David Rose Differentiating Grammatical Structures By Field, Mode And Tenor

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 24 Mar 2024, 08:45:

I’d kinda hoped it was obvious, a linguistic double entendre

But OK, it’s a pleasant Sunday morning exercise that someone may find useful, evaluating field, mode, tenor

The full arguments are in...

Martin, J. R., & Doran, Y. J. (2023). Structure markers: A subjacency duplex analysis. Language, Context and Text, 5(1), 16-48. 

This nom gp is ambiguous, with two different experiential interpretations. I offered three analyses...

1. Whose king’s hat? – counterexpectant interpretation

F: a traditional multivariate Hallidayan analysis of nom gp functions, but with all realising syntagms accounted for, using subj dupl labels, and possessive suffixes explicitly labelled as non-recursive #b

M: clearly displays each structure:syntagm cycle at each rank

T: authority of a ‘standard analysis’ plus, and it’s counterexpectantly funnier

2. Whose king’s hat?

F: a re-analysis of nom gp classifying function, as recursive subclassification at word rank, rather than multivariate group functions (Classifier Thing)

M: displays complementarity of subjacent and hypotactic word rank structures

T: more radical, but interesting, potentially inspiring further research

3. Whose hat? – expectant interpretation

F: more accurate than a ‘gamma beta alpha’ analysis, because this isn’t a hypotactic series. The Deictic is realised by an embedded nom gp [England’s king], which itself has a Deictic Thing structure

M: explicit syntagm labelling reveals this structuring

T: not as funny

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, field, mode and tenor do not distinguish these three analyses, because each analysis is in the same text of the same situation.

• The field is what's going on in the situation: linguistic analysis
• The mode is the role of language in the situation: dialogue on an email discussion list
• The tenor is who's taking part in the situation: linguists

None of Rose's "evaluations" bears the slightest resemblance to the field, mode and tenor of the situation of this text. See The Practice Of Public Bluffing In The SFL Community at What Lies Beneath.

[2] This is misleading because Martin & Doran (2023) does not provide any "full arguments" with respect to Rose's analyses. This can be verified by reading the review of Martin & Doran (2023):

Structure Markers: A Subjacency Duplex Analysis

David Rose On Halliday's Instantiation/Stratification Matrix

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 21 Mar 2024, 15:00:

This matrix from a talk MAKH gave to computer scientists in 95 may help to flesh out the SFL timeline a little.

It is based on ideas he first proposed in 1961. Subsequent research was overwhelmingly in the bottom row – on LG systems. Cells above that are proposals for research. He comments “Semantic representations of the instance — the instance as meaning — are still quite unsatisfactory, and there is much work to be done in this respect. Likewise for the instantial situation: we tend to work with informal word-pictures, like the stage directions in the printed edition of a play; but the basic concept of situation as instance has advanced very little in recent decades” (2005:255).

The upper and middle left-hand cells were the focus of Jim Martin and colleagues’ research through the 80s, culminating in English Text in 92. Metafunctional semantic systems were described as discourse semantics. Systems were also described for ‘potential clusterings of values of field, tenor, mode’, that were named genre systems. Appliability was one motivation for prioritising genre systems. Systems were proposed for field, tenor, mode, but it took another two decades for this research to be taken up in earnest, starting with Jing Hao on field, followed by a series of studies, culminating in Doran, Martin, Herrington 2023 (and Yaegan’s recent course at Usyd).

A crucial advance in this research is description of field, tenor, mode systems as semiotic systems that are instantiated, not by ‘informal word-pictures’, but by ‘selection expressions’, as the matrix specifies for LG and semantic systems.

Another major step forward is the reconstrual of what MAKH calls ‘values’ in the top row as ‘principles’ of instantiation, and ‘domains’ of individuation. This potentially integrates research using different SFL models into a commensurate whole.

It also helps resolve an anomaly in the upper right-hand cell, in which instances of socio-semiotic systems are named ‘particular social semiotic situation events’, whereas instances of LG and semantic systems are simply named ‘particular texts’. A social semiotic event is of course a (multimodal) text.

