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 There Being No Important Differences Between Martin And Halliday & Hasan

David Rose replied to Attia Rasool on SYSFLING on 16 Sept 2023 at 09:32:

There are no important differences between Martin’s, Halliday’s and Hasan’s approaches in SFL. Halliday’s major contribution was developing SFL theory in the process of describing lexicogrammar and intonation through the 1960-70s. He and Hasan used the work on lexicogrammar to describe structures of discourse as ‘cohesion’ in 1976. Hasan was also trained as a sociologist. She and Halliday both used the work on lexicogrammar to interpret aspects of social contexts in their later work.

Martin used Halliday’s and Hasan’s work on lexicogrammar and discourse to describe discourse semantic systems. His foundational English Text (1992) explains carefully how this work builds on their research. It should be read closely by anyone interested in SFL.

Martin also extended SFL theory to social context, describing field, tenor and mode as semiotic systems, realised in language, and genre as a semiotic system realised in field, tenor and mode. This work has been widely applied to research in education and other fields.

Martin and colleagues then built on Kress and van Leeuwen’s work on images to describe other modalities as semiotic systems. Martin and colleagues have also integrated Halliday’s, Hasan’s and others’ research on ‘users’ and ‘uses’ of language, as individuation and instantiation.

Work on individuation helps to understand various alignments within the SFL community in terms of affiliation, or bonding around icons. As the founder of the field, Halliday has been iconised, so that SFL work beyond his was sometimes seen as too different and less legitimate. This is not the view of younger generations.

Measured objectively, by far the most influential figures in SFL have been Halliday with [almost 200,000] citations, and Martin with almost 100,000 citations. Other leaders in SFL have only a fraction of these followers.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed, because there are very many important irreconcilable differences, all deriving from Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's theory. See some of the evidence at:

Review of Martin (1992)
Review of Bateman (1998)
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
Review of Martin (2013)
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
Review of Martin & Doran (2023)

[2] This is potentially misleading. Halliday's "major contribution" was to actually formulate SFL theory, developing it, in the 1970s, from his 1960s theory, Scale & Category Grammar. The integration of all the dimensions that the theory assigns to language is Halliday's work. Without Halliday, SFL Theory does not exist; without Martin, it does. 

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Hasan (1976) theorises the lexicogrammatical systems of cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction. Later, Martin (1992) rebranded his misunderstandings of their non-structural systems as his structural systems of discourse semantics. See the evidence at Review of Martin (1992).

[4] This is potentially misleading. In the 1960s, Hasan worked at the Sociolinguistic Research Centre with Basil Bernstein.

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Hasan did not interpret context in terms of the lexicogrammar. Halliday used Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic to stratify context in relation to language, and projected the notion of metafunction onto context as the systems of field, tenor and mode.

[6] For the closest of all readings of Martin (1992), see  Review of Martin (1992).

[7] This is very misleading indeed, because it credits Martin with Halliday's work. It was Halliday who modelled context in terms of field, tenor and mode. Martin's "contribution" was to misunderstand context (the culture as semiotic system) as register (a diatypic variety of language). See the evidence at Review of Martin (1992).

[8] To be clear, Martin's genre is a confusion of text type (register viewed from the instance pole), mode (textual context) and semantics not organised by metafunction. It unwittingly proposes that stages of a narrative ("genre"), for example, are realised by the relative social status of the speaker and addressee (tenor). See the evidence here, here and here.

[9] For some of the misunderstandings in Martin's work on pictorial semiosis, see here (Working With Discourse) and here (Deploying Functional Grammar). For theoretical and ethical problems with "Martin's" work on "paralanguage", see Martin's Model Of Paralanguage.

[10] To be clear, Martin does not understand instantiation; evidence here, here and here. And as previously explained, Martin's model of individuation incongruously maps a meronymic taxonomy (affiliation) onto a hyponymic taxonomy (individuation). See the previous post David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation.

[11] See The Tactics Of The Disciplinarian Head Of The Martin Faith Community.

