David Rose Misrepresenting His Posts On 'Axis'

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on sysfling on 9/8/22 at 9:07:

Rather than an argument, I’d call the macro-genre of this thread a jointly constructed factorial explanation, more informing for anyone interested, than arguing a position. Its factorial structure was given by the points you raised in your 3 August sysfunc post, and each Factor drew on others’ explanations. So explicitly heteroglossic (trying not to mansplain, pace Lexi). Factors were...

1. MAKH’s view of axis (following Firth and Saussure)

2. Relations between features and structures in systems

3. Differences between stratal and axial realisation

4. Stratal relations between phonology/lexicogrammar and semantics in the ‘meaning/wording/sounding’ formula

5. Axis and strata in other modalities

6. Hjelmslev’s influence on MAKH’s stratal model

7. Axis and strata in protolanguage

So yes, very much theory internal (strong verticality in Jo Muller’s terms), but also highly appliable (strong grammaticality). That’s how axis is usually presented in SFL, as a theoretical tool for describing language and other modalities, and for theory building. But I think it is not simply a linguistic innovation by MAKH, but a discovery of how semiosis works. That was the inspiration for my diagram in Factor 2, centred on the claim ‘Structures are perceivable tokens of the abstract values of features’.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue on several counts. 

• Firstly, the email thread in question was not jointly constructed. No other list members contributed to the points that Rose tried to make. 
• Secondly, it was not a 'factorial explanation'. According to Martin & Rose (2007: 345), a factorial explanation is a genre ('text type' in SFL) whose purpose ('rhetorical mode' in SFL) is explaining multiple causes, and whose stages ('semantic structure' in SFL) are Phenomenon^Explanation. The previous 20+ posts demonstrate that Rose was not concerned with multiple causes, but with multiple examples of theoretical uses of 'axis', inter alia.
• Thirdly, the posts in the thread were not informing, but misinforming, as demonstrated by the previous 20+ posts on this blog.
• Fourthly, the posts in the thread were indeed arguing a position, Martin's, which Rose explicitly stated as 'axis is key', axis is sufficient' etc.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The previous 20+ blog posts demonstrate that Rose's emails do not have the 'factorial' structure of Phenomenon^Explanation. Rose and his citations have been strong on assertion, but weak on explanation.

[3] This misunderstands heteroglossia. Heteroglossia involves the expressions of different points of view. In his posts, Rose has cited different authors that he believes support the same point of view.

[4] Mansplain verb. (of a man) explain (something) to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronising.

[5] See, for example:

• David Rose Misrepresenting Axis As Key To Semantics-Grammar Relations
• David Rose Misrepresenting Halliday's Development Of SFL Theory
• David Rose Misrepresenting Axis
• David Rose Misrepresenting Halliday On Axis
• David Rose Misunderstanding Halliday's "Axial Breakthrough"
• David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstanding Of Stratal Relations As Axial
• David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings Of Protolanguage

[6] This is potentially misleading. On the one hand, the innovation, the distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, was made in Course in General Linguistics (Saussure 1916), nine years before Halliday's birth. 

On the other hand, on the epistemological assumptions of SFL Theory, theories do not "discover truth" ('how semiosis works'). Instead, they reconstrue data validly, or otherwise, on the basis of the assumptions of the theory, valid or otherwise, and vary in their explanatory potential in different contexts of use. Rose here expresses a transcendent view of meaning — meanings are 'out there' to be discovered — whereas SFL assumes an immanent perspective, wherein meanings are construed in semiotic systems. See Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415-8).

[7] For the self-contradictions in Rose's diagram, see

• David Rose Misunderstanding Generalisation And Abstraction

David Rose Misrepresenting IFG On Modality

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 25/7/22 at 17:44:

Thanks Chris, for another opportunity to compare the models.

Again, MODALITY is a described grammatical system, at clause rank in English, but the same term is used below for a semantic ‘domain’. And again, the account in IFG 1/2 differed from the account in IFG 3/4. In IFG1/2, MAKH described the implicit/explicit: subjective/objective orientations topologically, as interpersonal metaphors of modality. But in IFG 3/4 they are presented instead as features in the MODALITY system, within the MOOD system (Fig 4-13, Fig 4-23). The entry condition for this system is [clause], but the metaphorical realisations of subjective and objective orientations are projections and embedding (I think.../it is likely that...), blurring the line between grammar and semantics.

The described discourse semantic system is APPRAISAL: ENGAGEMENT: heterogloss, for which MODALITY is one resource to introduce additional voices into a discourse, alongside PROJECTION and CONCESSION.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misleading. Halliday (± Matthiessen) explicitly describes MODALITY as a semantic system. Halliday (1994: 356) and Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 691):

The reason this area of the semantic system is so highly elaborated metaphorically is to be found in the nature of modality itself … Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity.