"The left-hand upper cell is taken up with contextual networks: it contains a theory of the possible semiotic situations that collectively constitute a culture – taxonomies of institutions and of doings and happenings, manifested as possible clusterings of values of field, tenor and mode.” Halliday 2005: 255

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961) did not include a cline of instantiation, nor Malinowski's notions of context, nor a semantic stratum:

[2] To be clear, it is important to recognise that Halliday himself never proposed system networks to represent the systems of context.

[3] This is misleading. Martin (1992) rebranded the lexicogrammatical systems of the textual metafunction in Halliday & Hasan (1976) as his discourse semantic systems and distributed them across the different metafunctions. To these systems he added Halliday's semantic system of speech function and rebranded it as his discourse semantic system of negotiation.

[4] To be clear, Martin (1992) mistook registers for the contextual systems (field, tenor, mode) that are realised by registers, thereby proposing that a functional variety of language was not language, but context. Martin (1992) then confused two meanings of 'genre', genre as mode and genre as text type, and located the confusion stratally above register in context. This had the effect of proposing that text types were realised by field, tenor, and mode, instead of the reverse, thereby upending the realisation relation.

[5] To be clear, Hao and Doran were Martin's students and use Martin's model that proposes that functional varieties of language are not language, but context.

[6] This is cleverly misleading. First, Halliday did not describe field, tenor and mode as instantiated by 'informal word pictures'. Halliday used 'informal word pictures' to describe instances of field, tenor and mode, because he didn't have formal systems of field, tenor and mode to model the potential. Second, in Martin's model, context is realised by an instance of language, text, whereas this advance by Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024) rejects Martin's model, so that context systems are now instantiated by context, not by language (text).

[7] This is misleading, because this major step forward is major step backward. Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024) have reinterpreted the features of field, tenor and mode systems as 'principles of instantiation' in order to make room for semantic systems which they misconstrue as contextual.  That is, having first misconstrued language (register) as context, Martin is now, with his colleagues, misconstruing context (field, tenor, mode) as language. See also

• Negotiating Tenor: Enacting Affiliation In Dialogue And Monologue (Yaegan Doran)
• A Close Examination Of Yaegan Doran's 2023 ASFLA Plenary Abstract

[8] For some of the inconsistencies that invalidate Martin's model of individuation, see

• David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings Of Individuation
• David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation

[9] For some of the inconsistencies that invalidate Martin's integrated model, see

• David Rose On Jim Martin's Individuation
• David Rose Promoting Jim Martin's Misunderstandings Of Realisation, Instantiation And Individuation

[10] This is misleading, because there is no anomaly in the upper right-hand cell, though the false claim betrays a serious misunderstanding of the distinction between context and language. 'Particular social semiotic situation events' describes instances of context: the culture as semiotic potential. A text, on the other hand, is an instance of the content plane of language: semantics and lexicogrammar. A multimodal text includes instances of the content plane of semiotic systems other than language.

David Rose On The "Slippage" Between The 1961 And 1992 Models Of Language And Context

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 20 Mar 2024, at 16:19:

The slippage is between 1961 and 92 models of lg and context 

61...

Lg described as semiotic systems instantiated as text (after Saussure, Firth)

Context modelled as culture instantiated as situation (after Malinowski)

Situation modelled as instantial categories of field, tenor, mode (not described as semiotic systems) 

92...

Context modelled as semiotic systems instantiated as text (after Hjelmslev)

Text instantiates systems at all strata (no ‘situation’ outside of semiosis)

Doran, Martin, Herrington describe field, tenor, mode systems as ‘resources’

Earlier classification model incorporated as ‘principles’ of instantiation

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Scale and Category Grammar differed from SFL Theory in that it had no system networks, no metafunctions, no cline of instantiation, and the level between grammar and situation was called context, not semantics. The architecture of language proposed by Scale and Category Grammar (Halliday 1961) was as follows:

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. Scale and Category Grammar ("the 1961 model") did not include a cline of instantiation.

