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 Misunderstanding Axial Relations And Connotative Semiotics

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 24 August 2023 at 00:01:

Axis is the systemic in systemic functional. In this theory, the coupling of generalisation with abstraction in the axial relation is the basis of semiosis. It is not merely a formalism of the theory, rather the formalism mirrors the semiotic relation. There can be no structures outside of systems, and no systems without structures. This includes systems at each rank, stratum and metafunction, of denotative semiotics like language and image, and connotative semiotics like register and genre.

There are plenty of other theories out there, but axis is what sets this one apart. SFS has been influenced by many theories in lx and other disciplines. It proceeds by examining the objects of these theories through the lens of axis, with procedures designed by Halliday in the 1960s for phonology and grammar, and applied since to these and other strata and modalities.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Axis is a dimension with two orders: paradigmatic and syntagmatic. The 'systemic' in 'systemic functional' is the paradigmatic order of axis only.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The axial relation is the (realisation) relation between the paradigmatic axis and the syntagmatic axis. It is not a "coupling of generalisation with abstraction".

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Structures are, by definition, "outside of systems" since the two are of different orders: structures are syntagmatic (chains), whereas systems are paradigmatic (choices).

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Hjelmslev's connotative semiotic is a semiotic that has a denotative semiotic as its expression plane. What Rose refers to as a connotative semiotic is only the content plane of the connotative semiotic. However, register and genre (text type) are varieties of a denotative semiotic: language. In terms of a connotative semiotic, register and genre are on its expression plane (language) not its content plane (context).

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. There was no Systemic Functional theory in the 1960s. Halliday's theory at that time was Scale-&-Category Grammar, which had no system networks and no metafunctions.

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 On Exchange, Marxian Theory And Halliday (1961)

David Rose responded to Kieran McGillicuddy on sys-func on 3 June 2022 at 11:08:

Perhaps [Halliday's] greatest contribution was to show us how ‘production’ and ‘exchange’ happen simultaneously, through grammatical metafunctions, that it is in fact a co-production between speakers. But this co-production is necessarily sequenced in time – one person then another. And each person evaluates the other as they speak or gesture. That’s what the ‘exchange’ metaphor attempts to capture... to technicalise and iconise.

I’m interested in the fields these metaphors are imported from. Put ‘exchange’ together with ‘powerhouse where meaning are made’, with what we know of the old man’s history and what motivated his career, and we get the field of Marxist theory of economic production and exchange, combined with Hjelmslev’s theory of semiotic strata.

In my view this helps to explain how he conceptualised the grammar/semantics relation in 1961, when his research focus was grammar... with grammar as the productive ‘base’ where meanings are made, that redounds with a semantic ‘superstructure’ of these meanings.

Blogger Comments:

[1] For some, Halliday's greatest contribution was his formulation of a scientifically rigorous theory of language.

[2] To be clear, Halliday did not show that language is  'a coproduction between speakers … sequenced in time'. This has been the experience of language users since time immemorial. This is one aspect of the data that is modelled in his theory.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The "exchange metaphor" does not attempt to "capture…to technicalise and iconise" any reciprocal evaluation by interlocutors. Exchange means giving and demanding (to be given) information or goods-&-services: the system of SPEECH FUNCTION. Whether or not interlocutors actually evaluate each other in their texts is another matter entirely.

[4] To be clear, this is nonsense. On the one hand, exchange is not Marxian theory; as a social phenomenon, it is data that can be interpreted in terms of Marxian, or any other, theory. On the other hand, the word 'powerhouse' was Matthiessen's addition to his editions of IFG (2004, 2014) and it was used to elaborate Halliday's original (1985, 1994) metaphor, drawn from the functioning of a computer, of grammar as the central processing unit of language, not to evoke "economic production and exchange". 

[5] To be clear, as levels of symbolic abstraction in linguistic theory, strata ultimately derive from Saussure's sign, where Signified is the higher level and Signifier is the lower level. Hjelmslev conceived of the higher level as content, and lower level as expression, in his characterisation of a denotative semiotic. Hjelmslev distinguished this from a connotative semiotic, which has a denotative system as its expression plane, and Halliday adopted this to model culture as the content plane and language as the expression plane of a connotative semiotic.

