Ed McDonald On Halliday's Grammar-Centrism

Edward McDonald continued sys-func on 8 Jul 2024, at 14:44:

Ok, so this is not "linguistic imperialism" but it does seem like "grammar-centrism". It strikes me that, though I'm not aware if anyone has ever made this argument, that both (adult) language and music could equally be seen as "outgrowths" of protolanguage, particularly if we look at spoken language and singing. Given that music lacks the line of arbitrariness, i.e. that musical meanings are in the first instance indexical, not symbolic, the argument for the priority of grammar seems less convincing in this instance.

Any multimodalists like to weigh in here about other semiotic systems? Do they all depend on the prior existence of grammar? It would seem to me that systems depending on iconicity don't necessarily.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday's view that language is the only semiotic system with a grammar is merely the view that is consistent with his Systemic Functional Theory and the assumptions on which is based.

[2] To be clear, song lyrics are language, as are musical notation and theory. The question of whether music itself requires its makers to have language, depends on how music is defined. If music is narrowly defined as restricted to humans, then music is defined as requiring its makers to have language. However, if music is more broadly defined to include the structured use of rhythm and pitch variation in other species, most notably birdsong and whalesong, then music is not defined as requiring its makers to have language. This still leaves open the question of whether music is social (value) or semiotic (symbolic value), in terms of Halliday's linear taxonomy of complex systems.

[3] Given that no evidence is given for musical meanings, or a natural indexical relation between such meanings and their expression, this is an instance of the bare assertion (ipse dixit) fallacy.

[4] Lest this be misunderstood, the question is whether the users of non-linguistic semiotic systems have a grammar. Halliday (2002[1996]: 389): 

On the other hand, human adults also develop numerous non-linguistic semiotic systems: forms of ritual, art forms, and the like; these have no grammar of their own, but they are parasitic on natural language – their meaning potential derives from the fact that those who use them already have a grammar.

[5] To be clear, one way to assess whether a semiotic system requires its users to have a grammar is to look for such a system in species without a grammar. To date, no other species have been demonstrated represent their experience iconically by drawing pictures, and the earliest evidence of human cave painting long postdates the estimated emergence of language.

Ed McDonald On Halliday's Linguistic Imperialism

Edward McDonald wrote to sys-func on 8 Jul 2024, at 08:49:

We've often had this debate before, and presumably if music has no "grammar" it has no "semantics" either. I would agree, in the sense that those two terms are traditionally applied to language and so come with all sorts of associations and presuppositions. … 

But as a semiotic system - by definition (IMFFHO) - must have the two mutually defining strata of what in general terms I like to call interpretation and expression: specifically for music, what I call "phonotactics" and "e/motion" - see my 2021 paper in Language, Context, Text, then it presumably has a "grammar" of sorts, in the sense of distinctive patterns with significant interpretations. In a separate step, In relation to music, I also depart from orthodoxy in characterising the expression stratum of phonotactics as purely textural (= textual), with the other metafunctions coming in only at the stratum of e/motion, whether interactional (= interpersonal) or figurative (= ideational) (I haven't found the need to distinguish between experiential and logical). …

Halliday "privileging" language in this way for me invokes the spectre of what, following Horst Ruthrof, I call "linguistic imperialism"; and the fact that Social Semiotics (again IMFFHO) is shot through with linguistic imperialism for me explains why Ruqaiya for one didn't "believe in" multimodality, in the sense of a model of same that wasn't simply parasitic on the theory of language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here McDonald is commenting on Halliday's view (2002[1996]: 388-9) that language is the only semiotic system that has a grammar, in his sense of the term.

[2] This misunderstands Halliday. On Halliday's model, if music is a social semiotic system, then it has content and expression, but its content is not stratified into semantics and lexicogrammar. For Cléirigh, on the other hand, in terms of Halliday's linear taxonomy of complex systems, music is social, not semiotic. That is, it carries value, but not symbolic value. In terms of Edelman's neuroscientific theory, music selects perceptual categorisations of positive or negative value, and such value systems play an important rôle in the experience of emotions.