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue. In Scale and Category Grammar ("the 1961 model"), 'context' referred to the equivalent of semantics in SFL Theory, and 'situation' referred to the equivalent of context in SFL Theory.

[4] This is misleading because it is untrue. In Scale and Category Grammar ("the 1961 model"), there were no metafunctions, and so, no metafunctional categories of situation.

[5] This is misleading because it is untrue. In SFL Theory, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system, and field, tenor and mode constitute the projection of the metafunctions, modes of meaning, onto the culture as semiotic system.

[6] To be clear, this is the model of Martin (1992) in which Halliday's culture as semiotic system is mistakenly stratified into two perspectives on language variation: genre and register. In SFL Theory, genre, in the sense of text type, and register are at the midway point of the cline of instantiation: text type is register viewed from the instance pole, and register is text type viewed from the system pole of the cline.

[7] On the one hand, this is misleading because it falsely implies that Martin (1992) was the first to model context as semiotic. On the other hand, this is a self-contradiction, because text is an instance of language, whereas context is distinguished from language in Martin's stratification hierarchy.

[8] This is misleading because it is untrue. Hjelmslev did not model context as semiotic systems instantiated as text. Like Halliday before him, Martin used Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic as a semiotic that has a denotative semiotic, such as language, as its expression plane. Martin, however, misunderstood Hjelmslev on two counts. First, he mistook the content plane of the connotative semiotic, context, for the entire connotative semiotic. Then he mistook varieties of a denotative semiotic, genres and registers, for connotative semiotics.

[9] This repeats the self-contradiction of language (text) as an instance of non-language (context).

[10] This is misleading because it falsely claims that situation, as an instance of culture, is not modelled as semiotic, in Halliday's model.

[11] To be clear, in their model of field, tenor and mode as resources, Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 1) confuse context with semantics: 

In this paper, we review recent work in SFL which focuses on modelling register as a resource — reconceiving field as a resource for construing phenomena, tenor as a resource for negotiating social relations, and mode as a resource for composing texture. 

That is, having first misconstrued language (register) as context, Martin is now, with his colleagues, misconstruing context (field, tenor, mode) as language.

See also

• Negotiating Tenor: Enacting Affiliation In Dialogue And Monologue (Yaegan Doran)
• A Close Examination Of Yaegan Doran's 2023 ASFLA Plenary Abstract

[12] To be clear, the proposal of Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 12) is to remove Poynton's CONTACT and STATUS from tenor systems to make way for their misinterpretation of tenor as interpersonal semantics:

Accordingly, we will propose below that these dimensions [of contact and status] be interpreted as principles of instantiation, rather than as tenor options within the realisation hierarchy.

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 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.

David Rose Misrepresenting Hasan's System As A Synthesis Of Martin's Systems

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 12/7/22 at 9:14:

What differs between the MESSAGE features in Figure 24.4 below and the mood features that realise them is their systemic valeur. The valeur of MOOD features is shaped by similarities and contrasts in the mood structures that realise them, exemplified in Table 24.4.

The valeur of message features is shaped by three factors as far as I can see. System G features by their position in exchange structures: verify/enquire etc. System F features by appraisal: precise/tentative; by field: specify/explain; again by exchange structure: prompted/unprompted; and again by field: global/particular...

In sum, the MESSAGE system attempts to synthesise the complementarity of two discourse semantic systems, NEGOTIATION and APPRAISAL. …

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the critical distinction between the semantic features of the SPEECH FUNCTION system and the lexicogrammatical features of the MOOD system is that each system of features is located at a different level of symbolic abstraction.

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, the valeur of each MOOD system feature is its relations to other features in the system; see, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96, 509). This misrepresentation of 'valeur' serves as a pretext for the misrepresentations that follow.

[3] To be clear, the valeur of each of Hasan's SPEECH FUNCTION system features is its relations to the other features in the system, and as such, they are not "shaped by" other systems such as APPRAISAL or FIELD, the latter being Martin's misunderstanding of ideational semantics as register misunderstood as context.