[6] This misrepresents the theoretical architecture of Scale & Category Grammar (Halliday 1961). Halliday (2002 [1961]: 39):

The words 'semantics' and 'semantic' were not used in Halliday (1961). The word 'context' in the above diagram was characterised by Halliday (ibid.) as follows:

The context is the relation of the form to non-linguistic features of the situations in which language operates, and to linguistic features other than those of the item under attention: these being together “extratextual” features. … Context is in fact (like phonology) an interlevel relating form to extratextual features.

And again, the compositional relation between a productive base and its superstructure is not analogous to the symbolic abstraction relation between grammar and semantics.

David Rose On Hjelmslev's Connotative And Denotative Semiotics

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 21 March 2022 at 1:48 pm:

The beauty of Hjelmslev’s interpretation is that ‘context’ can be described as a connotative semiotic (i.e. as systems of meanings), using the theoretical tools developed in SFL for describing language. This has enabled the description of field, tenor and mode as semiotic systems, whose options are configured (more abstractly) by selections in genre systems, and are realised by semiotic systems of language and other modalities. In Hjelmslev’s model the latter are denotative semiotics, as their expression planes are not separate semiotics (e.g. phonology in language). In contrast, connotative semiotics (e.g. genre and register) have other semiotics as their expression plane (e.g. language, image etc).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, what Hjelmslev (1969 [1943]: 114) actually says is:

In the last section, despite a considerable broadening of the perspective, we have still acted as if the unique object of linguistic theory were the denotative semiotic, by which we mean a semiotic none of whose planes is a semiotic. It still remains, through a final broadening of our horizon, to indicate that there are also semiotics whose expression plane is a semiotic — and semiotics whose content plane is a semiotic. The former we shall call connotative semiotics, the latter metasemiotics.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. As the quote above makes plain, it is not just context that constitutes a connotative semiotic, but both context (content plane) and language (expression plane).

[3] To be clear, this is Martin's model of context, which mistakes varieties of a denotative semiotic (register and genre) for connotative semiotics (misunderstood as context only).

[4] This misunderstands Hjelmslev's notion of a denotative semiotic. As the quote above makes plain, a denotative semiotic is a semiotic where neither the content nor expression plane is itself a semiotic (i.e. stratified into content and expression).

[5] To be clear, this confuses variety with stratification. Genre and register are varieties of language, and as such, are at the same level of symbolic abstraction as language, not a higher level that is realised by language. Because both genre and register are at the same symbolic level as language, neither conforms to Hjelmslev's notion of the content plane of a connotative semiotic.

∞

Summary of Rose's misunderstandings of Hjelmslev:

David Rose On Axial Realisation, Metaredundancy And Connotative Semiotics

David Rose replied to David Kellogg on sys-func on 25 Jan 2022 at 17:51:10:

… SFL’s position is that a notion of ‘mind’ outside of meaning is misleading.

Solving the linguistic puzzle is not much helped by the short-hand formula ‘sounding realizes wording realizes meaning’, which foregrounds metaredundancy but elides the axial dimension of each stratum, that is central to SFL theory, along with rank. In fact, features in systems at each stratum are meaningful in relation to each other, realized axially by structures. So within lexicogrammar, structures of wordings already realize meanings of wordings (i.e. features in LG systems). Within discourse semantics, features in DS systems are realized by DS structures. The same holds for structures of soundings at the rank of tone group, but less obviously at ranks of foot and syllable.

Lemke’s point about metaredundancy was that these axial relations at each stratum are not isolated from each other, but constitute ‘patterns of patterns of patterns’ that conspire to realize unfolding meanings as text. 