The fact that it is construed as a semantic system is also demonstrated by it having both congruent and metaphorical grammatical realisations. 

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Less importantly, it is only the explicit ORIENTATION that is metaphorical (Halliday 1994: 362). More importantly, the topological representation in IFG1/2 (and IFG3/4) does not describe MODALITY systems, but the relation of modality to polarity and mood. Halliday (1994: 367):

[3] This is misleading, because MODALITY is presented as a system network in IFG1/2 as well as IFG3/4. Halliday (1994: 358, 360):

Cf. Figure 4-23 in Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 182):

[4] This is misleading. By including the system of MODALITY in his grammatical network of MOOD — Figure 4-15 in IFG3, Figure 4-13 in IFG4 — Matthiessen is interpreting grammatical form (modelled as a rank scale) in terms of its function in realising meaning, consistent with the modus operandi of SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 162):

Contrary to Rose's claim, the rank of clause is the appropriate entry condition for clause rank complexing (projection) and  clause rank elements realised by embedded clauses.

[5] For some of the misunderstandings in Working with Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007) in this regard, see:

• On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality, Obligation, Inclination And Ability
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of Obligation
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Projections", "Polarity" And "Modality"
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concessive But"
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concession"
• On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concessive Conjunctions"

Importantly, projection is not included as a logical system in discourse semantics (Martin 1992, Martin & Rose 2007). This is because the original intellectual source of Martin's CONJUNCTION is the system of cohesive conjunction in Halliday & Hasan (1976), and projection does not function cohesively. So, not only does discourse semantics fail to account for the semantics of projection, it also disables any attempt to account for grammatical metaphor in which projection is featured.

John Bateman On 'Genre Mixing'

John Bateman wrote to sys-func and sysfling on 10 February 2017 at 23:57: 

So, yes, one can well get a variety of 'mixes' when we cross strata, and perhaps the more abstract, the more this is possible (semiotically because the body or weight of distinctions instantiated at the less abstract strata begins to be sufficiently substantial as to be able to 'stand against' other collections of instantiations). Isn't this just heteroglossia? Doesn't sound too contentious.

As a text unfolds, there is then sufficient material to realise syndromes of choices that appear to realise several 'genres' either simultaneously or within locally distinct portions of the text as a whole. Taking the weather-climate metaphor: some texts may have patchy weather, perhaps even microclimates, generically. This shouldn't lead to theoretical difficulties.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands stratification.  There is no "crossing of strata" during logogenesis.  In SFL, strata are different levels of symbolic abstraction, not interacting modules.  Since "going up the strata" cannot occur, it cannot increase the likelihood of a text being attributed to more than one text type ("genre mixing").

[2] To be clear, on the SFL model, the way that genres differ is in terms of the frequencies of feature selections (if viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation, as text types), or in terms of the probabilities of feature selections (if viewed from the system pole, as registers).

[3] In SFL, the criterial stratum for genre classification is semantics. This is because genre/text type/register is a semantic concept.  Halliday in Halliday & Hasan (1985: 38-9):

A register is a semantic concept.  It can be defined as a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode, and tenor.  But since it is a configuration of meanings, a register must also, of course, include the expressions, the lexico-grammatical and phonological features, that typically accompany or REALISE these meanings.

[4] This is not heteroglossia.  Heteroglossia refers to the same wording realising different meaning in different contexts.  Bakhtin (1981: 428):

The base condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance. It is that which insures the primacy of context over text. At any given time, in any given place, there will be a set of conditions — social, historical, meteorological, physiological — that will insure that a word uttered in that place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other conditions; all utterances are heteroglot in that they are functions of a matrix of forces practically impossible to recoup, and therefore impossible to resolve.

[5] This misconstrues instantiation as stratification, following Martin (1992).  In SFL, the relation between text and genre is instantiation, not realisation.  Some of the theoretical problems with Martin's construal of genre as a stratum of context are detailed here.  It can be briefly noted, for instance, that if genre is modelled as a stratum of context, then a text is not an instance of a genre, since text is an instance of language, not context, and genre is modelled as context, not language.

[6] This misunderstands the weather-climate metaphor that is used to explain the cline of instantiation.  On the basis of that metaphor, the meteorological counterpart of a text that "mixes genres" is weather that "mixes weather types".  That is to say, the meteorological counterpart of a text that fits the statistical profile of more than one genre is weather that fits the statistical profile of more than one weather type.