David Rose On Register And Genre As Connotative Semiotics

David Rose wrote a second reply to Erich Steiner on sysfling on 16 May 2018 at 10:53:

… In SFL terms, a semiotic is a system of features realised by structures.

Hjelmslev defined connotative semiotics as having another semiotic as its expression plane, including those 'involving interpretation and cultural norms’ (in your terms), whose expression plane is language. … 

Connotative semiotics should be describable as systems of field, tenor, mode and genre, as language is describable as metafunctional systems. The unit of analysis for these strata is minimally a text, up to indefinitely large series of texts (of which our threads are microcosms). But such descriptions depend on how we analyse texts. …

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. In SFL terms, a 'semiotic' need not involve structures, as exemplified by the semogenesis of protolanguage and traffic lights.  More fundamental to the architecture of a 'semiotic' are the global* dimensions of stratification and instantiation.

* See, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32) for 'the global and local semiotic dimensions of language in context'.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, the more abstract semiotic system that has language as its expression plane, context, is modelled metafunctionally in terms of field, tenor and mode.  However, what Rose strategically omits, here, is that he follows Martin (1992) in mistaking field, tenor and mode as systems of register.  As functional varieties of language, registers are coherently modelled in SFL as subsystems of language, not systems of the context that is realised by language.  For some of the inconsistencies in modelling registerial varieties of language as context, instead of language, see the reasoning here (register) or here (context).

[3] The notion of genre as a more abstract semiotic system than language is invalidated for the same reasons as register, which is not surprising, given that, in SFL theory, register and genre (text type) are two different angles on the very same point of variation on the cline of instantiation.  Register is the view from the system pole, whereas text type (genre) is the view from the instance pole.  As varieties of language, genres are language, and as such, not more abstract than language.  The notion of genre as also more abstract than register thus involves further inconsistencies. For some of the inconsistencies in modelling generic varieties of language as context, instead of language, see the reasoning here.

To be clear, the identification of genre with text type in the model of genre as context is acknowledged in Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007: 8):

We use the term genre in this book to refer to different types of texts that enact various types of social contexts.

A further complicating inconsistency in this regard is that, despite arguing that register and genre are levels of a connotative semiotic whose expression plane is language, Martin & Rose (2007: 4) neverthesss include the higher level semiotic within the strata of language:

[relevant] levels of language: as grammar, as discourse, and as social context (known as the strata of language)

[4] To be clear, contrary to Rose's implication, the model of genre as context (Martin 1992: 546-73) is  not described either in terms of metafunction, or in terms of system.  See, for example, Martin's Reasons For Not Devising Genre Systems.

[5] Here Rose, having argued that register and genre are not language, but connotative semiotics whose expression plane is language, nevertheless identifies a unit of language, text, as a unit of the connotative semiotic.  In terms of SFL theory, the inconsistency is thus a confusion of different levels of symbolic abstraction.

David Rose Misunderstanding Generalisation And Abstraction

David Rose replied to Erich Steiner on sysfling on 16 May 2018 at 09:08: 

Why don’t we start on common ground, with the empirical technique Michael Halliday bequeathed us, the system network? Since it encapsulates the roles of generalisation and abstraction in semiosis.

A system relates features by generalisation... two or more features are grouped in a system by similarity, and distinguished by difference. But these relations are recognised by similarities and differences in the structures that realise them. This axial relation between feature and structure is abstraction, feature/value: structure/token.

The structures in our realisation statements are also generalisations. They generalise recurrent instances in text corpora. So the axial feature/structure relation is abstraction, while the instantial structure/instance relation is generalisation, and so is the paradigmatic feature/feature relation. This complex of relations is illustrated in the attached diagram.

 

These generalisation/abstraction relations are iterated fractally as we expand our descriptions outwards from a single system. Paradigmatic feature/feature generalisations are iterated as we expand systems in delicacy. The token/value abstraction is iterated as we expand from stratum to stratum. ...