[4] This is very misleading indeed, because it misrepresents Hasan's (earlier) system as an attempt to synthesise Martin's (later) systems, one of which, NEGOTIATION, is Martin's rebranding of SPEECH FUNCTION.

David Rose On Inexplicit Realisations And Lexis

David Rose replied to Mick O'Donnell on sys-func on 21/6/22 at 12:26:

… So how do we model field elements that are not explicitly realised in a text? That is so complex that SFL has avoided trying to describe lexical items, beyond their very general relations, as ‘sets’ vs systems, as delicate grammar, and as lexical relations in discourse.

It’s long worried me, as I would like to describe how we learn to read (comprehend written texts), and that can’t be done without tackling lexis.

In this paper on reading metaphor I’ve suggested we technicalise the term connote for these kinds of relations.

Rose, D. (2021). Reading metaphor: Symbolising, connoting and abducing meanings. Linguistics and Education, 64, 100932.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, what Rose, following Martin, regards as 'field' is ideational semantics in SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

… Martin, where"field" corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base …

[2] To be clear, this is a matter of inexplicit realisations of semantic features being instantiated in a text.

[3] To be clear, this is not simply a matter of lexis. A lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate grammatical features, just as the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the phonological features [voiced, bilabial, stop]. Modelling this phenomenon systemically entails identifying the system, with the choice of in/explicit realisation, that has been instantiated in the text (data).

[4] To be clear, lexis as most delicate grammar means that lexical items are specified by the most delicate grammatical features, and lexical sets are the paradigmatic organisation of the lexical items thus specified. 'Lexical relations in discourse', on the other hand, is the use of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between lexical items to create textual cohesion. In Rose's source, Martin (1992), the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar is confused with lexical cohesion; evidence here.

[5] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'lexical item'. See, for example:

• Misconstruing (Abridged) Grammatical Structures As Lexical Items
• Mistaking (Partial) Grammatical Units For Lexical Items

[6] To be clear, Rose does not understand the SFL notion of 'metaphor'. See, for example:

• Foreshadowing Misunderstandings Of Grammatical Metaphor
• Reducing All Grammatical Metaphor To Elemental Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Ideational Metaphor
• Misrepresenting Elemental Ideational Metaphor As Logical Metaphor
• Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor

David Rose Crediting Jim Martin With Michæl Halliday's Ideas

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on SYSFLING on 27 Aug 2020 at 10:01:

It’s also 6 decades since MAKH proposed ’solidary’ relations between metafunctions and field/tenor/mode as contextual dimensions (following Firth and Malinowski), and 3 decades since JRM proposed field/tenor/mode systems as connotative semiotics realised metafunctionally by language and other modalities (following Hjelmslev). The last decade has seen rapid progress in describing these ‘register’ systems and modalities, by rising stars like Jing Hao, Yaegan Doran, Erika Matruglio, Michelle Zappavigna ...

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue on several counts. Firstly, Halliday did not project the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because metafunctions did not feature in Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961).

Secondly, Halliday did not project the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because context, in the SFL sense, did not feature in Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961). Scale & Category Grammar was organised as follows:

Thirdly, Halliday did not follow Firth in projecting the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because, although Halliday's Scale & Category did "follow" Firth in many respects, Firth died long before Halliday had theorised the metafunctions or context as the culture as semiotic system.

Fourthly, Halliday did not follow Malinowski in projecting the metafunctions onto context 6 decades ago, because Malinowski died long before Halliday had theorised the metafunctions. What is true is that Halliday later took Malinowski's notions of context of culture and context of situation and built them into his model of stratification, using Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic.

[2] This is very misleading indeed, because it falsely credits Martin with Halliday's work. Firstly, it was Halliday, not Martin (1992), who first proposed that the culture as semiotic system could be modelled, using Hjelmslev's ideas, as the content plane of a connotative semiotic, with language, a denotative semiotic, as its expression plane.

To be clear, for Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is a semiotic system that has a denotative semiotic system as its expression plane. Martin (1992), while claiming to be following Hjelmslev (p493), reduces the connotative semiotic to only its content plane, context, and models it as varieties of a denotative semiotic, register and genre, which on Hjelmslev's model, are located on the expression plane of the connotative semiotic.