Hjelmslev then allows us then to treat ‘context’ as connotative semiotic systems realized by denotative systems of language and other modalities. Not only is there no need for ‘mind’, but neither for ‘context’ outside of meaning.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the notion of 'mind' becomes unnecessary when biological, social and semiotic systems are brought into close relation. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 603):

These suggest that the concept of 'mind' should be brought into close relation with other phenomena — biological, social, or semiotic. … But once this has been done, the mind itself tends to disappear, it is no longer necessary as a construct sui generis. Instead of experience being construed by the mind, in the form of knowledge, we can say that experience is construed by the grammar; to 'know' something is to have transformed some portion of experience into meaning. To adopt this perspective is to theorise "cognitive processes" in terms of semiotic, social and biological systems; and thus to see them as a natural concomitant of the processes of evolution.

[2] To be clear, the short-hand formula 'sounding realises wording realises meaning' — which Kellogg did not use — does not foreground metaredundancy, because it ignores metaredundancy. As Halliday explains, metaredundancy is a 'redundancy of redundancies', which can be represented by bracketing: sounding realises (the realisation of meaning in wording).

[3] To be clear, Kellogg's "linguistic puzzle" is that posed by Halliday's application of metaredundancy to the realisation relation between strata. That is why metaredundancy is rightly foregrounded by Kellogg, and why Rose's inclusion of axis and rank is irrelevant.

[4] This is a serious misunderstanding of SFL theory. The relations of features to each other in systems are paradigmatic, and paradigmatic relations are not realised axially by syntagmatic structures. For example, within lexicogrammar, the disjunctive relation of the features [mental] and [existential] in the system of PROCESS TYPE is not realised by the structure of a clause.

[5] For some of the theoretical inconsistencies in the modelling of discourse semantic structures, see:

• here and here (English Text), and
• here (Working With Discourse).

[6] To be clear, the claim here is that the structures of soundings realise the meanings of soundings. This is a serious misunderstanding on two counts. Firstly, phonological structures (e.g. Pretonic^Tonic) do not realise relations between features in phonological systems (e.g. between [tone2] and [tone4]); see [4] above. 

Secondly, the meanings of soundings are located on the content plane, not on the expression plane, where phonological systems are located. This relates to Martin's misunderstanding of stratification, in which, from a statement of semogenesis 'all strata make meaning' he falsely concludes that all strata are meaning — including phonology!

[7] To be clear, the discussion was not concerned with "Lemke's point about metaredundancy" but with Halliday's application of Lemke's metaredundancy to the realisation relation between strata, to which the relation between axes is irrelevant.

More importantly, the view that Rose falsely attributes to Lemke is theoretical nonsense. For example, Rose claims that the relation between system and structure, on all strata, together "conspire to realise" text during logogenesis.

To translate this into coherent SFL Theory: the instantiation of the system during logogenesis involves the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements that specify structures. The different strata on which this occurs are different levels of symbolic abstraction; different angles on the process of instantiation.

Most importantly, Rose follows Martin in confusing metaredundancy with the cline of instantiation. In SFL Theory, 'pattern' refers to a pattern of instantiation in the logogenesis of a text; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 593ff). A pattern of such patterns is what some texts may have in common, so it represents a move up the cline of instantiation from text to text type.

Metaredundancy, on the other hand, is not a patterns of patterns. It is, for example, the realisation of a semantic pattern by the realisation of lexicogrammatical pattern in a phonological pattern.

[8] To be clear, here Rose again repeats Martin's misunderstanding of Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic system. For Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is one that has a denotative semiotic system as its expression plane. Applied to the stratificational hierarchy of SFL Theory, a connotative semiotic consists of context with language as its expression plane. Martin misconstrues a connotative semiotic as just its content plane, his context, and compounds the error by locating varieties of a denotative semiotic, register and genre, in his connotative semiotic.

[9] To be clear, these are non-sequiturs, since neither claim has been supported by argument in the preceding text. Moreover, since 'context' is meaning construed of experience, the notion of context being outside meaning is, in any case, nonsensical.

However, it is likely that Rose meant that there is no need for a material order context, given that he follows Martin in miscontruing context as varieties of language, genre and register, which they model as semiotic but not language. The problem here, though, is that it removes the possibility of exophoric reference to the material order in both cohesive REFERENCE (Halliday & Hasan 1976) and Martin's rebranding of it as discourse semantic IDENTIFICATION. For example, the exophoric reference of this laptop computer is not to either register or genre, but to the material order in which this post is being typed.