[12] To be clear, here Rose implies that Martin's work has been rejected because it is too different or less legitimate, rather than because it is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and itself. See also The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

[13] To be clear, here Rose is talking of Martin's former and current students.

[14] To be clear, this confuses quantity (citations) with quality (theoretical integrity). The most reliable interpreter of Halliday, by far, is Christian Matthiessen. A meticulous review of his 700+ page book, Lexicogrammatical Cartography, warranted only 41 critiques.

[15] See The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

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

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on Sysfling on 12/9/23 at 16:55:

For recentish work on "context-bound" vs "context-free" see

Revisiting mode: Context in/dependency in Ancient History classroom discourse

JR Martin, E Matruglio

Studies in functional linguistics and discourse analysis 5, 72-95

Revisiting field: Specialized knowledge in secondary school science and humanities discourse

JR Martin

Onomázein, 111-148

SF work on coding orientation is now being reframed as individuation: allocation/affiliation

Discourse and Diversionary Justice: an analysis of youth justice conferencing

M Zappavigna, JR Martin

Palgrave Macmillan

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin mistakes language varieties, register and genre, for context. If register and genre are misunderstood as the context of language, then the claim is that language is either independent or dependent of the context it construes. In this case, the realisation relation between context and language is misunderstood as dependency.

But even if register and genre are understood as language varieties, the claim is that texts are either independent or dependent of the varieties of which are instances. In this case, the instantiation relation between register/genre and text is misunderstood as dependency.

 [2] To be clear, Halliday (2008: 114) explains Bernstein's coding orientation as follows:

… Bernstein’s concept of “code”, which he defined as sociolinguistic coding orientation […] with its opposition of “elaborated/restricted”, was the basic mechanism of cultural transmission: it was the different semiotic practices, or “meaning styles”, of different social classes that was responsible for transmitting social class distinctions across the generations.

See Misunderstanding Bernstein at Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause (Martin & Rose, 2007).

[3] To be clear, Martin has presented two models of a 'cline of individuation': one derived from the work of Bernstein and the other from the work of his PhD student, Knight. The Bernstein-derived model is a cline from 'reservoir' to 'repertoire', where 'reservoir' refers to the potential of the community and 'repertoire' refers to the potential of the individual. Bernstein (2000: 157):

I shall use the term repertoire to refer to the set of strategies and their analogic potential possessed by any one individual and the term reservoir to refer to the total of sets and its potential of the community as a whole.

Applied to language, this is a model of the meaning potential of meaners (language users). The organising principle of the cline is elaboration and ascription (intensive attribution), since 'repertoire' is both a subtype of 'reservoir' (elaboration), and a member of the class 'reservoir' (ascription); cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

However, it is the Knight-derived model that is relevant here. Martin et al (2013):

A second, complementary perspective on individuation looks at how personæ mobilise social semiotic resources to affiliate with one another — how users attitude and ideation couplings, in Knight's (2010) terms, to form bonds, and how these bonds then cluster as belongings of different orders (including relatively "local" familial, collegial, professional, and leisure/recreational affiliations and more "general" fellowships reflecting "master identities" including social class, gender, generation, ethnicity, and dis/ability).

Like the Bernstein-derived model, the organising principle is again elaborating ascription, since each point on the cline is a subtype and member of the points above as types, but unlike the Bernstein-derived model, the individuation here is not of the meaning potential of meaners but of the meaners themselves. This inconsistency leads to a more serious inconsistency: the conflation of two different types of hierarchy.

Affiliation differs from individuation in that its organising principle is extension, not elaboration, since it is concerned with composition and association (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146). That is, where individuation is a hyponymic taxonomy (an elaboration of types), affiliation is a meronymic taxonomy (a composition of parts).

Because of this difference, affiliation can not be mapped onto the cline of individuation. For example, the bonding of meaners through shared evaluations does not affiliate them as a master identity such as gender or ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity are not created by people making the same interpersonal assessments, and the meaners (personæ) of the same gender or ethnicity can differ markedly in their interpersonal assessments.

