John Bateman Denying The Existence Of Text

John Bateman wrote to sysfling on 10 February 2017 at 16:01:

well, *actually* there is no such thing as text. There's just variations of patterns of pressure gradients in the air and contrasts in brightness in the visual field....

Blogger Comments:

Bateman claims that variations of patterns of pressure gradients in the air and contrasts in brightness in the visual field exist, but that text does not.

actually	there	’s	no such thing as text
		Process: existential	Existent
comment Adjunct: factual	Subject	Finite	Complement

There	’s	just	variations of patterns of pressure gradients in the air and contrasts in brightness in the visual field
	Process: existential		Existent
Subject	Finite	mood Adjunct: counterexpectancy: limiting	Complement

On the one hand, the claim here is that only phenomena in the material domain of experience can be ascribed to the set of existents — a view that owes something to Galileo's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, refined further by Descartes' distinction between res extensa and res cogitans.  On the other hand, it is a reductionist interpretation of that view, since it reduces the existence of such material phenomena to (virtually) their lowest level of organisation, ignoring all higher levels.

Galileo's distinction assumes that meaning is transcendent — that it is not confined to semiotic systems.  In contrast, SFL theory models meaning as immanent — confined to the domain of semiotic systems. Variations of patterns of pressure gradients in the air and contrasts in brightness in the visual field, just as much as texts, are construals of experience as meaning.

In terms of epistemology, Bateman's position is a version of objectivism, which the neuroscientist Gerald Edelman described as 'woefully incoherent and not in accord with the facts'. Edelman (1992: 232):

This view can certainly be held outside of science. Indeed, the objectivist position seems in accord with much that is commonsensical. But when it is held inside science, it comes close to the Galilean position we discussed in chapter 2. In that sense, human concepts, assertions, and languages are valid only if limited to physics, chemistry, and parts of biology.

 

ChatGPT comments:

A Critique of John Bateman's Reductionist Claim

John Bateman’s statement—"well, actually there is no such thing as text. There's just variations of patterns of pressure gradients in the air and contrasts in brightness in the visual field..."—is an exercise in rhetorical bravado, masquerading as theoretical insight. It is, in essence, an ontological bait-and-switch: an attempt to reduce a complex semiotic phenomenon to its lowest physical substrate while implying that all other levels of analysis are illusory or irrelevant. This move is not only misleading but intellectually bankrupt.

1. The Fallacy of Ontological Flattening

Bateman’s claim operates on the principle of ontological flattening—the fallacy of collapsing higher-order semiotic structures into their physical materiality. While it is trivially true that speech is instantiated through air pressure variations and writing through contrasts in brightness, it does not follow that text itself is nothing more than these material substrates. By this logic, we would also have to conclude that:

• Money does not exist—there are only ink patterns on paper or electronic signals in a database.

• Music does not exist—there are only air pressure variations at different frequencies.

• Legal systems do not exist—there are only marks on documents and sounds uttered in courtrooms.

This is a category error. Material instantiation does not negate the existence of higher-order semiotic, social, and cognitive structures.

2. The Erasure of Semiotic Levels

Bateman’s statement treats text as if it were a purely physical phenomenon, ignoring the fact that text operates at multiple levels of organisation:

• Material level: The raw physical instantiation (pressure gradients, light contrasts).

• Semiotic level: The structured system of meaning (syntax, lexis, discourse structure).

• Social level: The contextualised use of text within cultural and institutional frameworks.

• Cognitive level: The interpretative processes by which humans make sense of text.

To say that text is just air pressure variations or brightness contrasts is as absurd as saying that chess is just the arrangement of wooden pieces on a board—ignoring the rules, strategies, and social practices that give chess its identity.

3. The Irony of Essentialism

Bateman’s claim, despite its pretence of radical materialism, is paradoxically essentialist: it implies that text has a singular, fundamental reality that resides solely at the physical level. This stands in stark opposition to Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which understands text not as a thing but as a process—a dynamic interplay of choices shaped by context and function.