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'empirical' means based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.  A system network is a construal of language (data) as theoretical categories organised by logical semantic relations:

• elaboration (delicacy),
• extension: addition (conjunction),
• extension: alternation (disjunction), and
• enhancement: condition (entry condition).

[2] To be clear, a system network orders features in terms of delicacy.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 14):

the paradigmatic network is ordered in delicacy (subsumption, classification, specialisation), from the least delicate (most general) to the most delicate (most specific types).

[3] To be clear,  the features of a system are co-hyponyms of a superordinate type, such as [mental] vs [material] PROCESS TYPE.

[4] To be clear, the "similarity and difference relations" in a system are paradigmatic (choice) relations, whereas the "similarity and difference relations" in a structure are syntagmatic (chain) relations — the two types being of a different order.  So, for example, in the clause:

David couldn't understand

the systemic difference in choosing [mental] instead of, say, [material] PROCESS TYPE is not "recognised" in the structural "difference" between Senser and Process.

[5] To be clear, the axial relation of realisation (symbolic abstraction) obtains between syntagmatic organisation (token) and paradigmatic organisation (value).  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 13):

… on the one hand, syntagmatic organisation realises paradigmatic organisation; on the other hand, types in a network of paradigmatic organisation correspond to fragments of syntagmatic specification …

[6] This confuses the general–to–specific dimension: delicacy, with the token–to–type dimension: instantiation; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 144-5).

[7] Contrary to the claim, the diagram does not encompass the dimension of instantiation.

[8] In addition to the problems already highlighted, two of the inconsistencies that invalidate this diagram are:

• it misrepresents syntagmatic structure as a paradigmatic system; and
• it construes the logical relation of 'similarity', not as a relation between features, as it does with 'difference', but as features themselves.

That is, reading the diagram, for both system and structure, the entry condition 'similarity' affords a choice between 'similarity' and 'similarity', where each 'similarity' is different from the other 'similarity'.

[9] These are claims about multiple confusions and misunderstandings, as demonstrated above.

John Bateman Misunderstanding Realisation

John Bateman replied to Erich Steiner on sysfling on 16 May 2018 at 06:57:

I'd only ever use 'abstraction' as an interstratal relationship (I hope); I can't get my head around the other characterizations as concerning differences in level/degree of abstraction. … 

And the problem as always with considering 'realization' as 'encoding' is primarily the intellectual baggage that encoding/decoding brings with it. I prefer the technical term and go for metaredundancy. Relations between different levels of abstraction are interesting and I don't think any kind of 'coding' metaphor gets off on the right foot, because it can sound as if the descriptions have independent existence. Co-description does it better perhaps; co-articulation too. If we take the old prism metaphor, one colour does not 'encode' another (even if there *were* 'colours'). The extent to which any of these levels of abstraction may usefully be considered to have separate 'existence' is then subsequently surely, surprise surprise, also an empirical issue. :-)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the relation of symbolic abstraction (realisation), the fundamental semiotic relation, obtains not just between strata, but throughout the architecture of SFL theory.  For example, realisation obtains

• between axes: syntagmatic structures realise paradigmatic systems, and
• between form and function: formal syntagms (nominal group ^ verbal group) realise function structures (Medium ^ Process).

Less well known, however, are the intra-stratal realisation relations entailed by grammatical metaphor.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288-9):

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token-value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience: the domain of figures is construed in terms of the domain of participants, and so on (just as in a familiar lexical metaphor the domain of intensity is construed in terms of the domain of vertical space). It is the fact that metaphor multiplies meanings within the semantic system that opens up the possibility of metaphorical chains, with one congruent starting-point and another highly metaphorical end-point (A"' stands for A" stands for A' stands for A; e.g. 'engine failure' stands for 'the failing of an engine' stands for 'an engine failed'). The semantic system is being expanded along the dimension of the metaphorical token-value relation; but the expansion is still within the semantic system itself.