John Bateman On Dimensions Across Semiotic Modes

John Bateman replied to David Rose on Sysfling on 26/8/23 at 20:16:

… But the following [from Rose] is very nice to hear:

Metafunctionality as I tried to suggest, is a property of lg that its syntagmatic structuring has evolved to enable, together with ranks and strata. So it’s basic to lg but not to semiotic modes in general.

I'm wondering how well that statement goes down more generally: consequences should actually follow.

I think the question of what dimensions are common across semiotic modes is very interesting and also central for a semiotics. I'd readily take rank to have to be present, otherwise axis has no domain (s) to operate in. Structural configurations have to be configurations of something. Stratification is also a good bet. Moreover, since semiosis is inherently dynamic, we'll have instantiation and sedimentation relating to reservoires and repositories I'd expect. These would all seem to be necessarily bound up in a single 'definition' of a particular kind of signs for my money. This means there is no 'picking and choosing' to do. …

Metafunction again turns up there as a bit of a swamp... the original idea of "distinctive regions of relatively interdependent systems" gets tricky without sufficiently strongly motivated systems. And I am not yet sure to what extent the different kinds of structure (which I like a lot) actually match well with kinds of functions parallel to linguistically motivated metafunctions in nonverbal semiotic modes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not "very nice to hear" from a theoretical point of view. See David Rose Misunderstanding Metafunctionality And Axis (Inter Alia).

[2] To be clear, rank is one way of modelling formal constituency. In language, rank is a dimension of lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology. Therefore, in modelling semiotic systems without a grammar — that is, those other than language — rank can only be a dimension of the expression plane, not the content plane.

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue. To be clear, semantics has no rank scale because it has no forms to rank, and yet semantics is modelled with both axes, paradigmatic and syntagmatic; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

Bateman's false claim derives from two theoretical misunderstandings. Firstly, rank is not the domain of axis. Axis and rank are distinct local dimensions. Axis has two orders: the paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Rank has four orders: clause, group/phrase, word, morpheme in lexicogrammar. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32):

Secondly, structures are configurations of functions (Senser^Process) not rankscale forms (nominal group ^ verbal group). The sequencing of formal units is a syntagm.

[4] To be clear, without the stratification of content and expression, there can be no semiotic system. Semiosis requires that a Token means a Value. However, the stratification of the content plane is restricted to language, as demonstrated by the fact that only language can be read aloud, since the locutions that a Sayer projects are the wordings of the lexicogrammatical stratum.

[5] This is possibly a garbled reference to 'reservoir' and 'repertoire' in Martin's Bernstein-derived model of individuation.

[6] To be clear, this misrepresents the metafunctions. The metafunctions are "strongly motivated" as the basic types of meaning: construing experience as meaning, enacting intersubjective relations as meaning, and weaving these together as text. Each of these understandings of the metafunctions can be applied to semiotic systems. Indeed, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 532-3) are sceptical of there being full semiotic systems without metafunctions:

These three "metafunctions" are interdependent; no one could be developed except in the context of the other two. … There are — or could be — semiotics that are monofunctional in this way; but only very partial ones, dedicated to specific tasks. A general, all-purpose semiotic system could not evolve except in the interplay of action and reflection, a mode of understanding and a mode of doing — with itself included within its operational domain.

David Rose On The Reluctance To Divorce Language From Consciousness

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 26 Mar 2023, 14:02:

A more general anxiety about relations between language and personhood exists in our own community. …

But SFL would not have progressed without separating out the systems from their uses and users.

One way our anxiety is expressed is a reluctance to divorce language from consciousness. Yet consciousness is a property of individual persons but language systems are a property of communities. They exist before, after and without the individual persons who use them.

