stratification of context, and Fawcett (2010) criticises Halliday's model of grammar, to name but three.

[2] To be clear, 'learning from each other and getting on with it', without critical assessment of each other's work, is an anti-intellectual approach that serves the interests of the incompetent, and not just fosters, but proliferates theoretical misunderstandings and poor quality work. See The Promotion Of Anti-Intellectualism In The SFL Community

[3] As Halliday has pointed out, we don't argue about truth, we argue about validity.

• Are the assumptions on which this theory is founded valid?
• Is this theoretical description valid?
• Is this interpretation of theory valid?

[4] To be clear, SFL is a scientific theory, but the culture of much of the SFL community is more like that of a religious fellowship. See

The Scientific Status Of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory
The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community

David Rose On Layers Of Subjacency

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 11 Feb 2024, at 15:08: 

In IFG there’s an analysis of adv gp as recursive hypotaxis... 

 

This misses the interplay of comparison, intensification and negation in this adv gp. e.g. intensification ‘very much’; comparison ‘not so very much’. Here as layers of subjacency... 

not	so	very	much	more	easily
b comp					a
b intens				a
b comp		a
b neg	a	b intens	a

and again on 13 Feb 2024, 13:32:

Here again with formal function labels. Each function is realised by a subjacency duplex, i.e. by the a b relation. 

not	so	very	much	more	easily
Comparison
b					a
Degree
b				a
Comparison
b		a
Negation		Degree
b	a	b	a

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Rose simply rebrands logical structure as 'subjacency duplex'. More importantly, none of these satisfy its defining criterion of not being modifiable more than once.

[2] To be clear, as Halliday's analysis makes clear, there is only one level of modification in this adverbial group; that is, there is no internal bracketing. Moving from right to left in the structure simply involves increasing subcategorisation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 389). So

How easily? more easily [comparison]
How more easily? much more easily [intensification]
How much more easily? very much more easily [intensification]
How very much more easily? so very much more easily [comparison]
How so very much more easily? not so very much more easily [negation]

David Rose On Subjacency Duplexes

 David Rose wrote to asflanet on 11 Feb 2024, at 15:08:

Chris’ example is a nom gp, with embedded adv gp as Qualifier... 

some	of	those	days	[long	ago]
Focus		Deictic	Thing	Qualifier
a	b	determiner	noun	adv gp
				b	a

Here [long ago] specifies which days

 

Focus in English is realised by a subjacency duplex with the structure marker ‘of’, discussed in Martin & Doran 2023. The Head is more often an embedded nominal group... 

[a example]	of	those	days	[[a little while]	ago]
Focus		Deictic	Thing	Qualifier
a	b	demon	noun	adv gp
nom gp				b	a
				nom gp

Martin, J. R., & Doran, Y. J. (2023, May). Structure markers: A subjacency duplex analysis. In Language, Context and Text. The Social Semiotics Forum (Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 16-48

  

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in this case, Martin's 'Focus' is a rebranding of Halliday's Pre-Deictic (e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 394).

In SFL Theory, a duplex is a complex of two units related by expansion or projection, where each unit in the complex serves the same function. This is not the case here. On the one hand, the preposition of does not modify the determiner some by expansion or projection, and on the other hand, the determiner some and the preposition of do not serve the same function. While the determiner some serves as a structural element, the preposition of does not. Instead, it functions as a structure marker. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 425):

The exception is prepositional phrases with of, which normally occur only as Postmodifier; the reason is that they are not typical prepositional phrases, because in most of its contexts of use of is functioning not as minor Process/Predicator but rather as a structure marker in the nominal group.

[2] For a close examination of Martin & Doran (2023), see the review here. Among other things, the authors mistake functions for structures, and so, mistake function markers for structure markers, with the result that most of the paper is concerned with adpositions that serve as function markers, rather than the structure markers they intended to provide a subjacency analysis for. 

[3] To be clear, on the basis of IFG (Halliday ± Matthiessen 1985, 1994, 2004, 2014), this can be analysed as follows:

(a) ranking nominal group:

(b) nominal group embedded in ranking nominal group:

(c) nominal group embedded in nominal group embedded in ranking nominal group:

That is, example of is not a two-unit complex (duplex) realising Focus, and a little while ago is a nominal group realising a Qualifier, not an adverbial group realised by a two-unit complex (duplex).

David Rose Misconstruing Nominal Groups, A Subjacency Duplex, And 'Instantiate'

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 11 Feb 2024, at 15:08:

Subjacency duplexes are dependency structures that are not recursive (not hypotactic series)

 

Proportionality first...

some days ago : some of those days long ago ::

adv gp : nom gp 

Also...

a little while ago : an example of those days a little while ago ::

adv gp : nom gp

 

Adverbial group structure is Modifier^Head 

long	ago
b	a

This is a subjacency duplex with adverb as Head. (Ago can only instantiate the Head.)

 

The Modifier can be an embedded nom gp 

[a little while]	ago
b	a
nom gp

Here [a little while] specifies how long ago.

 Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, these are nominal groups and cannot be adverbial groups (see [4]).

[2] To be clear, even if subjacency duplex were a valid type of structure, this does not satisfy its condition of not being expandable beyond a single modifier, e.g. not so very long ago. In SFL terms, this is simply an adverbial group 'with adverb as Head'. 

[3] This seriously misunderstands 'instantiate'. Instantiation is the relation between potential and instance. The relation here is between a word and its function as Head at group rank, which is realisation.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the Premodifier of an adverbial group cannot be an embedded nominal group because it is inconsistent with the characterisation of an adverbial group having no lexical premodification. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 419-20):

The adverbial group has an adverb as Head, which may or may not be accompanied by modifying elements. … Premodifiers are grammatical items like not and rather and so; there is no lexical premodification in the adverbial group. … The items serving as Premodifiers are adverbs belonging to one of three types – polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as, so) and intensification.