[2] This misunderstands realisation.  As a symbolic identifying relation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 288), realisation construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction, a lower token and a higher value, such that either can be construed as identifying the other.  When a token is used to identify a value, the identity is encoding: it encodes a value by reference to a token; when a value is used to identify a token, the identity is decoding: it decodes a token by reference to a value.

Applied to the inter-stratal realisation relation between lexicogrammar (token) and semantics (value), if lexicogrammar is used to identify semantics, the identity encodes semantics by reference to lexicogrammar; and if semantics is used to identify lexicogrammar, the identity decodes lexicogrammar by reference to semantics.

encoding semantics by reference to lexicogrammar:

lexicogrammar	realises	semantics
Identifier Token	Process: identifying	Identified Value

decoding lexicogrammar by reference to semantics:

lexicogrammar	realises	semantics
Identified Token	Process: identifying	Identifier Value

[3] Here Bateman misconstrues 'realisation', the technical term for an ordering principle, as a metaphor.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 7):

The sound system and the writing system are the two modes of expression by which the lexicogrammar of a language is represented, or realised (to use the technical term).

[4] This misconstrues metaredundancy as a relation between two strata and as an alternative to realisation.  As Halliday (1992: 23-5) explains, realisation is itself a redundancy relation, and metaredundancy is the redundancy in a series of redundancies:

But realisation is not a causal relation; it is a redundancy relation, so that x redounds with the redundancy of y with z. To put it in more familiar terms, it is not that (i) meaning is realised by wording and wording is realised by sound, but that (ii) meaning is realised by the realisation of wording in sound.  We can of course reverse the direction, and say that sounding realises the realisation of meaning in wording.

[5] Here Bateman again raises the notion of 'existence', despite previously claiming that it "detracts" from 'the main business of work'.  More importantly, levels of symbolic abstraction are different angles on the same phenomenon, so the notion of different levels having 'independent existence' is nonsensical.

[6] Invoking the 'old prism metaphor' demonstrates that Bateman understands neither levels of abstraction nor encoding.  The colours in the spectrum of visible light are all construed at the same level of abstraction, so the notion of one colour encoding another is nonsensical.

[7] Here Bateman again raises the notion of 'existence', despite previously claiming that it "detracts" from 'the main business of work'.  On the SFL model, colours are construals of experience as meaning, further reconstrued in the field of colour perception, for example, as varying according to the frequency of photon impacts on differently sensitive cone cells in the retina.

[8] To be clear, the interpretation of empirical evidence in terms of existence (ontology) depends on the epistemological assumptions of the field.

See also John Bateman Misunderstanding Stratification And Realisation

David Rose On The Research Value Of Email List Discussions

After Bradley Smith wrote to sysfling on 15 May 2018 at 17:02:

This long, excellent discussion over the last few days reminds me of how interesting these academic list dialogues are (in terms of the history of dialogue in academia/science), as a type of text for study - I don't have the time myself, but is there someone ready to take on the task of studying the contemporary online academic dialogue (sysfling, sysfunc etc.)? (and the lack of intonation and rhythm in English orthography will be a crucial consideration, of course, whenever dialogue and debate/argument are involved).

David Rose replied at 17:56:

I suspect researchers may find our strings more interesting interpersonally than ideationally.

eliciting a further response from Bradley Smith at 18:21:

yes, that is what is interesting about written dialogic debate

Blogger Comments:

This particular researcher finds the extended discussions on the sysfling and sys-func lists fascinating, both interpersonally and ideationally.  On the one hand, in terms of the enactment of intersubjective relations, it is challenging and rewarding to use SFL theory to identify the linguistic techniques used by some interlocutors to bluff, counter-bluff and bully.  On the other hand, in terms of the construal of language as theory, it is challenging and rewarding to analyse the nature of the theoretical misunderstandings involved, and to devise the means of making effective pedagogical use of them on this blog.