By systems we mean both potential and actual – system and text. Instantiation is a relation between texts and systems, irrespective of persons.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday makes a useful distinction between 'person' as a social individual and 'meaner' (language user) as a socio-semiotic individual. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 610):

The human individual is at once a biological "individual", a social "individual" and a socio-semiotic "individual":

as a biological "individual", s/he is an organism, born into a biological population as a member of the human species.

as a social "individual", s/he is a person, bom into a social group as a member of society. "Person" is a complex construct; it can be characterised as a constellation of social roles or personae entering into social networks … .

as a socio-semiotic "individual", s/he is a meaner, born into a meaning group as a member of a speech community. "Meaner" is also a complex construct. 

[2] To be clear, this "progress" in SFL is Martin's confused model of individuation and affiliation (critiqued here). Martin et al (2013):

[3] To be clear, for neuroscientist Edelman (e.g 1992), it is language that distinguishes higher-order consciousness from the primary consciousness that humans share with many other species. For Halliday (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999), the theory of experience that has evolved in language equates the content plane of language with the content of consciousness. Ideationally, consciousness is the interior symbolic processing of sensing, and the exterior symbolic processing of saying, which create content through projection, and interpersonally, consciousness is the self enacted as meaner: as an interactant in exchanges.

[4] To be clear, on the SFL model, the collective nature of language entails that human consciousness is also collective. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 609):

Edelman's interpretation of higher-order consciousness referred to above suggests that this form of consciousness (unlike primary consciousness) is constituted in language. Language is a socio-semiotic system, so it follows that higher-order consciousness is constituted socio-semiotically; and since socio-semiotic systems are collective, it follows that higher-order consciousness must also be collective. Collective consciousness is an attribute of human social groups — the members of a given culture. But we need to distinguish between the consciousness of a social group and the consciousness of a species, whose collective construal of experience is codified in the structure of the brain. All human populations have the same brain, and to that extent all construe experience in the same way. But humans live in social groups, and their local environments vary one from the other; to that extent, different groups construe experience in different ways. The significance of this for us is that language is the resource for both: both what is common to the species as a whole, and what is specific to the given culture. In the way these two components are construed in the grammar, we cannot tell them apart. But it is the role of language in the construction of experience as meaning — as shared activity and collaboratively constructed resource — that gives substance to the concept of collective consciousness as an attribute of the human condition.

Moreover, here Rose even contradicts the models that he is promoting. In Martin's models, a language user (persona) is an individuation of a culture, and their meaning potential (repertoire) is an individuation of the meaning potential of the community (reservoir).

[5] Clearly, languages do not exist without the individual persons who use them, as demonstrated by the phenomenon of 'language death'.

[6] This misleading, because it is untrue. To be clear, 'system' refers to potential, and 'text' to the instance of that potential.

[7] This is not misleading, because it is true.

David Rose On Individuation, Affiliation And ChatGPT

David Rose replied to John Bateman on Sysfling on 25 Mar 2023 at 14:24:

We’ve been arguing about realisation and instantiation, but from your discussion here, and posts by Mick and others on the machine ‘fooling’ us into interpreting its texts as human-like, the issue is actually individuation.

It can appear to negotiate affiliation, but the machine itself is not affiliated with any scale of community. Only perhaps the people who program it and feed it text corpora are so affiliated, and the users focusing its tasks.

I think this is crucial because we can use and grow our individuation toolset to analyse this dimension. As I think you are suggesting, our realisation and instantiation tools are inadequate on their own for describing it. That is why all I can see when I look at its texts is instantiation of systems at each stratum. I am told this is wrong but I haven’t been given any textual evidence against it – only the authority of its designers and their community.

When the machine tells

I don't have a subjective experience or consciousness that allows me to perceive or interpret those inputs in the same way that a human might.

...it’s talking about individuation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin has proposed two models of individuation, one in which meaning potential is individuated (derived from Bernstein), and one in which meaners are individuated (derived from his student Knight). Neither model applies to ChatGPT because its texts are not instances of a system of meaning potential individuated through ontogenesis. Instead, ChatGPT uses the collective ("unindividuated") lexical collocation probabilities derived from millions of instances (texts) to produce new instances. In Bernstein's terms, ChatGPT is not a 'repertoire of potential' but a 'reservoir of instances'. ChatGPT is thus not an individuated meaner producing texts as instances of an individuated system of potential.