[3] To be clear, since Martin misunderstands context systems (field, tenor, mode) as register (sub-potentials of language that realise context), any descriptions by these former students of Martin cannot be regarded as progress in the development of a coherent theory, however rapid.

∞

Postscript: Martin has not publicly corrected any of the false attributions credited to him by Rose.

David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 1]

David Rose wrote to sysfling on 2 December 2017 at 08:39:

a different but hopefully complementary perspective. I’m interested in social context as a semiotic plane that is organised systemically and realised by language, including grammar and discourse systems. Grammar and discourse construe register (field/tenor/mode) in different ways, partly by configuring lexical items. Eg IDEATION configures items in taxonomies, figures and sequences, TRANSITIVITY in processes, participants and circumstances. Each of these contribute general types of patterns to unfolding construals of a field. Lexical items contribute more specific features of register. …

in a nutshell
David

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'context' means the culture construed as a semiotic system.  This is distinct from the material setting in which interlocutors create texts.  The context is realised by what the interlocutors say (and think).

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, taking metaredundancy into account, context is realised by the realisation of semantics (meaning) in lexicogrammar (wording).

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, language construes context — where construes means intellectually constructs — and field tenor and mode are the metafunctional systems of context.

[4]  To be clear, in SFL theory, register means a functional variety of language, and it is modelled as a  language sub-potential of the content plane (semantics and lexicogrammar).  As sub-potentials of language, different registers realise different sub-potentials of context.  Thus, context and register differ in terms of stratification (context vs language) and instantiation (potential vs sub-potential).

Rose, on the other hand, confuses register with context (field, tenor and mode), and in doing so, misconstrues language as non-language (his "social context"). 

[5] To be clear, in SFL theory, lexical items are not configured.  What are configured are functions in structures, whereas lexical items are the synthetic realisation of the most delicate lexical systems.  

[6] The experiential discourse semantic system of IDEATION is from Martin (1992).  As demonstrated in great detail here, and summarised here, it is a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction), lexis as most delicate grammar, and misapplied logical relations.

[7] This is seriously misleading.  Figures and sequences are types of phenomenon in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48ff).  They do not appear in Martin (1992), where 'activity sequences' —misunderstood from Barthes (1977) — are modelled as field (ideational context), which Martin misconstrues as register.

[8] To be clear, the system of TRANSITIVITY does not configure lexical items "in processes, participants and circumstances".  The system of TRANSITIVITY provides the potential for construing experience as a configuration of process, participants and circumstances.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 212, 213):

…experientially, the clause construes a quantum of change as a figure, or configuration of a process, participants involved in it and any attendant circumstances. …

The system of transitivity provides the lexicogrammatical resources for construing a quantum of change in the flow of events as a figure – as a configuration of elements centred on a process.

[9] Here Rose follows Martin (1992) in misconstruing ideational semantics (the meaning construed) during logogenesis as ideational context (the field of culture construed) — which Martin further misconstrues as a dimension of register.  For Martin's misunderstandings of context see here; for Martin's misunderstandings of register, see here.

[10] There is a sense in which the wording of this is consistent with SFL theory, even if it is not the meaning that Rose has in mind (see [Part 2]).  It is consistent in the sense that registers, in the SFL use of the term, differ in terms of the probabilities of systemic features being instantiated, and given that lexical items realise bundles of the most delicate features, the probabilities of these most delicate features being instantiated are the most delicate means of specifying different registers.

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04In a nutshell.