∞

It can be seen from the above that it takes an enormous amount of work to demonstrate that Rose does not understand SFL Theory. His ability to pack so many misunderstandings into so few words still astonishes me.

David Rose Repeating Jim Martin's Misunderstanding Of Hjelmslev's Connotative Semiotic

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 2 Dec 2021, at 09:56:

If formal logic is derived from ‘natural' logic of language, then this kind of symbolism may be useful for a ’natural’ philosophy of language. It frees us to re-interpret choices we are given, beyond simply either/or. Are simultaneous choices possible? Are there more general or more delicate choices we can make?

For example, if we choose the metalinguistic feature [functional], then [systemic], must we then choose between lexicogrammatical or discourse semantic analysis, or are both possible? If we choose a [solidary] relation between language and social context, must we choose between a denotative or connotative perspective, or are both possible?

Selections from these metalinguistic systems are continually instantiated as linguistic fields unfold, and always couple features from both field and tenor systems. As with language systems, 'users share attitude and ideation couplings…to form bonds’ , to affiliate with one or another group (or both:)…

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the choice of stratum for analysis is a choice of level of symbolic abstraction: wording (lexicogrammar) or meaning (semantics). But as Halliday (1985: xvii) points out:

A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one. But meanings are realised through wordings; and without a theory of wordings — that is, a grammar — there is no way of making explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of a text.

Martin's discourse semantics, however, is another matter entirely. For evidence that the model of discourse semantics is, inter alia, rebrandings of Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday & Hasan's COHESION (textual lexicogrammar) and Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION (interpersonal semantics) see the close examination of English Text (Martin 1992) here, and the close examination of Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007) here.

Importantly, in SFL Theory, lexicogrammar is interpreted in terms of the meaning it realises — e.g. verbal group as Process — and in the absence of grammatical metaphor, lexicogrammar (wording) and semantics (meaning) are in agreement (congruent). Martin's discourse semantics, however, as a rebranding of COHESION, cannot provide a congruent relation between wording and meaning, because it actually models textual lexicogrammar rather than multifunctional semantics. This, in turn, undermines the systematic description of grammatical metaphor: the incongruent relation between wording and meaning.

[2] To be clear, 'solidary' is Martin's term — taken from Barthes (1977: 101) — for what he claims (1992: 20) is the 'natural' relation between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. (The word 'solidary' actually means of a group or community: characterised by solidarity or coincidence of interests.)

However, in SFL Theory, the natural relation between semantics and lexicogrammar actually refers to the non-arbitrary relation between experiential meanings and grammatical form, such as that between process and verbal group, participant and nominal group, circumstance and adverbial group. It is this natural relation that makes a functional grammar possible. See Halliday (1985: xvii-xx).

Here Rose applies 'solidary' to the relation between language and social context, where social context is misunderstood, in Martin's model, as varieties of language (register and genre). The reader is invited to identify a linguistic theory that models the relation between language and context, whether understood as culture, or misunderstood as varieties of language, as 'unnatural'. 

[3] To be clear, here Rose is referring to Martin's stratified model, which identifies the context plane with a connotative semiotic system and the language plane with a denotative semiotic system. However, this is a serious misunderstanding of Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic, which Martin (1992: 493) claims to be using.

Importantly, for Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is a semiotic system that has a denotative semiotic system as its expression plane. Martin (1992), however, misunderstands the connotative semiotic to be merely its content plane, context, excluding its expression plane: language. 

Moreover, Martin compounds the error by locating register and genre, varieties of language, a denotative semiotic — the expression plane of the connotative semiotic — in the content plane of the connotative semiotic. That is, in Martin's stratification hierarchy, varieties of language are not modelled as language. This is analogous to claiming that varieties of dog — terriers, poodles etc. — are not dogs.

[4] To be clear, what Rose refers to as 'metalinguistic systems' are systems that classify linguistic theories. In SFL Theory, these are systems whose entry condition is the FIELD feature 'linguistics', where 'field' means the ideational dimension of context; that is: the culture as semiotic system. Rose, on the other hand, follows Martin in misunderstanding FIELD as a system of register. In SFL Theory, register is a subpotential of language, not a system of context.