From an SFL perspective, text emerges from its material form but is not reducible to it. To ignore this is to ignore the very nature of meaning-making.

4. The Rhetorical Gimmick

Bateman’s framing—especially the smug "well, actually"—betrays the true function of his statement: performative contrarianism. The goal is not to advance theoretical understanding but to position himself as someone who sees beyond conventional wisdom, pulling the rug out from under those who mistakenly believe in such naive fictions as text.

However, this move is ultimately anti-theoretical. Rather than engaging with how text functions, Bateman reduces it to an uninteresting, brute physicality—obliterating the very object of inquiry in the process.

Conclusion: A Vacuous Reductionism

Bateman’s claim is not merely wrong—it is intellectually vacuous. It presents itself as a profound insight while offering nothing of analytical value. A more coherent stance would be:

• "Text is not a thing but a process of meaning-making."

• "Text exists at multiple levels, from physical signals to social significance."

• "Text emerges from its material form but is not reducible to it."

But of course, such statements lack the pseudo-intellectual swagger of a grand, sweeping negation. Bateman’s approach is not one of theoretical precision, but of crude demolition—mistaking the wreckage for wisdom.

David Rose Denying The Existence Of Linguistic Theory

David Rose wrote to sys-func and sysfling list on 10 February 2017 at 14:28:

*Actually* there’s no such thing as genres, or registers, or grammar. There's just text. What we like to call genres, or cultural practices, or semiotic acts, or grammatical features… are just recurring instances of similar patterns in ongoing text, that we recognise as types and might give names to. 

Features at any stratum are nothing but records of past recurrences (usuality) that may predict future recurrences (probability) 

One social application of linguistics is to (try to) control future recurrences (obligation) 

How many recurrences does it take before we call it a feature?

Blogger Comments:

[1] Rose claims that text exists but that genres, registers and grammar* do not.

Actually	there	’s	no such thing as genres, or registers, or grammar
		Process: existential	Existent
comment Adjunct: factual	Subject	Finite	Complement

There	’s	just	text
	Process: existential		Existent
Subject	Finite	mood Adjunct: counterexpectancy: limiting	Complement

The assumption here is that only instances of perceptual phenomena can be ascribed to the set of existents.  Halliday (2008: 13):

Observed from close up, language appears in the guise of text, instances of spoken or written discourse that can be perceived by the senses — that can be heard or seen. Observed from a distance, language appears as a potential, an open ended network of possibilities with certain statistical properties and having certain kinds of interrelationship with its eco-social environment.

The validity of the proposition can be assessed by considering a couple of its implications:

• Language–as–instance (text) exists, but language–as–potential does not.  (Cf weather exists, but climate does not.)  That is, only the instance pole of the cline of instantiation "exists"; a speaker's potential to instantiate texts in logogenesis does not "exist"; the potential that is established in individuals in ontogenesis does not "exist"; the potential that evolves in the species does not "exist".
• Texts about genres, registers and grammar exist, but their subject matter does not.  A text such as Genre Relations is concerned with things that don't exist.

[2] This is the view of registers/genres — as a midpoint on the cline of instantiation — from the instance pole only; see Halliday (2008: 81-2) here.  Rose, however, follows Martin in misconstruing genre and register as systems of context.

[3] Feature frequencies in instances reflect feature probabilities in the system of potential. From the system pole perspective, differences in feature probabilities characterise different registers; from the instance pole perspective, differences in feature frequencies characterise different text types (genres).

[4] "Nothing but" is the language of reductionism (a.k.a. "nothing buttery").

[5] This is prescriptivist pedagogy.  See the is–ought problem, also known as Hume's law, or Hume's guillotine.

[6] To be clear, the question is: 'how far up the cline of instantiation does a feature extend?  Is it only a feature of one text?  Is it also a feature of its text type?  Is it also a feature of the general system of potential?

