David Rose On Intrastratal And Interstratal Realisation

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on SYSFLING on 31 Dec 2024, at 14:06:

Oh, then we’d have to allow meanings to be made on two lg strata, that may be coupled to realise register!  

Jing Hao opens that meta-window wide for us in Analysing Scientific Discourse. (Essential reading, folks.) 

All I’d add here is that

1. Thing doesn't realise a discourse semantic entity (interstratally). 
2. It realises the grammatical feature [nominal group] (axially). 
3. It’s the nominal word (complex) realising Thing (rankwise) that realises an entity (interstratally). 
4. Thing and entity are distinct meanings. 
5. But as Thing is the core function of a nominal group, the whole nominal group may also realise the entity (along with clause participation). 
6. (Note [entity] is a discourse semantic feature, whereas ‘class’ implies a rank scale.) 
7. And yes, Jing unpicks ideational metaphor brilliantly. 
8. So, while axial relations make meaning within strata and ranks, 
9. it seems function/class relations enable discourse semantic features to be both realised by and coupled with lexicogrammatical features

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, SFL stratifies the content plane into meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar), but wording is interpreted in terms of its function of realising meaning. And register is a language subpotential that realises a contextual configuration of field tenor and mode, not the contextual systems of field tenor and mode. The latter is Martin's (1992) misunderstanding — see, e.g. here — but accepted without question by his students.

[2] To be clear, 'entity' is Hao's rebranding of the type of element known as a 'simple thing' in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 182). It is congruently realised in lexicogrammar by a participant at clause rank, which is congruently realised by a nominal group, whose structure may include 'Thing' as a functional element.

[3] To be clear, axially, the system of the nominal group is realised by the entire structure, not just the function 'Thing'.

[4] To be clear, it is not the word realising Thing, but the entire nominal group (that realises a participant) that realises a simple thing (entity).

[5] To be clear 'Thing' is one function in nominal group structure in the lexicogrammar, whereas 'entity', as 'simple thing', is a type of participant in the semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

[6] To be clear, 'entity' is Halliday & Matthiessen's semantic element 'simple thing' rebranded by Hao as a feature of Martin's discourse semantics.

[7] This is a bare assertion, without supporting evidence.

[8] To be clear, axial relations don't "make meaning". The syntagmatic axis (Token) realises the paradigmatic axis (Value). This is another example of the Martin-derived confusion of semogenesis (making meaning) with realisation, though this time applied axially instead of stratally.

[9] To be clear, on the one hand, this conclusion cannot be validated by the preceding series of misunderstandings. On the other hand, the claim is that an intrastratal relation of realisation in lexicogrammar enables an interstratal relation between semantics and lexicogrammar, both of realisation and coupling. 

With regard to realisation, there is no "enabling" here; it is just the same relation at different locations in the architecture. With regard to "coupling", this is a matter of instantiation, the selection of features during logogenesis, which is a distinct from the realisation relations between axes and strata.

David Rose On Why Language Needs A Stratified Content Plane

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 28 Mar, 2023 at 9:11:

The way GPT ‘reads’ and ‘writes’ text as probabilistic strings of tokens highlights the question of why language needs a stratified content plane. It sounds something like dynamic processes of DS, as foreshadowed by Firth’s notion of ‘mutual expectancy’. The multiple ‘levels’ of its design could enable it to simultaneously predict and review appropriate structures at several scales and various functions, e.g. figures and figure sequences, lexical strings, reference chains, method of development, evaluation prosodies, exchange roles... [just *predicting structures* not making meanings as persona semiotica].

But lang requires these various scales of DS processes to be (re)organised in local processes of LG. Why?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is not that language "needs" a stratified content plane, but that, on the SFL model, a stratified content plane is what distinguishes language from other socio-semiotic systems.

[2] To be clear, here Rose is merely promoting Martin's discourse semantics, which confuses Halliday's textual grammar (lexical cohesion, reference etc.), Fries' textual grammar (method of development), Halliday's ideational semantics (figures and sequences), inter alia.

More importantly, the dynamics of one stratum, discourse semantics, are irrelevant to the stratification of content, because stratification is the relation between levels of abstraction, and so what stratification affords is the decoupling of congruent relations between strata to open up the enormous semogenic potential of grammatical metaphor. Moreover, as Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237) point out:

If the congruent form had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form.