[3] Again, this misunderstands Halliday. For Halliday, the "two mutually defining strata" are the content and expression planes, following Hjelmslev. This is a prerequisite of semiotic systems, but it does not entail that content is stratified to include a grammar, in Halliday's sense, as 'an entirely abstract semiotic construct that emerges between the content and the expression levels of the original, sign-based primary semiotic system' (ibid.).

[4] To be clear, the problem with reconstruing 'content' as 'interpretation' is that the latter is the perspective of the listener only.

[5] This misunderstands the metafunctions. The metafunctions are types of meanings, and so are a dimension of the content plane only. For example, phonological systems are not metafunctional; they realise metafunctional meanings of the content plane.

[6] As demonstrated above, McDonald's accusation of "linguistic imperialism" is entirely unwarranted, since it derives only from his own misunderstandings of Halliday's theorising.

Ed McDonald On Musical Meanings As Concrete And General

Edward McDonald wrote to: sys-func on 20 Nov 2023, at 09:59:

… This reflects my understanding of the nature of musical meaning as concrete but general. Musical meanings are concrete, again in my opinion but informed by a wide range of research across a number of disciplines, because they express our human embodiment: music represents a kind of semiotic transformation of our experience of our own and other people’s bodies moving through space and time. 

At the same time, musical meanings are general, because, to borrow the insight of one philosopher of music, music is like body language: when we observe someone’s body language, including their gait, posture, facial expression, and gaze, we can “read off” its meaning, but only in general terms. We can tell that someone is sad, but not why; we can pick up that someone is highly agitated, but we don’t know the circumstances that gave rise to that agitation – unless we use language to ask them about it. 

So language, in contrast to music, is more abstract, more detached from our embodied experience, but at the same time because it supplies us with a system of categories we can apply to that experience, linguistic meanings are more specific. 

So from this point of view, we can see that soundtrack / expression music – “songs with words” – and score / mood music – “songs without words” – take on, as you might expect, the general semiotic characteristics of the systems of language and music with which they are mostly closely identified in each case.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this reason for musical meanings being 'concrete' is based on a misunderstanding, since it has the (Token–Value) relation backwards. It is the movement of bodies — in playing instruments — that expresses music, not the other way around. That is, McDonald claims that musical meanings are concrete because he misconstrues them as the more concrete Token instead of the more abstract Value.

[2] To be clear, this is another instance of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to accomplishment – an assertion is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer.

[3] To be clear, one way to understand the difference between music and body language is through the theory of experience that has naturally evolved in English. Music is the Scope of the material Process of playing, whereas body language is a behavioural Process that 'manifests states of consciousness' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 302).

[4] To be clear, this reason for musical meanings being 'general' is based on a misunderstanding, since it confuses elaboration (generality) with enhancement (cause: reason).

[5] To be clear, this is another instance of the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit, a bare assertion, since no supporting argument has been made, and the claim that the meanings of music are concrete is based on a misunderstanding; see [1].

[6] To be clear, this point has not been demonstrated; see [1] to [5] above.

Ed McDonald On Musical Meanings And Their "Re-expression"

Edward McDonald wrote to: sys-func on 20 Nov 2023, at 09:59:

As for language being able to "re-express" musical meanings, my reading of many reviews of performances, as well as screeds of scholarly expositions of musical styles and meanings, has left me deeply sceptical of any such possibility. Certainly aspects of a particular semiotic system can be "re-realised" (?) in another semiotic — as the custom of setting words to music clearly shows — but even in such cases, the musical tends to express meanings that language doesn't, or at least doesn't do so easily, and vice versa.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the fact that music does not express socially agreed meanings would suggest that music is not a social semiotic system, and the fact that the meanings of music cannot be identified — e.g. what are the meanings of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and how are those meanings realised? — suggests that music is not a semiotic system at all.

