David Rose Misrepresenting 'Meaning, Wording, Sounding' As An "Iconising Tricolon"

David Rose wrote to sys-func and sysfling on 6/8/22 at 13:56:

Re the tricolon ‘meaning, wording, sounding’

In the immortal words of Sesame St...

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

‘Commonsensical’ because it replaces the technicality of semantics/lexicogrammar/phonology, with a rhetorical device designed to appeal to those not (yet) trained in SFL (which is fine).

The logical connexion between units of a tricolon is internal similarity, intensified by the repetition. Its rhetorical function is to iconise the class of items construed by the tricolon, ‘charging’ it interpersonally, while ‘discharging’ it ideationally. In this instance it iconises the stratal hierarchy, while eliding the categorical difference between wording/sounding as ‘strata of linguistic form’ and semantics as a stratum of ‘meaning’.

That is why I was struck by MAKH’s 1972 explanation that the latter simply followed linguistic tradition, rather than his own theoretical position of ‘language as a whole’ (which he adds here in brackets)...

The term «meaning» has traditionally been restricted to the input end of the language system: the «content plane», in Hjelmslev's terms, and more specifically to the relations of the semantic interface, Hjelmslev's «content substance». We will therefore use «meaning potential» just to refer to the semantic options (although we would regard it as an adequate designation for language as a whole).

More technically, it conflates the metaredundant lexicogrammar/phonology relation of patterns-of-patterns of axial system/structure cycles, with the direct realisation between features proposed in the message/clause semantic model (if that makes sense:).

Blogger Comments:

[1] The term for a division into three categories is a 'trichotomy'. Rose has chosen the inappropriate word 'tricolon' as a rhetorical device; see further below.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The use of 'meaning, wording, sounding' for 'semantics lexicogrammar phonology' is not rhetorical. These three are used to clarify technical theoretical terms, not to persuade or appeal to readers.

[3] This misrepresents both what constitutes a tricolon and its rhetorical function. To be clear:

Tricolon is a rhetorical term that consists of three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which happen to come in quick succession without any interruption. The origin of this rhetorical device is traced to the Greek word tricolon, meaning “section of a sentence.” These three parallel words, phrases, or clauses have almost the same length, though this condition is not strictly followed.

It also refers to a collection of three lines, paragraphs, chapters, or stanzas. For instance, William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar uses it in his famous speech in ascending order as, “Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, [and] I conquered.“) The purpose of tricolon is to give a greater sense of roundness, completeness, and wholeness, whereas the third part brings in a surprising effect in the sentence.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The terms 'meaning, wording, sounding' merely relabel 'semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology' in less technical language. There is no "iconisation".

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. On the one hand, these less technical terms make the exact same categorical distinctions as their more technical counterparts. On the other hand, in SFL Theory, wording/lexicogrammar is form interpreted in terms of the meaning it realises. To be clear, Rose himself follows Martin in misconstruing all strata as linguistic meaning, even those of phonology and context.

[6] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The quote from Halliday (1972) merely specifies how the term 'meaning potential' will be used in the paper, relative to traditional usages of 'meaning' (interpreted in terms of Hjelmslev's model).

[7] To be clear, to the extent that this makes any sense, it is nonsense. Firstly, it misunderstands 'metaredundancy'. As the term implies, 'metaredundancy' is a redundancy on a redundancy. Applied to the stratification hierarchy, it means that semantics is redundant on the redundancy of lexicogrammar and phonology, or alternatively, that the redundancy of semantics and lexicogrammar is redundant on phonology. Applying the term to just two strata, lexicogrammar and phonology, as Rose does, is therefore nonsensical.

Secondly, the 'direct realisation between features proposed in the message/clause semantic model' is the specification of how semantic features in Hasan (1983) are realised in lexicogrammar, both systemically and structurally: 

Rose's claim, then, is the terms 'meaning, wording, sounding' conflate a lexicogrammar-phonology relation, misunderstood as metaredundant, with a semantics-lexicogrammar relation. This again, therefore, is nonsensical.

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.