[5] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the claim here is that selections from linguistic FIELD systems ("metalinguistic systems") are continually instantiated as linguistic fields unfold. Firstly, this misunderstands instantiation. Selections from systems are not instantiated; the selection of features is the instantiation.

Secondly, there is no "continual" instantiation of FIELD system features. The instantiation of the context of culture as a context of situation is the selection of a specific configuration of FIELD, TENOR and MODE system features. If a different FIELD system feature is selected, a different context is instantiated.

Rose's misunderstanding here derives from the misunderstanding of field in Martin's model. Although, Martin misunderstands field as a dimension of register, he further compounds the problem by confusing field with ideational semantics; see the evidence here. So, from the perspective of SFL Theory, what Rose is actually concerned with here is the instantiation of ideational semantic features in the logogenesis of a text.

[6] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the claim here is that selections from linguistic FIELD systems ("metalinguistic systems") always couple features from both field and tenor systems. Clearly, this is incoherent when expressed this way, since it is not the selection of FIELD features that causes the "coupling" (co-selection of features across FIELD and TENOR systems). More coherently, any situation involves the instantiation of a configuration of contextual features (from the systems of FIELD, TENOR and MODE).

[7] To be clear, this bears no relation to any of the text that precedes it. The terms 'coupling', 'bonding' and 'affiliation' are from Martin and his students, and the unremarkable claim here is simply that people form social alliances on the basis of shared values. The same might be said of social insects; see also:

David Rose Negatively Appreciating The Deployment Of Logic

David Rose Positively Judging Jim Martin's Empire Building.

David Rose Misrepresenting Jim Martin's 'English Text' (1992)

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

It’s also now 3 decades since JRM showed how grammar/semantics relations vary between systems that serve to organise discourse metafunctionally, and how congruent/incongruent contrasts display ‘stratal tension' between grammatical and discourse semantic functions. In this light, MAKH’s 1975 Hjelmslevian metaphor of 'splitting the content plane’ needs revising, since his evidence actually shows that grammatical metafunctions emerge with exchanges and figure sequences, i.e. discourse semantic systems.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue on several counts. Firstly, Martin (1992) takes the relation between grammar and his discourse semantics to be invariably one of realisation: 'the realisation relationship between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar' (p57), and does not propose different relations, varying according to metafunction (but see the note on 'interaction patterns' below). Secondly, Martin does not understand the notion of realisation (or instantiation), as shown by the following quote (p5), where he misunderstands it as a relation between system and process (i.e. in SFL terms, between system and the process of instantiation):

As noted above, system is related to process through the concept of realisation — realisation formalises the instantiation of system in process.

Thirdly, despite using the term 'realisation' for the relation between strata, Martin does not understand strata as different levels of symbolic abstraction. Instead, Martin mistakes all strata as one level of symbolic abstraction, linguistic meaning, and misunderstands strata as interacting modules, and proposes different interaction patterns between grammar and discourse semantics: cohesive harmony, modal responsibility, method of development and point (p393). None of these are modelled as interaction patterns by the (misunderstood) intellectual sources of these ideas: Hasan (cohesive harmony), Halliday (modal responsibility) and Fries (method of development and point). Moreover, in later work, Martin & Rose (2007), cohesive harmony and modal responsibility are absent, and method of development and point are reconstrued as the textual discourse semantic system of periodicity (critiqued here), thereby dismissing the original proposals.

[2] This is misleading, because Martin's discourse semantic systems are his rebrandings of Halliday's interpersonal semantic system, speech function, and Halliday & Hasan's textual lexicogrammatical systems, cohesion, as previously explained. In Martin's model, the textual system of conjunction is rebranded as a logical system (conjunction/connexion), and the textual system of lexical cohesion is rebranded as an experiential system. That is, in terms of SFL Theory, Martin's discourse semantic systems are limited to two metafunctions, interpersonal and textual, and only one system is semantic.