Instead, if music is viewed in terms of Halliday's linear taxonomy, it is a system of social value that is not construed symbolically. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 507, 509):

As we conceive of it, the term "semiotic" is framed within a linear taxonomy of "physical — biological — social — semiotic"; … A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" … . A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning". Meaning can be thought of (and was thought of by Saussure) as just a kind of social value; but it is value in a significantly different sense — value that is construed symbolically. … Semiotic systems are social systems where value has been further transformed into meaning.

But music differs from the systems of value in other social species — e.g. whalesong, birdsong — in that it is made by linguate beings, who can complement music with the social semiotic that is language (lyrics), represent music socio-semiotically (notation), and evolve its value potential through the social semiotic that is language (realising music theory).

It is because music cannot be modelled as a social semiotic system that McDonald feels the need to redefine what constitutes a semiotic system.

[2] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509) claim that language is the only semiotic system into which all other semiotic systems can be "translated". McDonald could not be making these meanings with any social semiotic other than language.

[3] To be clear, this is not the re-expression of the meanings of one semiotic system in another semiotic system. It is simply the complementation of language and music.

[4] To be clear, if music really did express meanings, McDonald would be able to draw a system network of musical meanings that specified how such meanings are expressed in musical sounds.

Ed McDonald On Language Not Being Prototypical In The Historical Sense

Edward McDonald wrote to: sys-func on 20 Nov 2023, at 09:59:

I think I'd agree with David on this one:

language is "prototypical" but only in the Eleanor Rosch sense and not in the historical sense. That is, language is central and dominant among socio-semiotic systems but not originary or primeval.

I've read the Halliday / & Matthiessen claims before, and to me they read like just what you'd expect linguists to say: to me they come across as axiomatic claims and not conclusions based on empirical evidence.

For me, it's the experience of being a practising — and trained — musician that makes me doubtful about awarding any such primacy to language. When I was learning piano, which I did from ages 8-21 with a number of different teachers, I learned in the appropriate "classical" style which was based on two things: 1. interpreting the notation - i.e. the process of turning the notated score into actual musical performance, and 2. explaining the technique - i.e. the process of what you do with your fingers, hands, arms, (torso, legs etc etc) in order to achieve certain sounds and musical effects. Now the presence of notation in the Western classical tradition means that 1. inevitably involves language — the musical notation is clearly dependent on the prior existence of a writing system for language — the very earliest examples of notation in Europe, devised for the vocal music we now call "Gregorian chant", consisted of "intonation-style graphics" written over the top of the verbal text — and every feature of the notation has its appropriate linguistic label. But not all styles even of Western music depend on notation — perhaps most folk and pop musicians can't "read" — and in the absence of 1., 2. can be carried out largely by demonstration, although the presence of a labelling system, i.e. a technical vocabulary, is very useful for transmission, although not for performance, which in such traditions is largely equivalent to improvising on the basis of fixed "formulae".

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. To be clear, observations of child development provide empirical evidence that language is ontogenetically prior to other social semiotic systems, and the fact that the earliest known cave paintings are only about 40,000 years old, suggests that language is also phylogenetically prior to other social semiotic systems.

[2] This is an instance of the logical fallacy known as Circumstantial ad hominem – stating that the arguer's personal situation means that their conclusion is wrong.

[3] To be clear, this is an instance of the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit: a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence. Moreover, McDonald ignores the reasons that Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509-10) provide for regarding language as the prototypical social semiotic system:

Language is set apart, however, as the prototypical semiotic system, on a variety of different grounds: it is the only one that evolved specifically as a semiotic system; it is the one semiotic into which all others can be "translated"; and (the least questionable, in our view) it is the one whereby the human species as a whole, and each individual member of that species, construes experience and constructs a social order. In this last respect, all other semiotic systems are derivative: they have meaning potential only by reference to models of experience, and forms of social relationship, that have already been established in language. It is this that justifies us in taking language as the prototype of systems of meaning. …

[4] This is an instance of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to accomplishment – an assertion is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer.

[5] To be clear, both 'interpreting the notation' and 'explaining the technique' require the prior ontogenesis of language in both teacher and learner. And teaching and learning by demonstration only happens after the prior ontogenesis of language in both teacher and learner.