[2] To be clear, the underlying principle of affiliation is different from that of individuation, but Martin confuses the two in his Knight-derived model. Where individuation is a hyponymic taxonomy (an elaboration of types), affiliation is a meronymic taxonomy (a composition of parts). The affiliation model does not apply to ChatGPT because it applies to individuated meaners producing texts as instances of an individuated system, and as demonstrated above, ChatGPT is not an individuated meaner producing texts as instances of an individuated system.

[3] To be clear, it is not that "our realisation and instantiation tools are inadequate", but that they are misapplied if ChatGPT does not operate with a model of stratified systems of potential.

[4] To be clear, this is wrong because there is no evidence whatsoever that any text produced by ChatGPT is "the instantiation of systems at each stratum". The texts are generated from other instances, not a system, and only use the graphological realisations of probabilistically collocated lexical items, not a stratified model of language.

[5] To be clear, here ChatGPT is telling anyone who would listen why it is not an individuated meaner.

David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings Of Individuation

David Rose responded to a Halliday quote on Bernstein's code posted by ChRIS CLÉiRIGh on sys-func on 3/8/22 at 13:49:

The complexity of relations between code, register and language seems to be resolving with studies in individuation, such as this paper of yours...

Martin, J. R., Zappavigna, M., Dwyer, P., & Cléirigh, C. (2013). Users in uses of language: embodied identity in Youth Justice Conferencing. Text & Talk, 33(4-5), 467-496.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is not the case, as demonstrated below.

[2] To be clear, Martin is responsible for the misunderstandings (see below) in this paper. Cléirigh's contribution was to provide the model of body language that Martin & Zappavigna (2019) rebranded as their model of paralanguage. Evidence here.

[3] To be clear, Martin's model of individuation confuses an elaboration relation within language with an extension relation between language users. To explain:

Firstly, in this context, Bernstein's notion of reservoir and repertoire refer to the language of users, not to the language users themselves. The two differ in terms of order of experience: a language user is a first-order phenomenon, whereas the language that a user projects is a second-order phenomenon (metaphenomenon).

Secondly, the relation between reservoir and repertoire is elaboration, since varying repertoires are different subtypes of a reservoir, whereas an affiliation relation between language users, as association, is a subtype of extension (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146).

[4] To be clear, Martin's Figure 4 takes the fundamental confusions outlined above and adds to them. On the one hand, if Bernstein's distinction is viewed as a cline of individuation, then in SFL terms, the cline is

reservoir — reservoir subpotential/repertoire type — repertoire

where each point on the cline is the stratal hierarchy of systems

context — semantics — lexicogrammar — phonology.

On the other hand, Figure 4

• treats a persona (a language user) as an individuation of culture (context potential);
• inserts a subtype (master identity) between culture and its named subtype (subculture);
• models affiliation as an elaborating relation between persona and culture, instead of an extending relation perpendicular to the cline (between personas, between subcultures etc.)

∞

For Halliday's distinction between socio-semiotic meaner and social persona, and Lemke's (1995) examination of the 'notion of the individual human subject', see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 610-1).

See also David Rose On Jim Martin's Individuation.

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

David Rose wrote to David Kellogg on sys-func on 27 May 2022 at 7:00:

 ... further from

Martin, J. R. (2009). Realisation, instantiation and individuation: some thoughts on identity in youth justice conferencing. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 25, 549-583. 

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Martin's Figura 13 above is almost identical to a Figure 5 in an earlier publication that was previously examined here. The only difference is the addition of the terms logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis in Figura 13.

Consequently, the theoretical inconsistencies previously identified in Martin's Figure 5 also apply to Figura 13.