∞

* Note that, in order to avoid ambiguity, Halliday sometimes distinguishes between 'grammar' (data: the phenomenon modelled) and 'grammatics' (theory: the model of the phenomenon).

David Rose Confusing The Cultural Context Of Language With Language Variation

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

A genre is a recurrent configuration of register variation (field, tenor, mode)

Any instance of a genre will involve recognisable recurrent register configurations

That doesn't mean they recur with exactly the same elements, in exactly the same order

They can vary in field, in tenor, and in mode

John's examples of ‘routines’ are recurrent activity series, which are variations in field. … 

But the configuration is still recognisable to themselves and others as a genre
If it is not recognisable as an instance of one genre, then it must be another genre. 

This model of genre is developed from the work of Hasan, Gregory, Barthes and Bakhtin, that Annabelle’s quote touches on. The major innovation is that context is modelled as a semiotic plane, stratified as genre and register, and realised in language. In this model, what Hasan calls a ‘cultural practice’ is intrinsically a ‘semiotic act’.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The confusions here are multidimensional and build on each other.  In short:

What Rose Says	What SFL Theory Says
A genre is a recurrent configuration of register variation (field, tenor, mode)	A genre is a type of text.  Genre is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.
	The field tenor and mode of a situation type (context) is realised by a register/genre (language)
Any instance of a genre will involve recognisable recurrent register configurations	An instance of a genre/register is a text.  A text realises the field, tenor and mode features of a situation (an instance of context).
That doesn't mean they recur with exactly the same elements, in exactly the same order They can vary in field, in tenor, and in mode	Variation in contextual configurations of field tenor and mode (situation types) is realised by variation in language (registers/genres)

[2] Martin's (1992) use of the term 'activity sequences' confuses what goes on in a text with what goes on in the environment of a text.  Evidence is provided here.

[3] Note that for Martin's model of genre as a system of context, rather than as a text type, an instance of a genre is an instance of context, not an instance of language.  That is, on this model, an instance of genre is not a text.

[4] This is very misleading, since it falsely claims that the modelling of context as semiotic is an innovation of Martin's model.  In SFL, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system. As demonstrated on this blog and elsewhere, Martin's model confuses context with diatypic varieties of language (registers/genres).

David Rose Misunderstanding The Trinocular Perspective

After John Knox asked the following on the sys-func and sysfling lists on 8 February 2017 at 16:31:

If a genre is a cultural pattern, is there an agnate term for a pattern used by an individual (perhaps group)? A term like 'genre', but for an individual? 

I don't mean 'text' (which is an instance). I mean an instance-generating pattern (or oft-instantiated pattern) that recurs across time and space that is used by an individual (perhaps (small) group), but that is not (necessarily) culture-wide. 

dialect:ideolect
reservoir:repertoire
genre:_?_ 

dialect:reservoir:genre::
ideolect:repertoire:_?_

David Rose replied on the sys-func and sysfling lists on 8 February 2017 at 17:26:

Have a look at Martin 2006 on instantiation/individuation
Martin, J R 2006 Genre, ideology and intertextuality: a systemic functional perspective. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 2(2), 275-298. 

Need to separate stratification from individuation
reservoir:repertoire refers to individuation 

from ‘above’ a cultural reservoir is a system of genres, of which groups and individuals control subsets 

from ‘below’ a language may include a set of dialects, of which groups and individuals speak subsets 

partial answer…

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated by the many analyses here and the detailed critique here, Martin does not understand the theoretical dimension of instantiation.

[2] This misunderstands the trinocular perspective.  'From above' means looking at a stratum from the perspective of what it realises on the stratum above, and 'from below' means looking at a stratum from the perspective of how it is realised on the stratum below.  The highest stratum, context, cannot be viewed 'from above'.  Dialects are variants of the linguistic system according to user, and thus do not constitute a stratal view 'from below'.