John Bateman Misunderstanding Realisation

John Bateman replied to Erich Steiner on sysfling on 16 May 2018 at 06:57:

I'd only ever use 'abstraction' as an interstratal relationship (I hope); I can't get my head around the other characterizations as concerning differences in level/degree of abstraction. … 

And the problem as always with considering 'realization' as 'encoding' is primarily the intellectual baggage that encoding/decoding brings with it. I prefer the technical term and go for metaredundancy. Relations between different levels of abstraction are interesting and I don't think any kind of 'coding' metaphor gets off on the right foot, because it can sound as if the descriptions have independent existence. Co-description does it better perhaps; co-articulation too. If we take the old prism metaphor, one colour does not 'encode' another (even if there *were* 'colours'). The extent to which any of these levels of abstraction may usefully be considered to have separate 'existence' is then subsequently surely, surprise surprise, also an empirical issue. :-)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the relation of symbolic abstraction (realisation), the fundamental semiotic relation, obtains not just between strata, but throughout the architecture of SFL theory.  For example, realisation obtains

• between axes: syntagmatic structures realise paradigmatic systems, and
• between form and function: formal syntagms (nominal group ^ verbal group) realise function structures (Medium ^ Process).

Less well known, however, are the intra-stratal realisation relations entailed by grammatical metaphor.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288-9):

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token-value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience: the domain of figures is construed in terms of the domain of participants, and so on (just as in a familiar lexical metaphor the domain of intensity is construed in terms of the domain of vertical space). It is the fact that metaphor multiplies meanings within the semantic system that opens up the possibility of metaphorical chains, with one congruent starting-point and another highly metaphorical end-point (A"' stands for A" stands for A' stands for A; e.g. 'engine failure' stands for 'the failing of an engine' stands for 'an engine failed'). The semantic system is being expanded along the dimension of the metaphorical token-value relation; but the expansion is still within the semantic system itself.

[2] This misunderstands realisation.  As a symbolic identifying relation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 288), realisation construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction, a lower token and a higher value, such that either can be construed as identifying the other.  When a token is used to identify a value, the identity is encoding: it encodes a value by reference to a token; when a value is used to identify a token, the identity is decoding: it decodes a token by reference to a value.

Applied to the inter-stratal realisation relation between lexicogrammar (token) and semantics (value), if lexicogrammar is used to identify semantics, the identity encodes semantics by reference to lexicogrammar; and if semantics is used to identify lexicogrammar, the identity decodes lexicogrammar by reference to semantics.

encoding semantics by reference to lexicogrammar:

lexicogrammar	realises	semantics
Identifier Token	Process: identifying	Identified Value

decoding lexicogrammar by reference to semantics:

lexicogrammar	realises	semantics
Identified Token	Process: identifying	Identifier Value

[3] Here Bateman misconstrues 'realisation', the technical term for an ordering principle, as a metaphor.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 7):

The sound system and the writing system are the two modes of expression by which the lexicogrammar of a language is represented, or realised (to use the technical term).

[4] This misconstrues metaredundancy as a relation between two strata and as an alternative to realisation.  As Halliday (1992: 23-5) explains, realisation is itself a redundancy relation, and metaredundancy is the redundancy in a series of redundancies:

But realisation is not a causal relation; it is a redundancy relation, so that x redounds with the redundancy of y with z. To put it in more familiar terms, it is not that (i) meaning is realised by wording and wording is realised by sound, but that (ii) meaning is realised by the realisation of wording in sound.  We can of course reverse the direction, and say that sounding realises the realisation of meaning in wording.

[5] Here Bateman again raises the notion of 'existence', despite previously claiming that it "detracts" from 'the main business of work'.  More importantly, levels of symbolic abstraction are different angles on the same phenomenon, so the notion of different levels having 'independent existence' is nonsensical.

[6] Invoking the 'old prism metaphor' demonstrates that Bateman understands neither levels of abstraction nor encoding.  The colours in the spectrum of visible light are all construed at the same level of abstraction, so the notion of one colour encoding another is nonsensical.

[7] Here Bateman again raises the notion of 'existence', despite previously claiming that it "detracts" from 'the main business of work'.  On the SFL model, colours are construals of experience as meaning, further reconstrued in the field of colour perception, for example, as varying according to the frequency of photon impacts on differently sensitive cone cells in the retina.

[8] To be clear, the interpretation of empirical evidence in terms of existence (ontology) depends on the epistemological assumptions of the field.