Firstly, it presents instantiation and individuation as if they were internal dimensions of meaning potential like stratification. However, the clines of instantiation and individuation model different perspectives on meaning potential as a whole, rather than scales within meaning potential.

Secondly, it misrepresents text as an instance of context (culture) as well as language. In SFL Theory, it is situation that is an instance of context. This relates to Martin's misunderstanding of context as varieties of language, genre and register (which accounts for the superfluous stratum in the figure).

Thirdly, by its vertical dimension, it misrepresents the cline of individuation as applying to text as well as potential. This makes the nonsensical claim that every text is common to all language users, varying according to user.

To these inconsistencies can be added a further theoretical inconsistency created by Martin's inclusion of the terms logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis in Figura 13. This inclusion has the effect of setting up the following proportionalities:

instantiation : logogenesis ::

individuation : ontogenesis ::

realisation : phylogenesis

Now, while the instantiation of the system in text occurs in logogenesis, and the individuation of the system occurs in ontogenesis, the realisation of the system does not occur in phylogenesis. The fundamental inconsistency here derives from the fact that realisation is an internal dimension of the system, whereas instantiation and individuation are perspectival clines on the system as a whole.

David Rose On Jim Martin's 'All Strata Individuate' And 'All Strata Instantiate'

David Rose wrote to David Kellogg on sys-func on 27 May 2022 at 7:00:

Re your desire for ‘yet another dimension--the ontogenetic’, all strata also individuate!

and to Lexie Don on 28 May 2022 at 12:55:

A text instantiates systems in all strata

Systems in all strata instantiate as text

Repertoires individuate reservoirs in all strata

Reservoirs in all strata individuate as repertoires

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'all strata X' is the formula that Martin uses in trying to understand the architecture of SFL Theory:

• 'all strata make meaning' is his attempt to understand stratification;
• 'all strata instantiate' is his attempt to understand instantiation; and
• 'all strata individuate' is his attempt to understand individuation.

The first of these confuses semogenesis (making meaning) with stratification (meaning realised by the realisation of wording in sounding/writing).

The second of these misunderstands the attributive relation between system and instance as something that strata do.

The third of these misunderstands the relation between some unspecified collective meaning potential (reservoir) and an individual meaning potential (repertoire) as something that strata do.

[2] To be clear, in Martin's model, which Rose is here promoting, varieties of language, genres and registers, are context as opposed to language when stratified, but return to language when instantiated, since text is an instance of language, not context. In some academic fields, such self-contradictions would be sufficient grounds to invalidate the model.

[3] To be clear, this misunderstands individuation as something that repertoires do to reservoirs, which contradicts the previous misunderstanding of individuation as something strata do. To the extent that the process of individuation is the development of an individual repertoire of meaning potential, the relation between this and a collective reservoir of meaning potential is created by ontogenesis. In Rose's terms, it is ontogenesis that individuates (meaning potential).

[4] To be clear, this contradicts the previous two misunderstandings by misunderstanding individuation as something that reservoirs do. See [3] above.

David Rose On Jim Martin's Individuation

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

Ed McDonald: 

3. I’m not exactly sure what you mean by individuation, but would you recognise a greater degree of “individuation” from phonology through lexiocgrammar and semantics to the “material and social worlds of human communities”

No, in a word. Individuation varies at each stratum, from culture to persona… figs [4 and 5] from Martin, J. R., Zappavigna, M., Dwyer, P. & Cléirigh, C. (2013). Users in uses of language: embodied identity in Youth Justice Conferencing. Text & Talk 33(4/5), 467-96

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the process of individuation is the differential ontogenesis of potential — from culture to phonology — across individuals, and the cline of individuation is the relation between the different potentials of different individuals and the collective potential of all meaners.

[2]  To be clear, Martin's Figure 4 confuses points on the cline of instantiation of context (culture and sub-culture) with categories of language users (master identity and persona). Moreover, it proposes that context (culture) is individuated as a language user (persona).