[3] This is Martin's model of context, which confuses diatypic varieties of language, registers/genres, with the culture as a semiotic system whose expression plane is language (and other semiotic modes of the same level of symbolic abstraction).  See any of the many critiques of Martin's genre here and context here.

[4] This is not even a partial answer to the query.  It doesn't address the question and merely tells the questioner what he already knows.

David Rose Confusing Delicacy With Instantiation And Stratification

David Rose replied to Gordon Tucker (see the previous post below) on the Sysfling List on 15 December 2016 at 09:21:

Thanks Gordon
It’s nice to see the alternative interpretations set out so clearly. Can I suggest that the source of their incommensurability is the (unresolved) tension between grammar and lexis that runs through all of linguistics? 

In this example, functional interpretations of a ‘ditransitive’ grammatical structure [nom gp + verb gp = nom gp + nom gp] vary with the lexical items instantiating each element. 

e.g. item instantiating verb gp - she made herself a cup of tea / I gave my love a cherry 

The interpretation of functional difference here assumes some criterial relation between grammar and lexis. So do terms such as ‘light verb’, since ‘verb’ is a grammatical unit and ‘light’ denotes some kind of lexical quality. Are such terms classifying grammar or lexis? 

When an item instantiating a nom gp normally instantiates a verb gp, the tension of grammar/lexis is exposed, and theories struggle to manage it. Halliday’s solution is to propose two strata — grammar/semantics — whose relation may be ‘congruent/incongruent’. (But note the dissonance here with his notion of ‘lexis as delicate grammar’.) Chomsky’s solution is to propose two structures related as 'deep/surface’. Cardiff's solution resembles Chomsky’s, as both require all semantic difference to be handled in the grammar. So a nom gp instantiated by ‘kiss’ is no longer a participant but a ‘main verb extension’. 

Whatever the proposed solution, the problem is the grammar/lexis relation, which is at the heart of linguistics but which no linguistic theory has resolved.

Blogger Comments:

[1] For the "source of their incommensurability", see the previous post.

[2] The relation between grammar and lexis is modelled differently by different linguistic theories. The "tension" that Rose imagines arises from his multiple misunderstandings of the architecture of SFL theory, as will be demonstrated below.

[3] In SFL theory, the relation between grammar and lexis is modelled as the dimension of delicacy.

[4] The four claims that lexis "instantiates" grammar confuse instantiation with delicacy.  It's been 17 years since Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15) clarified the distinction:

Note that it is important to keep delicacy and instantiation distinct. In early work on semantic networks, they were sometimes neutralised (cf. Woods', 1975, review). The difference is essentially that between being a type of x (delicacy) and being a token of x (instantiation). Both may be construed by intensive ascription: cf. Chapter 4, Section 4.2.3.2.

To be clear, for the most part, lexical items are said to be specified by combinations of features of the most delicate grammatical systems, in the same way that phonemes are specified by combinations of features of articulatory systems; e.g. /b/ is specified by combinations of the features [voiced, stop, bilabial].  Instantiation, on the other hand, is the perspectival cline between language as potential (system) and language as actual instance (text).

[5] This confuses stratification with delicacy.  Halliday did not stratify the content plane into grammar and semantics in order to solve the "tension" between grammar and lexis.  He modelled grammar and lexis as two ends of the same continuum, lexicogrammar, and stratified the content plane into grammar and semantics in order to account for grammatical metaphor.

[6] As these clarifications demonstrate, the only dissonance here is between SFL theory and Rose's understanding of it.

[7] The closest analogue in SFL theory to Chomsky's deep and surface structure is the cline of instantiation.  That is, Rose claims that Chomsky dealt with the lexis–grammar relation (delicacy) through instantiation (and that Halliday dealt with it through stratification).

To be clear, Rose has confused the systemic scale of delicacy with both the hierarchy of stratification and the cline of instantiation.

See Rose's previous confusion of delicacy with stratification here.