See also John Bateman Misunderstanding Stratification And Realisation

David Rose "In A Nutshell" [Part 2]

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

We can often categorise lexical items according to grammar or discourse patterns they tend to instantiate (as Michael and Christian like to do in IFG). But these categories are only one dimension of their meaning. Their more specific meanings can only be described in terms of register systems (the function of dictionary and thesaurus). So my instinct is to locate them at the level of register. This is hard to conceptualise because they only manifest as wordings, so we usually talk about them as if they are words. But the items themselves are meanings (at register level), that are realised in language as wordings. In text, they co-instantiate with grammar and discourse features to construe patterns of register. These probabilistic co-instantantions may be the basis of much linguistic description. 

in a nutshell
David

Blogger Comments:

[1] The claim here is that lexical items are categorised according to grammar or discourse patterns.  This is inconsistent with Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014).  In SFL theory, lexical items are specified by bundles of the most delicate features of the systems of lexicogrammar.  The relation between a bundle of such features and a lexical item is symbolic identity: the more abstract Value (feature bundle) is realised by the less abstract Token (lexical item).

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, lexical items realise meaning.  That is, wording (lexicogrammar) is construed as a lower level of symbolic abstraction than meaning (semantics).

[3] Rose's argument can be characterised as follows:

Premiss: (reason) the more specific meanings of lexical items — as provided by dictionary and thesaurus — can only be described in terms of register systems.

Conclusion: (result) lexical items are located at the level of register.

Ignoring the theoretical misunderstandings for the moment, the argument itself is an instance of circular reasoning, in this case: the logical fallacy known as begging the question (petitio principii): providing what is essentially the conclusion of the argument as a premiss.  Moreover, the premiss itself is a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument.

Turning to the theoretical misunderstandings, both the premiss and conclusion are inconsistent with the SFL architecture.  In the premiss, Rose does not recognise the stratal differentiation of a lexical item (lexicogrammar) and the meaning (semantics) that it realises.  In both the premiss and the conclusion, Rose misrepresents the SFL notion of register in terms of stratification (context vs language) and instantiation (system vs sub-system).

Stepping back a little, this is what Rose's previous three posts — in which he disingenuously described himself as "perhaps obtuse", "puzzled" and "generally puzzled" — have been leading to: his "instinct" to locate lexical items at the level of register.  Keeping in mind that, for Rose, register means "social context", which he distinguishes from language, his proposal is to locate lexical items outside language.

[4] As mentioned in a previous post, in SFL theory, 'lexical item' is one of two abstractions on the word, the other being a rank unit in the grammar.

[5] This is another bare assertion, made on the assumption that the previous circular reasoning, involving a bare assertion, has established it as true.  It contains the same theoretical confusions about lexical items and register that were identified in [3] above, with the addition of locating linguistic meaning at the level of context (characterised by Rose as 'social context', and misconstrued, following Martin (1992) as 'register').

[6] The claim here is that lexical items, at the level of social context, are realised in language as wordings.  This adds further to the previously identified theoretical inconsistencies by proposing a realisation relation between context and lexicogrammar, thereby skipping the intervening level of symbolic abstraction, semantics.

[7] The claim here is that lexical items are instantiated in text.  On Rose's model, lexical items are located in context, and as such, are not instances of language (text), but of social context, which Rose distinguishes from language.

[8] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relation between features co-selected across different strata is realisation.  On the model proposed by Rose, this means that lexical items (at the level of context) are realised by the realisation of discourse semantic features in lexicogrammatical features.  Here the notion of 'co-instantiation' helps to mask the fact that Rose has not accounted for the discourse semantic features that realise lexical items.

[9] To be clear, in SFL theory, the different probabilities of features being co-selected provide the quantitative means of differentiating registers — where registers are coherently construed: as sub-potentials of language.

[10] From Fawlty Towers (The Hotel Inspectors):

Mr Hutchinson: In a nutshell.
Basil Fawlty: Case, more like.

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

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

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

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

In a nutshell.
Case, more like.

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

Case, more like.

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

Halliday On Wording As 'Twice Cooked' Content

Halliday (1992: 23-5): 

The result [of the "explosion" into language] is a semiotic of a new kind: a stratified, tristratal system in which meaning is 'twice cooked', thus incorporating a stratum of 'pure' content form. It is natural to represent this, as I have usually done myself, as 'meaning realised by wording, which is in turn realised by sound'. But it is also rather seriously misleading. If we follow Lemke's lead, interpreting language as a dynamic open system, we can arrive at a theoretically more accurate and more powerful account. Here the key concept is Lemke's principle of metaredundancy. 