Strictly speaking, the individuation of culture is the differential ontogenesis of the context potential across individuals, and if 'persona' is interpreted as individuated potential, then it is the individuation of both context and language as potential.

[3] To be clear, there are several theoretical inconsistencies in Martin's Figure 5.

Firstly, it presents instantiation and individuation as if they were internal dimensions of meaning potential like stratification. However, the clines of instantiation and individuation model different perspectives on meaning potential as a whole, rather than scales within meaning potential.

Secondly, it misrepresents text as an instance of context (culture) as well as language. In SFL Theory, it is situation that is an instance of context. This relates to Martin's misunderstanding of context as varieties of language, genre and register (which accounts for the superfluous stratum in the figure).

Thirdly, by its vertical dimension, it (unintentionally?) misrepresents the cline of individuation as applying to text as well as potential. This makes the nonsensical claim that every text is common to all language users, varying according to user.

[4] To be clear, the Martin et al paper was written by Zappavigna, under the control of Martin, who is responsible for Figures 4 and 5. The blogger's name was included as author because he, as part-time Research Assistant, devised the model of gestural and postural semiosis that forms the intellectual backbone of the paper. This model has since been misunderstood and rebranded as Martin's model of paralanguage, as documented here.

David Rose On Stratification, Instantiation And Individuation

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on SYSFLING on 23 Aug 2020 at 08:31:

That is, to start answering your questions, could we….

1. Take our long work on stratification as a starting point, and admit variability of relations between all strata, not just realisation hierarchies… moving beyond old dichotomies like form/content, language/context, natural/conventional 

2. Reconceptualise system/text relations as co-instantiation or coupling of distinct contributions from each mode and stratum, as ‘all strata instantiate' 

3. Model language typology in terms of individuation, as ‘all strata individuate’, from phoneme systems to material and social worlds of human communities (always already semiotic)

?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, "our long work on stratification" is Martin's model, which replaces

• semantics with discourse semantics, and
• culture as context with genre and register as two strata of context.

As demonstrated in detail here, Martin's model is based on several theoretical misunderstandings and is internally inconsistent. For example, Martin's discourse semantics is a mixture of Halliday's semantics: speech function (rebranded negotiation) and Halliday & Hasan's lexicogrammatical cohesion (reference and ellipsis rebranded as identification, conjunction now rebranded as connexion, and lexical cohesion rebranded as ideation). That is, Martin's discourse semantics confuses two distinct levels of symbolic abstraction: semantics and lexicogrammar.

Martin's model of context locates varieties of language, register and genre, outside language: as context, while at the same time claiming that their instances are instances of language. In Hjelmslevian terms, Martin's model takes varieties of the expression plane of a connotative semiotic and relocates them as the content plane of a connotative semiotic. In terms of SFL Theory, Martin's model takes the midway point on the cline of instantiation of language and reconstrues the two perspectives on that point, register and text type (genre), as the system pole of the cline of instantiation of context. That is, Martin's model is inconsistent in terms of two dimensions of SFL Theory: stratification and instantiation. Compare the theoretically consistent model of Halliday:

[2] This is misleading. The theoretical dimension of stratification is the layering of different levels of symbolic abstraction. The relation between levels of symbolic abstraction is realisation. While the relation between levels may be natural or conventional, the invariable relation between levels is realisation.

[3] As previously explained, Martin's 'co-instantiation or coupling' is theoretically superfluous, since, because instantiation is the selection of features (and activation of realisation statements), the relation between instantiated features is already given by the systemic and stratificational architecture.

[4] To be clear, with regard to language, the theoretical dimension of individuation is the relation between a language, as a whole, and the varieties of that language that develop in its individual speakers, whereas language typology is the classification of different languages according to theoretical criteria.

[5] To be clear, Martin's mantras 'all strata instantiate' and 'all strata individuate' say nothing about either instantiation or individuation; cf all X instantiate, all X individuate. The process of instantiation is the selection of potential during logogenesis; the process of individuation is the differential ontogenesis of potential across individuals.