David Kellogg Misunderstanding Halliday On The Co-Evolution Of Language And Culture

David Kellogg reacted to a Halliday quote on sys-func on 30 Dec 2024, at 16:42:

Note that "driving" is a very narrow interpretation of causality, and "determine" is not much better. There is an obvious sense in which a virus "causes" Covid and a bacteria [sic] "causes" tuberculosis, but it is rather vacuous to say that viruses or bacteria "drive" or "determine" epidemics. 

Co-evolution involves reciprocation, but not necessarily symmetrical reciprocity. When Halliday says, for example, that every use of a word (even in private speech) will have some effect on the probabilities of a language system, he is not saying that lexical invention is on a par with grammatical regularity. The use of "he or she" instead of "he" does not prevent a single instance of rape much less shake the foundations of patriarchy; these are secured not only by language but also by organised violence (c.f. the work of Annabelle Lukin).

I think that when Halliday says that language will always have an "ideological" role, and that construals of reality will differ as we alter our condition, he is really saying that changes in productive relations do in the long run cause the way we speak, even if they do not in the short run "drive" or "determine".

Blogger Comments:

[1] The quote was Halliday (2003 [1992]: 380):

Language neither drives culture nor is driven by it; the old questions about which determines which can be set aside as irrelevant, because the relation is not one of cause and effect but rather (as Firth saw it, though not in these words) one of realisation: that is, culture and language coevolve in the same relationship as that in which, within language, meaning and expression co-evolve. Thus above and beyond the random, local variation between languages that was the subject matter of earlier typological studies, we may expect to find non-random variation realising different construals of reality across major alterations in the human condition. But given that language and culture evolve together in this kind of relationship, it is inevitable that language will take on an ideological role.

[2] To be clear, here Kellogg is disagreeing with Halliday on the basis of his misunderstanding of Halliday. Halliday is concerned with the relation between the two planes of a connotative semiotic system, where culture is semiotic content, and language is its semiotic expression. For Halliday, the relation between these two semiotic planes is realisation, which is an elaborating relation of identity (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 145). So the relation between culture and language is not causal, because 'cause' is an enhancing relation, not an elaborating one.

Kellogg, on the other hand, misconstrues the semiotic content that is realised in language as the material environment of language (organisms, diseases, rape, organised violence, productive practices). That is, the causal relation he proposes is between first-order material experience (phenomena) and second-order semiotic experience (metaphenomena), not between the culture as semiotic system and the language that realises it. In Halliday's terms, Kellogg is concerned with the ongoing material-semiotic dialectic, not the coevolution of culture and language. Halliday (2003: 238, 255):

The history of language, it seems to me, is part — an integral part — of human history; and this "history" is a dialectic interplay of material and semiotic processes, whose impacting engenders the complex ecosocial systems that we know as human cultures (cf. Lemke 1993 for a powerful account). …

Thus, grammar is bound up with all the other aspects of the human condition, as part of the eco-social system constituted by a human community and its environment. It takes its shape from the other strata of language with which it interfaces, from the relation of "languaging" both to other semiotic and to social and material processes, and from the nature of those processes themselves. It is the outcome of the ongoing dialectic between the material and the semiotic in human life.

David Rose Misunderstanding The Ontogenetic Move From Protolanguage To Language

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 24 August 2023 at 23:10:

The syntagms of infant protolanguage can’t handle multiple functions. The ontogenetic breakthrough comes with coupling of interpersonal with ideational functions. That’s what the syntagms of language have evolved to enable. The infant recapitulates that phylogenesis through interaction with caregivers.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents protolanguage. To be clear, infant protolanguage does not have syntagms, since syntagms are sequences of classes of lexicogrammatical form, and protolanguage has no lexicogrammar, and so no lexicogrammatical form (e.g. words), an so no classes of lexicogrammatical form to sequence in syntagms.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The ontogenetic move from protolanguage to language does not include the coupling of interpersonal and ideational functions in syntagms provided by protolanguage. This is not only because protolanguage does not provide syntagms, but also because all the metafunctions emerge together. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 532-3):

These three "metafunctions" are interdependent; no one could be developed except in the context of the other two. When we talk of the clause as a mapping of these three dimensions of meaning into a single complex grammatical structure, we seem to imply that each somehow "exists" independently; but they do not.

[3] On the one hand, this misunderstands evolution. Properties don't evolve in order to function advantageously in some context (Cause: purpose); they are selected because they function advantageously in some context (Cause: reason).

On the other hand, Rose is taking the opposite perspective on semogenesis from the SFL perspective, viewing it 'from below' in terms of form (syntagm) instead of 'from above' in terms of system and function.

[4] Importantly, ontogenesis does not recapitulate phylogenesis; see Recapitulation Theory. For example, a child learning Modern English does not recapitulate the moves from Old English to Middle English to Modern English. Instead, an ontogenetic trajectory that emerged at an earlier time in phylogenesis is maintained at later times in phylogenesis.

Mick O'Donnell On The Stifling Of Work In SFL

Mick O'Donnell replied to David Rose on sys-func on 14/7/22 at 9:16:

… But in moving forward, we cannot apriori know which aspects of the established model are ones that need to change.

We cannot assume SFL as developed by MAKH or by Ruqaiya Hasan or by Jim Martin is God's Truth, immutable for all time. History has shown that models are always superseded as we apply the model to reality.