[3] To be clear, Martin's notion of 'stratal tension', which does not appear in Martin (1992), is simply a rebranding of Halliday's notion of an incongruent (metaphorical) relation between semantics and grammar. But more importantly, on Martin's model, there is stratal tension regardless of whether the grammatical realisation is metaphorical. For example, Martin's logical system, conjunction/connexion, is not organised according the three general types of expansion: elaboration, extension and enhancement, and the logico-semantic relation of projection is entirely absent. The reason for this is that Martin's source material, Cohesion In English (Halliday & Hasan 1976) was not organised on the three types of expansion, and being a model of cohesion, did not include projection.

[4] To be clear, this is 'metaphor' in the sense of theoretical model. Hjelmslev (1943) conceived of a content plane which distinguished content substance and content form. Halliday (1975), in describing the shift from protolanguage to language, relates meaning to content substance and wording to content form. Halliday (2004 [1975]: 55):

In Hjelmslevian terms, the functional basis of language has shifted from the “content substance” (in a system having no level of form) to the “content form”.

[5] This is misleading, because, to the extent that it is coherent, it is not true.

Firstly, even if it were true that Martin (1992) did provide evidence "that grammatical metafunctions emerge with exchanges and figure sequences, i.e. discourse semantic systems", it does not follow from this that the stratification of content into meaning and wording would need revising. The theoretical value of stratified content derives from the fact that it provides a systematic means of explaining grammatical metaphor.

Secondly, the notion that "grammatical metafunctions emerge" misunderstands SFL Theory. For Halliday, the metafunctions are highly generalised meanings that are used to interpret lexicogrammatical form. As Halliday (1985 & 1994: xvii) explains:

the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded. A functional grammar is designed to bring this out; it is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means.

Thirdly, 'figure sequences' do not constitute evidence on this matter because they do not appear in Martin (1992). This is because 'figure' and 'sequence' feature in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), which wasn't published until seven years after Martin's publication.

David Rose Misunderstanding Cohesion And Instantiation

David Rose began a third reply to Erich Steiner on sysfling on 16 May 2018 at 11:47:

In the cohesion model your post advocates, texts are modelled instantially, as cohesive relations between grammatical instances. For empirical research, this model must resort to classifying text types by statistical counting of grammatical types (not a ‘bag-of-words', but a countable collection of clause types). It must do so because it no longer has access to the SFL empiricism of systems, since cohesive relations are defined as 'non-structural’, i.e. outside the feature/structure relations of grammatical systems. …

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the cohesion model referred to is the SFL model, first articulated by Halliday & Hasan (1976) and integrated explicitly within the lexicogrammatical model in the four editions of An Introduction To Functional Grammar (Halliday ± Matthiessen).

[2] This misunderstands instantiation.  In SFL theory, language-as-text is construed as an instance of language-as-system, and in this sense, all texts are "modelled instantially" by those who understand the theory.

[3] This misunderstands instantiation.  In SFL theory, every deployment of cohesion in a text is a lexicogrammatical instance of the lexicogrammatical system of cohesion.  The wording "cohesive relations between grammatical instances" is nonsensical.

[4] To be clear, empirical research is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience.

[5] To be clear, grammatical cohesion and the classification of text types are distinct domains of SFL theory.

[6] To be clear, in SFL theory, the different frequencies of grammatical choices in texts are instances of the different probabilities that distinguish different registers.

[7] On the one hand, this is invalid reasoning ("it must do so…") from the series of misunderstandings that precede it; see [1] to [6] above.  On the other hand, it invalidly argues a false conclusion from a misunderstanding of a true premiss.  The argument is as follows:

• A. cohesive relations are defined as non-structural (true)
• B. cohesive relations are outside the feature/structure relations of grammatical systems (misunderstanding of A)
• C. the model of cohesion has no access to systems (false)

To be clear, the reason that B is a misunderstanding of A is that the fact that the syntagmatic realisation of cohesion is non-structural does not entail that the paradigmatic organisation of cohesion is not modelled as system.  The claims of both B and C are falsified by the system of cohesive conjunction (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 612):

[8] To be clear, empiricism is the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses.  This is distinct from the use of system networks to model language as choice.