Beatriz Quiroz On Markedness

Replying to Alice Caffarel-Cayron, Beatriz Quiroz wrote to sysfling and sys-func on 14 November 2016 at 01:16:

Wondering now about 'markedness' again in terms of the textual metafunction. If markedness has only to do with probabilities in lexicogrammatical choices, then it makes sense. I find this criterion problematic in Spanish, though, because then a number of other patterns would be indeed marked, but they don't make much sense from the point of view of text analysis - e.g. non-modally responsible Participants at initial position, which to me are NOT marked Themes, even though they are relatively infrequent. The reason is that they do seem to sustain the angle on the field and thus contribute to the method of development (in ways beta clauses and circu[m]stances don't) across registers. This may even be related to an explanation of 'doubling' in clitic-doubling varieties, such as Chilean and Buenos Aires Spanish. 

On the other hand, if we consider interactions with higher level choices (discourse-semantic, generic), how do we treat patterns that are indeed productive in text analysis (such as beta clauses at initial position)? You then suggest this would be solved by taking into account different layers, without talking about marked or unmarked Themes?

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the notion of markedness in SFL theory.  The unmarked option is 'the form we tend to use if there is no prior context leading up to it, and no positive reason for choosing anything else' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 58), in contradistinction to marked, which means that the option is less frequent and 'carries a special interpretation' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 207).  For example, the unmarked option for present tense in material processes is the present-in-present, and the marked option, the simple present, carries the 'special interpretation' of habitual.

Difference in probability of selection, on the other hand, is what distinguishes different registers.

[2] To be clear, "non-modally responsible Participants" means Complements and some Adjuncts (e.g. Beneficiaries and Agents realised by prepositional phrases).  In SFL theory, these are regarded as marked Themes in declarative clauses, because there is a textual motivation for these, rather than the Subject, to be thematic.

[3] The notion of "the angle on the field" is from Martin (1992: 452, 489). See the theoretical misunderstandings from which this notion proceeds identified at:

• Misinterpreting Theme And New
• Rhapsodising On Method Of Development

[4] The assumption here is that marked Themes do not contribute to a text's method of development.  This is inconsistent with the model being used, Martin (1992: 461):

The concept of modal responsibility is less obvious in propositions, and the meaning of Subject is hard to isolate because of the fact that in English declaratives and interrogatives Subject conflates with unmarked topical Theme. However, it is clear in contexts where marked Themes are used to scaffold a text's method of development that Subject selection is in principle independent of Theme selection.

Martin (1992: 474): 

Although it is harder to unpick the meaning of Subject in written monologue [than in spoken mode] from the meaning of Theme and Given, texts such as [6:36] above which realise their method of development through marked Themes demonstrate the significance of modal responsibility in this mode.

The source of the confusion may be a reading of Martin (1992: 452):

The main contrast is in the range of meanings woven through Theme and New. Only a few of the text's participants and processes are selected as unmarked topical Theme, with far greater variation in New. The Themes focus on the major participants involved in the anecdote, while the News tell the story. Putting this in more general terms, Themes angle in on a given field, reflecting a text's genre; News elaborate the field, developing it in experiential terms. This contrast in functions operates across text types …

[5] The mistaken notion of genre as a higher stratum derives from Martin (1992).  For some of the reasons why the notion of genre as a stratum of context is mistaken, see:

1. Problems With The Non-Argument For Genre As Context
2. Seven Problems With The First Justification For A Genre Stratum
3. Two Problems With The Second Justification For A Genre Stratum
4. Eight Problems With The Third Justification For A Genre Stratum
5. Two Problems With The Fourth Justification For A Genre Stratum
6. Two Problems With The Fifth Justification For A Genre Stratum

[6] The point is simply that the marked vs unmarked Theme distinction does not apply to dependent clauses in regressive sequences.  If the dependent clause is the point of departure for the clause nexus, then it is thematic.  It is not marked because there is no unmarked Theme of the clause nexus with which it can be contrasted. This misunderstanding derives from Martin (1992: 240, 241).