David Rose Misunderstanding Delicacy And Instantiation

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on Sysfling on 9 Sept 2023 at 18:50:

The more delicate a system, the more instantial it is, so the more it couples features from multiple systems, eg DEIXIS and IDENTIFICATION

The IFG discussion of DEIXIS is interesting as it shifts back and forth between LG and DS

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. It is the whole system, along the dimension of delicacy, that is located on the cline of instantiation from potential to subpotential/instance type to instance. Clearly, the more delicate system of attributive and identifying process types, for example, is not more "instantial" than the system that includes material and mental process types. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 219).

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327):

Instantiation is the relation between the system and the instance. When we shift attention along this scale, we are moving between the potential that is embodied in any stratum and the deployment of that potential in instances on the same stratum (between the climate and the weather, to use the analogy from our illustration below). Again, this move can be made at any degree of delicacy. 

Delicacy is the relation between the most general features and the most specific. When we shift attention from, say, 'recreation' to 'hockey' at the level (stratum) of context, or from 'syllable' to long open nasal syllable' to /pã:/ in phonology, we are moving in delicacy. Again, we can do this at any point along the instantiation scale.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The number of co-selected ("coupled") features from different systems does not increase down the cline of instantiation. What is true is that the co-selection of features differs at points of variation along the cline of instantiation. That is, registers (subpotentials) differ from one another in which features are co-selected; texts (instances) differ from one another in which features are co-selected.

[3] To be clear, DEIXIS is a system of the nominal group, whereas IDENTIFICATION is Martin's misunderstanding of REFERENCE — Halliday & Hasan's system of grammatical cohesion — relocated to his stratum of discourse semantics and rebranded as his own system. Evidence here.

[4] This is misleading because it is untrue. Unsurprisingly, the discussion of DEIXIS in IFG is only concerned with Halliday's lexicogrammar, not Martin's discourse semantics. This deception is merely an attempt to legitimate Martin's model by incorporating it into Halliday's exposition of the grammar.

David Rose On Jim Martin's Coupling/Co-instantiation

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on SYSFLING on 24 Aug 2020 at 13:36:

Ed McDonald:

2. The idea of co-instantiaton is also an interesting one:

My gloss for coupling, defined by Martin et al. (2013, p. 469) as ‘the co-selection of linguistic resources across ranks, metafunctions, strata, and modalities which are not specified by system/structure cycles’.

Systems at each stratum make distinct contributions…eg variations in tone and mood couple to instantiate variations in speech function

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's definition of 'coupling' is invalid, because system/structure cycles do not specify any co-selection of paradigmatic features ("linguistic resources"). To explain:-

The process of instantiation is the selection of paradigmatic features and the activation of realisation statements which specify how systemic options are realised along the syntagmatic axis, whether structural or cohesive. System/structure cycles are the iteration of this realisation relation between axes during logogenesis, the unfolding of text. On this basis, system/structure cycles do not specify which features are (co-)selected; feature (co-)selection is the paradigmatic dimension of system/structure cycles.

[2] To be clear, this confuses instantiation with realisation. Instantiations of "variations in speech function" are the speech function features that are selected during logogenesis. The relation between speech function and mood, and between mood and tone, is realisation, since these three systems are located on three different strata: semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology.

However, strictly speaking, the system of TONE does not realise the system of MOOD, but the system of KEY, which is associated with the system of MOOD (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 168). It is the combination of KEY and MOOD that realises SPEECH FUNCTION.

David Rose On "Couplings In Instantiation"

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on SYSFLING on 21 Aug 2020 at 10:24:

Thanks for this teaser. There's an impossibly large number of threads picked up in these few little questions… variability in relations between strata in semiotic systems… their contributions and couplings in instantiation… phylogenesis of language in general and languages in particular… and histories of linguists trying to theorise (what they can see of) these problems

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. McDonald's questions concerned:

• the natural relation between meaning (e.g. process) and linguistic form (e.g. verbal group),
• the construal of experience as meaning, and
• the co-ordination of language with other social semiotic systems made possible by language.

See the examination of McDonald's original post here.

[2] To be clear, 'coupling' or 'co-instantiation' is one of Martin's many misunderstandings of SFL Theory. As previously noted, because the process of instantiation is the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 45), it necessarily entails the co-selection of features that are related along the dimensions of the theory, including delicacy, rank and strata. Martin's superfluous notion of "co-instantiation" is merely an acknowledgement that features are co-selected.