Ed McDonald On The Two Poles Of A Semiotic System

Edward McDonald wrote to sys-func on 19 Nov 2023, at 14:02:

… a system like language or music acts as a semiotic mediation between two kinds of contexts:

1. the material context of sound or gesture as perceptible expression

2. the social context of language or music …as interpretable behaviour

A semiotic system like language or music hence has two poles

1. expression (vis-à-vis material context)

2. interpretation (vis-à-vis social context) …

(McDonald 2013, Embodiment and meaning: moving beyond linguistic imperialism in social semiotics)

The need to understand the relation of interpretation(s) to expression(s) independently for each semiotic system is one that for me follows naturally from Saussure’s understanding of meaning in language, whose implications have been usefully explored by a number of scholars like media and communication studies scholar David Machin already mentioned above, and literature and philosophy of language scholar Horst Ruthrof

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Having previously advocated an approach to non-linguistic semiotic systems that does not assume that linguistic models are appropriate (see previous post), McDonald begins his approach to non-linguistic semiotic systems with Halliday's model of linguistic systems. Halliday (2003: 13):

[2] To be clear, gestures are behaviours, and sounds are the products of behaviours. Each can be viewed materially and/or in terms of some social function. 

[3] To be clear, the perspective presented by 'perceptible' and 'interpretable' is that of the listener only. Importantly, the speaker and the musician are excluded from this model.

[4] To be clear, this misrepresents McDonald's model. As he has explained, perceptible expression and interpretable behaviour are two poles of the context of a semiotic system, not the two poles of the semiotic system itself.

[5] To be clear, the use of the word 'imperialism' evokes a sense of social injustice. As a logical fallacy, this might be termed an appeal to emotion.

[6] To be clear, this is an instance of the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit: a bare assertion without supporting argument. Moreover, it cannot be true, since Saussure was concerned with the sign — content and expression form in Hjelmslev's terms — whereas McDonald's interpretable behaviour and perceptible expression are his model of context — content and expression substance in Hjelmslev's terms — misunderstood as a semiotic system.

Jim Martin Misunderstanding SFL Methodology

Jim Martin responded on SYSFLING on 10 Sep 2020 at 12:13 to Ed McDonalds post on modelling music as a semiotic system:

What would music look like if instead of looking ‘notionally’ for kinds of meaning we looked for types of structure (particulate, prosodic and periodic) and worked out the systems behind each type of structure and then asked what their complementary functions were and only then compared music to language or image?

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, here Martin unwittingly advocates a theoretical approach that is the opposite of the methodology of SFL Theory: giving priority to the view 'from below' (structure and expression) instead of the 'view from above' (system and content). That is, what Martin dismisses as 'notionally' is actually SFL methodology. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49) explain:

Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organising principle adopted is that of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features (for an early statement, see Halliday, 1966a). Explaining something consists not in stating how it is structured but in showing how it is related to other things: its pattern of systemic relationships, or agnateness (agnation, a term introduced into linguistics by Gleason (1965: 199)…

More specific to the methodology itself, Halliday (1985: xiv) outlines the SFL approach, as part of his explanation that SFL does not take a syntactic approach to modelling language:

However, not even the SFL approach will succeed in modelling music as a semiotic system because music is not a semiotic system: the sounds of music do not realise meanings. Of course, music theory and notation are semiotic systems, as are the lyrics that accompany music, but the sounds themselves are not expressions of content. Instead, music activates what the neuroscientist Edelman calls 'value' systems in the brain, which, in turn, with other systems, underlie feelings and emotions. In terms of Halliday's (2002: 388) evolutionary typology of systems, music can be seen as social (value, but not symbolic value), like the pheromonal systems of eusocial insects. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" …. A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning". Meaning can be thought of (and was thought of by Saussure) as just a kind of social value; but it is value in a significantly different sense — value that is construed symbolically. … Semiotic systems are social systems where value has been further transformed into meaning.