To me, too much work in SFL has been stifled by the need to stay within the bounds of the establishment. We have been trying to grow the theory outwards, or in complexity, without touching the Hallidayan core.

Jim Martin has always impressed me as someone who, while respecting the whole, is willing to change core assumptions, when the needs of linguistic modeling require it. In the late 1970s, trying to handle genres within the established model, and failing, he and others broke out functional tenor as a stratum above, which I for the most part buy as necessary. But whether you accept this modification or not is not important, what is important is that Jim has been (and continues to be) willing to throw out established ideas (even his own) if they don't fit new data. And anyone who is not willing to do similarly is kidding themselves if they think they are doing linguistic science.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The internal self-consistency of a model can be assessed purely by deduction, without reference to empirical data, and any model that is internally inconsistent, such as Martin's (evidence here)or Fawcett's (evidence here), is one that needs to change.

[2] On the one hand, this is deployment of the 'straw man' logical fallacy, since it postulates an absurd position as the one that is to be invalidated. On the other hand, this is O'Donnell once again invoking a religious stance that he attributes to others.

[3] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, models are semiotic systems, and as such, evolve as the environment in which they function changes, with semiotic systems being one source of that environmental change.

[4] To be clear, SFL Theory was devised by Halliday, and everyone else is using his theory. What gives the "Hallidayan core" its value, is, inter alia, its internal consistency as a theory, and its explanatory potential in modelling language. It "stifles" work in SFL in just the same way that Quantum Theory and General Relativity "stifle" work in physics.

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Ignoring the motivation of personal ambition, Martin's models do not arise because they better fit the data, but because Martin misunderstands Halliday's model; evidence here.

[6] To be clear, this would be true, if this was, in fact, what Martin has actually done.

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 Phonology And The Origin Of Words

David Rose wrote to SYSFLING on 29 Jul 2021, at 15:06:

Not a lot of ideational potential in phonology

Why our ancestors came up with words

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, if there were not "a lot of ideational potential" in phonology, the ideational content of language could not be expressed phonologically. If what Rose claims were true, it would be necessary to use another medium, such as writing or sign, to express ideational meaning.

What is true is that, in English, the systems of the tone group realise interpersonal and textual distinctions, while the systems of syllable and phoneme realise all metafunctional distinctions.

[2] To be clear, Rose's argument is:

• Reason: because there's "not a lot of ideational potential in phonology"
• Result: consequently "our ancestors came up with words"

Clearly, a stratum of lexicogrammar ("words") is no solution to an ideational deficiency on the stratum of phonology, because it still leaves no means of realising the ideational content of lexicogrammar in phonology. In short, this is a false conclusion invalidly reasoned from a false premiss.

On the other hand, it is amusing to imagine human ancestors intoning interpersonally and textually before they "came up with" words.

∞

The Dangers Of Phonology Not Realising Ideational Content

John Bateman Re-Inventing Genre

After David Rose wrote to sysfling and sys-func on 9 February 2017 at 17:39:

If it is not recognisable as an instance of one genre, then it must be another genre.

and John Knox replied on 10 February 2017 at 10:40:

I disagree with this position.

John Bateman wrote to sysfling on 10 February 2017 at 16:14: 

indeed; this would be genre à la old-style literary criticism (probably being ungenerous even to them). The story can be 'made to be true' trivially by defining genre in such a way that it is a unique label that can be attributed to any text, but that is an unnecessary modelling move that weakens any account and has a dubious relationship to properties of the relevant semiotic system(s).

Since genre is a discourse phenomenon (if it's anything), attributions of genres are attributions of hypotheses concerning relevant conventions of interpretation.  The lexicogrammar and semantics are well capable of carrying patterns attributable to multiple sources of conventional interpretation. Any instance of language use can draw on and signal relevance of a variety of genres simultaneously or across logogenesis. Models are required that do not promote 'mixing' as something special, but as the norm.  Otherwise genre change over time becomes more difficult to account for than necessary, rather than falling out of the model as a prediction. Surprised that one should consider anything else these days...

Blogger Comments:

[1] It is Bateman's de novo theorising on genre that is unnecessary.  In SFL theory, a genre is Hasan's (1985) term for a text type — that is, a genre is a register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.  Every text, by definition, is a type of text, even if it is the only token of its type.

[2] On the SFL model, where genre variation is a point on the cline of instantiation, rather than misconstrued as a stratum of context, genres vary by the frequencies of feature selection at the stratum of semantics, together with those of the strata below that realise semantic selections.

If genre variation is viewed from the system pole of the cline, then it appears as register variation. Registers vary by the probabilities of feature selection at the stratum of semantics, together with those of the strata below that realise them.  This means that registers shade into one another, since they may share some probabilities, and it means that a given text (instance) can be attributed to different registers — and so: different genres — depending on which features are focused on as criterial.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 73):

In general, like any other language, English needs to be interpreted and described as an assemblage of varieties – varieties that are differentiated along different dimensions, with fuzzy boundaries.

It is the probabilistic interpretation of variation that provides a window on the evolution of language and its subpotentials, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 73-4) point out, taking the perspective of lexicogrammar:

the system of lexicogrammar is probabilistic in nature, and probabilities vary across varieties of English – dialectal, codal and registerial varieties. If we include probabilistic information in the description of the lexicogrammar, we also pave the way for interpreting the system as one that is always in the process of becoming, not one that is in a frozen state of being: the evolution of language involves gradual changes in probabilities, over long periods of time but also over much shorter periods.