… I rephrased core as centre, because that’s the term used by Jing Hao in Analysing Scientific Discourse. I rephrased semantic as functional because Thing is a grammatical function (a meaning in the grammar, not in discourse semantics).
I tried to define a split meaning for ‘central Function of the nominal group’, following Jing’s analysis of dimension>entity structures, commonly realised as Focus^Thing structures, which in turn reconstrue the split proposed by Halliday between logical Head and experiential Thing, as a compound experiential meaning construed by an orbital structure... and so on. (Clumsily.)
I imagine you’d agree with one little message though, that people shouldn't be afraid to question our canonical textbooks. SFL would never have happened if Michael Halliday was afraid to challenge his own teachers’ authority.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, Rose rebranded Halliday's 'core' as Hao's 'centre'. But, as explained in the previous post, Halliday's statement is about semantics ('semantic core') not grammatical structure.
[2] To be clear, experiential structures are multivariate and segmental. From the previous post:
… the multivariate structure of the nominal group is not orbital, because an orbital structure is univariate, not multivariate. That is, there is only one type of relationship among the functions: interdependency. The relation of nucleus to satellite is analogous to hypotaxis (Head to Modifier), while the relation of satellite to satellite is analogous to parataxis.
[3] The hypocrisy here is breathtaking. For two of Rose's reactions when his own teacher's (Martin's) theorising was questioned, see:
[4] It is misleading to claim that Halliday challenged Firth's authority. Halliday expanded what he took to be Firth's vision.
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