Consider a minimal semiotic system, such as a protolanguage — a system that is made up of simple signs. This is based on the principle of redundancy. When we say that contents p, q, r are "realised" respectively by expressions a, b, c, what this means is that there is a redundancy relation between them: given meaning p, we can predict sound or gesture a, and given sound or gesture a we can predict meaning p. This relationship is symmetrical; "redounds with" is equivalent both to "realises" and to "is realised by".

Let us now expand this into a non-minimal semiotic, one that is tri- rather than bi-stratal. The expressions a, b, c now realise WORDINGS l, m, n, while the wordings l, m, n realise MEANINGS p, q, r. In terms of redundancy, however, these are not two separate dyadic relationships. Rather, there is a METAredundancy such that p, q, r redounds not with l, m, n but with the redundancy of l, m, n with a, b, c; thus:

l, m, n ( a, b, c                                    p, q, r ( (l, m, n ( a, b, c)

Why has it to be like this? Because there is not, in fact, a chain of dyadic relationships running through the system. (If there was, we would not need the extra stratum.) It is not the case, in other words, that p ( l and l ( a.   p, q, r is realised by l, m, n; but the system at l, m, n is sorted out again for realisation by a, b, c, so that what p, q, r is actually realised by is the realisation of l, m, n by a, b, c.  This is the fundamental distinction between redundancy and causality. If realisation was a causal relation, then it would chain: l is caused by a and p is caused by l - it would make no sense to say "p is caused by the causing of l by a". But realisation is not a causal relation; it is a redundancy relation, so that p redounds with the redundancy of l with a. To put it in more familiar terms, it is not that (i) meaning is realised by wording and wording is realised by sound, but that (ii) meaning is realised by the realisation of wording in sound.

We can of course reverse the direction, and say that sounding realises the realisation of meaning in wording:

p, q, r ( l, m, n                                    (p, q, r ( l, m, n) ( a, b, c

For the purpose of phonological theory this is in fact the appropriate perspective, But for the purposes of construing the 'higher' levels, with language as connotative semiotic realising other semiotic systems of the culture, we need the first perspective. Thus when we extend 'upwards' to the context of situation, we can say that the context of situation s, t, u redounds with the redundancy of the discourse semantics p, q, r with the redundancy of the lexicogrammar l, m, n with the phonology a, b, c. Thus:

s, t , u ( (p, q, r, ( (l, m, n ( a, b, c))

Once the original protolinguistic redundancy has been transformed into metaredundancy in this way, the relation becomes an iterative one and so opens up the possibilities for construing, not only the context of situation, but also higher levels such as Hasan’s symbolic articulation and theme in verbal art, or Martin's strata of genre and ideology.

The metaredundancy notion thus formalises the stratal principle in semogenesis. What makes meaning indefinitely extendable is the evolutionary change from protolanguage to language — whereby instead of a simple plane with two interfaces to the material (the phenomenal), we have constructed a semiotic SPACE, a three-dimensional (potentially n-dimensional) system in which there is a purely symbolic mode of being between these two interfaces. It is this that we call grammar, or more explicitly lexicogrammar. Without this semiotic space, situated in the transduction from one purely symbolic mode to another, and hence not constrained by the need to interface directly with the phenomenal, we could not have a metafunctional organisation in the grammar, and we could not have the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor.

The metaredundancy theory explains the 'stratal' organisation of language, and the semiotic principle of realisation. It explains them synoptically: by treating realisation as a relation.

1. David Rose On Stratification & Metaredundancy

David Rose firstly writes in response to my comments on Jim Martin On Stratification:

contextual strata are metaredundant on the redundant relation between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar... hence relating clause meanings directly to context skips a layer of metaredundancy

Blogger Comments:

(1) clause meanings

The meanings of clauses are semantic not lexicogrammatical. Hence relating clause meanings directly to context does not skip a stratum.

(2) layer of metaredundancy

Strata are not layers of metaredundancy. Metaredundancy is a redundancy on a redundancy. Semantics is metaredundant on the redundant relation between lexicogrammar and phonology. Semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology are not "layers of metaredundancy".