Case, more like.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=fawlty-towers&episode=s01e04

John Bateman On "The 'Space' Between A Grammatically-Induced Semantics And Any Contextualised Use Of Involved Grammatical Constructions"

John Bateman wrote to sysfling on 2 November 2017 at 19:10:

I guess I should say something since the word 'space' came up.... for variety, spice and funny symbols, see:

• Bateman, J. A. Language and Space: a two-level semantic approach based on principles of ontological engineering. International Journal of Speech Technology, Springer, 2010, 13, 29-48.

and for this as a further refinement of Michael and Christian's Construing Experience:

• Bateman, J. A.; Hois, J.; Ross, R. J. & Tenbrink, T. A linguistic ontology of space for natural language processing Artificial Intelligence, 2010, 174, 1027-1071

One of the main points of these papers (derived from our 12 year collaborative research center on space ...) is to open up the 'space' (ha ha) between a grammatically-induced semantics and any contextualised use of involved grammatical constructions so that the enormous flexibility of ranges of interpretation is both made visible and constrained sufficiently so that it can be worked with productively. In the simple cases, one *might*, along that path, get to descriptions of locations-in-space (measurable, movable-in, etc.); in most cases, however, the constructed context is more interesting. One is in any case dealing at least with places rather than locations (i.e., social constructions and not geometry).

Blogger Comments:

[1] See John Bateman Positively Judging Himself.

[2] For a grammatical analysis of this clause nexus, see The Transitivity Of Bamboozlement.

[3] To be clear, "a grammatically-induced semantics" is the SFL model in which semantic potential is construed by lexicogrammatical potential; and "contextualised use of involved grammatical constructions" refers to the grammatical structures that realise grammatical systems instantiated in texts that realise situations.  The 'space' between the two is not a theoretical space; the two are related along three theoretical dimensions simultaneously:

• stratification (semantics realised by lexicogrammar),
• axis (system realised by structure),
• instantiation (text as instance of system).

[4] Here Bateman follows Martin (1992) in misconstruing ideational semantics (the meaning construed) as ideational context (the field of culture construed).  For Martin's misunderstandings of context see here; for Martin's misunderstandings of stratification, see here.  For Bateman's endorsements of Martin's theoretical misunderstandings, in general, see here.

[5] To be clear, on the SFL model, socially constructed "places" and geometrical "locations" are construals of experience as meanings of socio-semiotic systems. For more on Bateman's epistemological assumptions, see John Bateman Denying The Existence Of Text.

David Rose Confusing The Cultural Context Of Language With Language Variation

David Rose wrote to sys-func and sysfling list on 9 February 2017 at 17:39:

A genre is a recurrent configuration of register variation (field, tenor, mode)

Any instance of a genre will involve recognisable recurrent register configurations

That doesn't mean they recur with exactly the same elements, in exactly the same order

They can vary in field, in tenor, and in mode

John's examples of ‘routines’ are recurrent activity series, which are variations in field. … 

But the configuration is still recognisable to themselves and others as a genre
If it is not recognisable as an instance of one genre, then it must be another genre. 

This model of genre is developed from the work of Hasan, Gregory, Barthes and Bakhtin, that Annabelle’s quote touches on. The major innovation is that context is modelled as a semiotic plane, stratified as genre and register, and realised in language. In this model, what Hasan calls a ‘cultural practice’ is intrinsically a ‘semiotic act’.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The confusions here are multidimensional and build on each other.  In short:

What Rose Says	What SFL Theory Says
A genre is a recurrent configuration of register variation (field, tenor, mode)	A genre is a type of text.  Genre is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.
	The field tenor and mode of a situation type (context) is realised by a register/genre (language)
Any instance of a genre will involve recognisable recurrent register configurations	An instance of a genre/register is a text.  A text realises the field, tenor and mode features of a situation (an instance of context).
That doesn't mean they recur with exactly the same elements, in exactly the same order They can vary in field, in tenor, and in mode	Variation in contextual configurations of field tenor and mode (situation types) is realised by variation in language (registers/genres)

[2] Martin's (1992) use of the term 'activity sequences' confuses what goes on in a text with what goes on in the environment of a text.  Evidence is provided here.

[3] Note that for Martin's model of genre as a system of context, rather than as a text type, an instance of a genre is an instance of context, not an instance of language.  That is, on this model, an instance of genre is not a text.

[4] This is very misleading, since it falsely claims that the modelling of context as semiotic is an innovation of Martin's model.  In SFL, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system. As demonstrated on this blog and elsewhere, Martin's model confuses context with diatypic varieties of language (registers/genres).