Robin Fawcett On Interstratal Specification

On 29 June 2011 at 08:42, Robin Fawcett wrote to Sysfling:

Indeed, if Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen had formed a clear view of the way in which the choices described in their Construing Experience Through Meaning determine the choices in the major system networks of the lexicogrammar, they would surely have said so in that book. I have looked hard for a section that makes this connection, but I have yet to find it. This suggests that the model proposed there is simply one possible, half-complete hypothesis that needs to be subject to the normal process in science of development, testing, evaluation, revision (or rejection), retesting, re-evaluation, and so on.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98-9) sets out the congruent lexicogrammatical realisations of semantic figures and elements:

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98):

Within the ideational metafunction, each [of the four types of figure] is realised congruently by one particular transitivity type: doing & happening ( material, sensing ( mental, saying ( verbal, and being & having ( relational.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99):

Within the ideational component, [the three types of element] are realised by different classes of units:

process ( verbal group,

participant ( nominal group,

circumstance ( adverbial group; prepositional phrase.

[2]  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):

Such selections have been referred to as “pre-selections”, but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term “selection” for such relations in the ideation base.

[3] For an appraisal analysis of Fawcett's negative attitude towards Halliday and Matthiessen, click here.

Jim Martin On Stratification

In a Sysfling discussion [26/6/2011], Jim Martin wrote:

I don't consider it wise to skip a stratum of metaredundancy and relate clause meanings directly to context, more or less ignoring co-text since it's the co-textualised meanings that construe field, tenor and mode.

Blogger Comments:

(1) "metaredundancy"

Strata are not levels of metaredundancy. Metaredundancy is a redundancy on a redundancy. For example, semantics is metaredundant on the redundant relation between lexicogrammar and phonology. The relation between two adjacent strata is one of redundancy not metaredundancy.

(2) "clause meanings and skipping a stratum"

The meanings of clauses are meanings realised by clauses, and so the meanings realised by clauses are of the semantic stratum. There is no "skipping a stratum" when relating lexicogrammar to semantics to context.

(3) "it is co-textualised meanings that construe field, tenor and mode"

It is meaning that construes/realises context (field, tenor and mode). "Co-textualised" meanings are only at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation — in texts — where they realise specific contexts of situation. There are no "co-textualised" meanings at the system pole of the cline of instantiation, and so: no construal of the field, tenor and mode of the context of culture by them. A theory of semantics must be accountable at all points along the cline of instantiation, not just at the instance pole.

Stratification

Contra Martin (1992: 496), the size of the units on various strata is irrelevant to the principle on which stratification is based.

Linguistic strata represent different levels of symbolic abstraction.

The levels of abstraction are identified as:
meaning (semantics)
wording (lexicogrammar)
sounding (phonology)

Robin Fawcett On The Verbal Group

A parallel paper given by Professor Robin Fawcett at the International Systemic Functional Congress held at the University of Melbourne in 2000, was titled, if I remember correctly, something like: 'Why Not Abolish The Verbal Group?'

Fawcett's argument was concerned with the experiential structure of the verbal group: Finite and Event and the optional elements Auxiliary and Polarity. There was no discussion of the logical structure of the verbal group.

Blogger Comments:

Now, as Halliday (1994: 196) pointed out, 'the experiential structure is extremely simple; and most of the semantic load is carried by the logical structure, including the tense system'.

The value of the logical structure in elegantly explaining the tense system of English was pointed out to Fawcett by Erich Steiner at the end of the presentation, despite the lack of time afforded by Fawcett for any discussion.

Robin Fawcett On Rheme

On the Sysfling email discussion list, Professor Robin Fawcett argued that 'Rheme' "does not exist" and should thus be removed from the theoretical architecture of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory.








Blogger Comments:

'Rheme' merely refers to that part of the clause which is not 'Theme'. 'Rheme' is a case of 'a presence marking an absence'. Without 'Rheme', 'Theme' extends over the entire clause, meaning that the entire clause becomes the point of departure for the clause as message — a notion which is logically incoherent.

A second point is Fawcett's notion of semiotic categories "existing" or not. Such construals of experience are either functional or not. This is the epistemological position that informs and is informed by Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory.

Robin Fawcett On Agent

On the Sys-Func email discussion list, Professor Robin Fawcett argued that for a clause of the type Cameron Diaz burped (it apparently described an incident on British TV), he would analyse the participant as Agent if the act was deliberate, but as Medium otherwise.

Blogger Comments:

Fawcett's analysis for the behavioural clause when the process is deliberate:

Cameron Diaz	burped
Agent	Process

that is, is as externally caused Process with no Medium through which to unfold.

Fawcett's analysis for the same behavioural clause when the process is not deliberate:

Cameron Diaz	burped
Medium	Process

That is, Fawcett ascribes agency to a participant on the basis of a circumstance. Cf

Cameron Diaz	burped	deliberately
Medium	Process	Manner

An example of genuine agency in a behavioural clause is:

Cameron Diaz	burped	the baby
Agent	Process	Medium