John Bateman On Empirical Modes Of Discourse

John Bateman wrote to sysfling on 15 May 2018 at 16:34:

The additional power of empirical modes of discourse is that they co-articulate a (semiotically-grounded) 'real' predictively and offer further submodes of discourse that allow such discourses to develop, increasing their range of prediction. That's just called scientific method. It does not claim to be the only way of discoursing, but should be one that SFL can deal in and deal in rather centrally.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the difference between empiricism and rationalism is the relative status each gives to experience and reason, with empiricism identifying experience as the primary source of knowledge, and rationalism reason.  On the SFL model, knowledge is meaning, and ideational meaning comprises logical relations (reason) between experiential construals (experience).

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, modes of discourse are contextual modes (textual metafunction), such as spoken or written, that are realised by registers of language.  Empiricism, on the other hand, as an epistemological category, is a contextual field (ideational metafunction) that is realised by registers of language, or, more properly: a "meta-field", since epistemology is concerned with fields of fields, such as those of science or philosophy.

[3] In terms of the textual metafunction, the lexical repetition of 'co-articulate' here links cohesively back — see previous post —to 'co-articulate' in

In Peircean terms, the representamen, the interpretant and the object *co-art[i]culate* one another …

In interpersonal terms, what this repetition links is the proposition made of the Peircean triad to propositions made of 'empirical modes of discourse' and 'scientific method'.  In other words, it uses lexical cohesion to imply a proposition about the Peircean triad with regard to 'empirical modes of discourse' and 'scientific method' without presenting it as an explicit arguable proposition.

[4] Here Bateman construes an identity that encodes the additional power of empirical modes of discourse by reference to a fact:

The additional power of empirical modes of discourse	is	that they co-articulate a (semiotically-grounded) 'real' predictively and offer further submodes of discourse that allow such discourses to develop, increasing their range of prediction
Identified Value	Process: identifying	Identifier Token
Subject	Finite	Complement
Mood		Residue

The fact itself is realised by a clause complex within which the following relations obtain:

that they co-articulate a (semiotically-grounded) 'real' predictively	and offer further submodes of discourse that allow such discourses to develop	increasing their range of prediction
1	+ 2
	α	= β

By embedding these propositions in his fact, Bateman presents them as unarguable. However, they become arguable if they are analysed as ranking clauses. The first of these can be analysed as follows:

empirical modes of discourse	co-articulate		a (semiotically-grounded) 'real'	predictively
Sayer	Process: verbal		Verbiage	Manner: quality
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement	Adjunct
Mood		Residue

The second proposition can be analysed as follows:

empirical modes of discourse	offer		further submodes of discourse that allow such discourses to develop
Identified Token	Process: identifying: possessive: benefaction		Identifier Value
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement
Mood		Residue

Experientially, this construes a benefactive identity that decodes empirical modes of discourse by reference to a Value in which is embedded a further proposition:

further submodes of discourse	allow		such discourses	to develop
Creator	Process:		Existent	existential
Initiator	Process:		Actor	material: creative
Subject	Finite	Pre…	Complement	…dicator
Mood		Residue

The final proposition can be analysed as follows:

offering further submodes of discourse that allow such discourses to develop	increases		their range of prediction
Attributor	Process: qualitative		Carrier
Initiator	Process: transformative		Actor
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement
Mood		Residue

Unsurprisingly, the combination of these abstract construals and unarguable propositions, all realising what is construed as a fact, silenced all Bateman's interlocutors on the matter.

[5] Here Bateman identifies his fact as scientific method:

That	's	just	called	scientific method
Identified Token	Process:		identifying	Identifier Value
Subject	Finite	mood Adjunct: intensity: counterexpectancy: limiting	Predicator	Complement
Mood			Residue

Cf the following dictionary definition:

scientific method: a method of procedure that has characterised natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.