[3] This is misleading. Martin's discourse semantics is not organised into 'multiple levels' and 'several various scales'.

[4] On the one hand, this misunderstands the relation between strata, and on the other hand, it is very misleading. Semantics and lexicogrammar constitute different levels of symbolic abstraction, so the lower level (Token) is not a local reorganisation of the higher level (Value): the lower level (lexicogrammar) is a realisation of the higher level (semantics). 

In all of Martin's work, which Rose continually promotes, there is a failure to understand strata as different levels of symbolic abstraction. For example, Martin (1992) misunderstands strata as modules (of the same level of abstraction), and confuses stratification with semogenesis ('all strata make meaning').

The reason why this is misleading is that it presents Halliday's lexicogrammar as a "reorganisation" of Martin's discourse semantics, whereas, in terms of theorising, Martin's discourse semantics is a reorganisation of Halliday's lexicogrammar (cohesion) and semantics (speech function). 

David Rose Misrepresenting Halliday On Meaning Potential

David Rose wrote to sys-func on 30/7/22 at 21:06:

This para bears reviewing as it seems pivotal to the history of the grammatico-semantic model...

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).

Interestingly, linguistic tradition is presented as point of departure, and the reason for restricting the use of ‘meaning potential’ to the semantic stratum. 

Its conflict with MAKH’s theoretical position is added almost apologetically in brackets. Was it too radical to say out loud that language as a whole makes meaning? At any rate, associating meaning with just one stratum, for whatever reason, had far reaching consequences for the model’s development.

Blogger Comments:

[1] 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). It does not present linguistic tradition as the reason for the how the term 'meaning potential' will be used.

[2] This very misleading because it is very untrue. There is no conflict here. SFL models language as meaning potential, in terms of the dimension of instantiation, and stratifies the content plane of that potential into two levels of symbolic abstraction: meaning (semantics) and the wording (lexicogrammar) that realises meaning.

[3] Here Rose repeats Martin's confusion of semogenesis (making meaning) with stratification (wording realising meaning), encapsulated in Martin's characterisation of stratification as 'all strata make meaning'. As a consequence, Martin (1992) even misconstrues phonology as a stratum of meaning.

[4] This is potentially misleading. Even though semantics is the stratum of meaning, lexicogrammar is the stratum whose forms, modelled as a rank scale, are interpreted in terms of their functions in realising meaning. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49) say:

it is a semanticky kind of grammar. But the focus of attention is still on the grammar itself.

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 Misrepresenting Michæl Halliday On Meaning

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

I wonder where you might locate ‘concepts’ in our stratal hierarchy. I believe MAKH followed Firth’s distributed view of meaning, where "The central proposal of the theory is to split up meaning or function into a series of component functions. Each function will be defined as the use of some language form or element in relation to some context. Meaning, that is to say, is to be regarded as a complex of contextual relations, and phonetics, grammar, lexicography, and semantics each handles its own components of the complex in its appropriate context.” 1957 p5-6

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'concepts', as ideational meanings, are located on Halliday's semantic stratum.

[2] This is misleading. In Halliday's model of language as meaning potential, meaning is construed as the highest level of symbolic abstraction: the stratum of semantics. This is distinguished from wording, a lower level of symbolic abstraction: the stratum of lexicogrammar, and from sounding, a still lower level of symbolic abstraction: the stratum of phonology.

Rose uses the wording 'distributed view of meaning' in defence of Martin (e.g. 1992), where all strata are misunderstood as strata of linguistic meaning — even context and phonology. The misunderstanding is encapsulated in Martin's 'all strata make meaning', which, though a statement about semogenesis (making meaning), is misinterpreted as a statement about stratification (levels of symbolic abstraction): all strata are strata of meaning.

[3] To be clear, although this 1957 quote from Firth is largely consistent with Halliday's later stratification of language into semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology, Firth's use of 'context' is not the same as Halliday's later construal of context as the culture as a semiotic system. This can be seen in Halliday (1961) where Halliday's earliest use of 'context' is closer to Firth's use of the term: