Mick O'Donnell On The Differences In Martin's Model

Mick O'Donnell replied to Attia Rasool on Sysling on 16/9/23 at 19:39:

My take on the differences in Martin's model:

1. What Halliday called "context of situation" was renamed as "Register" in the Martin approach. In the Halliday model, a register is "a variety of language, corresponding to a variety of situation", so is basically the language pattern appropriate to a context of situation. Martin lifted the term up to apply to the situation, not to the language used in the situation.

2. Martin and others (Rothery, Christie, etc.) added in a level of Genre above context of situation. As Annabelle said, this change was never adopted by Halliday, Hasan, and their followers. But it has proved popular in the area of Language Education, where it has proved useful to have individual genres existing as names in the theory, while in Halliday's approach, what a genre exists as a set of contextual features scattered across Field, Tenor and Mode (except since Matthiessen 2015 where terms like expounding, reporting, recreating, etc. are covered under Field).

3. Halliday's "Semantic" stratum is largely (but not entirely) a level of meaningful abstraction over the clause (or clause complex). Martin's "Discourse Semantics" has been described as "grammar above the clause", e.g., capturing patterns which don't respect the borders of clauses, e.g., reference, evaluation, logical relations, exchange, etc. Neither characterisation is totally true, but there is definitely a difference in orientation here. And certainly Hasan's work explored deeply patterns outside the clause (she introduced the notion of cohesion, cohesive harmony, schematic structure etc.)

4. Semantics was not highly specified by Halliday himself, and those who followed have proposed different components to the semantics. Most share some kind of Experiential and Logical semantics, and Speech Function as part of an Exchange semantics, some form of Thematic Progression, and Cohesion resources. The nature of these descriptions varies though, Hasan's "message semantics" takes a different turn that Eggin's (in the Martin camp) speech function network. And approaches to cohesive resources, while a common base in Hasan's work, varies in the way it is applied. Martin's model adds in other areas of semantics, e.g., Martin and White added in attitudinal, engagement and graduation models (part of Appraisal). And other components as well.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin (1992) rebranded Halliday's context — from potential to instance — as register. Context of situation is merely an instance of context. Despite modelling register as context instead of language, an instance of Martin's register is nevertheless an instance of language: a text. This inconsistency is exacerbated by Martin's acknowledgement that instantiation does not cross stratal boundaries (such as from context to the strata of language.

[2] To be clear, in Halliday's model, register is a subpotential of language, a point of variation at the midway point on the cline of instantiation between potential and instance. As such, it realises context at a point of variation at the midway point on the cline of instantiation between potential and instance: a situation type. Because situation is an instance of context, it is realised by an instance of language: text, not register.

[3] To be clear, this is a serious misunderstanding of the stratification of levels of symbolic abstraction. Locating genres, as text types, above context is misconstruing varieties of language as not being language and as more abstract than culture.

[4] To be clear, Martin's notion of genre is unwittingly scattered over various dimensions of SFL theory. As text type, genre is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation. The types of genre are categories within rhetorical mode, context, and the stages of genres are semantic structures of text types.

[5] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604) outline the explanatory advantages that motivate modelling semantics at a low level of abstraction above the grammar:

But in modelling the semantic system we face a choice: namely, how far "above" the grammar we should try to push it. Since the decision has to be made with reference to the grammar, this is equivalent to asking how abstract the theoretical constructs are going to be. We have chosen to locate ourselves at a low point on the scale of abstraction, keeping the semantics and the grammar always within hailing distance. There were various reasons for this.  

First, we wanted to show the grammar at work in construing experience; since we are proposing this as an alternative to cognitive theories, with an "ideation base" rather than a "knowledge base", we need to posit categories such that their construal in the lexicogrammar is explicit.  

Secondly, we wanted to present the grammar as "natural", not arbitrary; this is an essential aspect of the evolution of language from a primary semiotic such as that of human infants.  

Thirdly, we wanted to explain the vast expansion of the meaning potential that takes place through grammatical metaphor; this depends on the initial congruence between grammatical and semantic categories.

But in any case, it is not really possible to produce a more abstract model of semantics until the less abstract model has been developed first. One has to be able to renew connection with the grammar.

[6] To be clear, "patterns which don't respect the borders of clauses" are modelled in terms of cohesion in SFL Theory (Halliday & Hasan 1976). Martin (1992) rebranded these lexicogrammatical systems as his discourse semantic systems, rebranding reference and ellipsis-&-substitution as identification, lexical cohesion as ideation, and cohesive conjunction as conjunction (later connexion).

[7] To be clear, reference, evaluation, logical relations and exchange are all Halliday, not Martin. But see [10] below.

[8] This is misleading because it is untrue. See, for example, the 618-pages of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999). 

[9] This is potentially misleading, since speech function is Halliday, not Martin.

[10] The systems of APPRAISAL differ from all the other discourse semantic systems in that they were developed through the collective efforts of Martin's colleagues and PhD students, with a first, early version of the key subsystem of ATTITUDE set out in 1994 by Iedema, Feez and White in their monograph, Media Literacy. Martin is possibly often regarded as the founder of the theory on the basis of references he made to APPRAISAL in a 1997 paper ("Analysing Genre: Functional Parameters") and/or his fuller treatment in his 2000 paper ""Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English". (The 1997 chapter presented an account of the sub-system of APPRECIATION, which was also developed through collaboration, most notably through Rothery's work on visual arts education.) However, key elements of what is now the widely referenced version of the theory were first presented in White's 1998 PhD thesis and then in White's 2002 paper, "The Language of Evaluation and Stance" (Handbook of Pragmatics.)". The version of the theory now most widely deployed in textual analysis was outlined in Martin and White's 2005 The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. It includes accounts of the following sub-systems: AFFECT (drawing on earlier work by Martin), JUDGEMENT (collaboration by Martin, Iedema, Feez and White), APPRECIATION (collaboration by Martin and Rothery), ENGAGEMENT (from White's 1998 PhD thesis), GRADUATION (White and Martin collaboration).

David Rose On There Being No Important Differences Between Martin And Halliday & Hasan

David Rose replied to Attia Rasool on SYSFLING on 16 Sept 2023 at 09:32:

There are no important differences between Martin’s, Halliday’s and Hasan’s approaches in SFL. Halliday’s major contribution was developing SFL theory in the process of describing lexicogrammar and intonation through the 1960-70s. He and Hasan used the work on lexicogrammar to describe structures of discourse as ‘cohesion’ in 1976. Hasan was also trained as a sociologist. She and Halliday both used the work on lexicogrammar to interpret aspects of social contexts in their later work.

Martin used Halliday’s and Hasan’s work on lexicogrammar and discourse to describe discourse semantic systems. His foundational English Text (1992) explains carefully how this work builds on their research. It should be read closely by anyone interested in SFL.

Martin also extended SFL theory to social context, describing field, tenor and mode as semiotic systems, realised in language, and genre as a semiotic system realised in field, tenor and mode. This work has been widely applied to research in education and other fields.

Martin and colleagues then built on Kress and van Leeuwen’s work on images to describe other modalities as semiotic systems. Martin and colleagues have also integrated Halliday’s, Hasan’s and others’ research on ‘users’ and ‘uses’ of language, as individuation and instantiation.

Work on individuation helps to understand various alignments within the SFL community in terms of affiliation, or bonding around icons. As the founder of the field, Halliday has been iconised, so that SFL work beyond his was sometimes seen as too different and less legitimate. This is not the view of younger generations.

Measured objectively, by far the most influential figures in SFL have been Halliday with [almost 200,000] citations, and Martin with almost 100,000 citations. Other leaders in SFL have only a fraction of these followers.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed, because there are very many important irreconcilable differences, all deriving from Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's theory. See some of the evidence at:

Review of Martin (1992)
Review of Bateman (1998)
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
Review of Martin (2013)
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
Review of Martin & Doran (2023)

[2] This is potentially misleading. Halliday's "major contribution" was to actually formulate SFL theory, developing it, in the 1970s, from his 1960s theory, Scale & Category Grammar. The integration of all the dimensions that the theory assigns to language is Halliday's work. Without Halliday, SFL Theory does not exist; without Martin, it does. 

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Hasan (1976) theorises the lexicogrammatical systems of cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction. Later, Martin (1992) rebranded his misunderstandings of their non-structural systems as his structural systems of discourse semantics. See the evidence at Review of Martin (1992).

[4] This is potentially misleading. In the 1960s, Hasan worked at the Sociolinguistic Research Centre with Basil Bernstein.

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Hasan did not interpret context in terms of the lexicogrammar. Halliday used Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic to stratify context in relation to language, and projected the notion of metafunction onto context as the systems of field, tenor and mode.

[6] For the closest of all readings of Martin (1992), see  Review of Martin (1992).

[7] This is very misleading indeed, because it credits Martin with Halliday's work. It was Halliday who modelled context in terms of field, tenor and mode. Martin's "contribution" was to misunderstand context (the culture as semiotic system) as register (a diatypic variety of language). See the evidence at Review of Martin (1992).

[8] To be clear, Martin's genre is a confusion of text type (register viewed from the instance pole), mode (textual context) and semantics not organised by metafunction. It unwittingly proposes that stages of a narrative ("genre"), for example, are realised by the relative social status of the speaker and addressee (tenor). See the evidence here, here and here.

[9] For some of the misunderstandings in Martin's work on pictorial semiosis, see here (Working With Discourse) and here (Deploying Functional Grammar). For theoretical and ethical problems with "Martin's" work on "paralanguage", see Martin's Model Of Paralanguage.

[10] To be clear, Martin does not understand instantiation; evidence here, here and here. And as previously explained, Martin's model of individuation incongruously maps a meronymic taxonomy (affiliation) onto a hyponymic taxonomy (individuation). See the previous post David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation.

[11] See The Tactics Of The Disciplinarian Head Of The Martin Faith Community.

[12] To be clear, here Rose implies that Martin's work has been rejected because it is too different or less legitimate, rather than because it is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and itself. See also The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

[13] To be clear, here Rose is talking of Martin's former and current students.

[14] To be clear, this confuses quantity (citations) with quality (theoretical integrity). The most reliable interpreter of Halliday, by far, is Christian Matthiessen. A meticulous review of his 700+ page book, Lexicogrammatical Cartography, warranted only 41 critiques.

[15] See The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on Sysfling on 12/9/23 at 16:55:

For recentish work on "context-bound" vs "context-free" see

Revisiting mode: Context in/dependency in Ancient History classroom discourse

JR Martin, E Matruglio

Studies in functional linguistics and discourse analysis 5, 72-95

Revisiting field: Specialized knowledge in secondary school science and humanities discourse

JR Martin

Onomázein, 111-148

SF work on coding orientation is now being reframed as individuation: allocation/affiliation

Discourse and Diversionary Justice: an analysis of youth justice conferencing

M Zappavigna, JR Martin

Palgrave Macmillan

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin mistakes language varieties, register and genre, for context. If register and genre are misunderstood as the context of language, then the claim is that language is either independent or dependent of the context it construes. In this case, the realisation relation between context and language is misunderstood as dependency.

But even if register and genre are understood as language varieties, the claim is that texts are either independent or dependent of the varieties of which are instances. In this case, the instantiation relation between register/genre and text is misunderstood as dependency.

 [2] To be clear, Halliday (2008: 114) explains Bernstein's coding orientation as follows:

… Bernstein’s concept of “code”, which he defined as sociolinguistic coding orientation […] with its opposition of “elaborated/restricted”, was the basic mechanism of cultural transmission: it was the different semiotic practices, or “meaning styles”, of different social classes that was responsible for transmitting social class distinctions across the generations.

See Misunderstanding Bernstein at Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause (Martin & Rose, 2007).

[3] To be clear, Martin has presented two models of a 'cline of individuation': one derived from the work of Bernstein and the other from the work of his PhD student, Knight. The Bernstein-derived model is a cline from 'reservoir' to 'repertoire', where 'reservoir' refers to the potential of the community and 'repertoire' refers to the potential of the individual. Bernstein (2000: 157):

I shall use the term repertoire to refer to the set of strategies and their analogic potential possessed by any one individual and the term reservoir to refer to the total of sets and its potential of the community as a whole.

Applied to language, this is a model of the meaning potential of meaners (language users). The organising principle of the cline is elaboration and ascription (intensive attribution), since 'repertoire' is both a subtype of 'reservoir' (elaboration), and a member of the class 'reservoir' (ascription); cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

However, it is the Knight-derived model that is relevant here. Martin et al (2013):

A second, complementary perspective on individuation looks at how personæ mobilise social semiotic resources to affiliate with one another — how users attitude and ideation couplings, in Knight's (2010) terms, to form bonds, and how these bonds then cluster as belongings of different orders (including relatively "local" familial, collegial, professional, and leisure/recreational affiliations and more "general" fellowships reflecting "master identities" including social class, gender, generation, ethnicity, and dis/ability).

Like the Bernstein-derived model, the organising principle is again elaborating ascription, since each point on the cline is a subtype and member of the points above as types, but unlike the Bernstein-derived model, the individuation here is not of the meaning potential of meaners but of the meaners themselves. This inconsistency leads to a more serious inconsistency: the conflation of two different types of hierarchy.

Affiliation differs from individuation in that its organising principle is extension, not elaboration, since it is concerned with composition and association (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146). That is, where individuation is a hyponymic taxonomy (an elaboration of types), affiliation is a meronymic taxonomy (a composition of parts).

Because of this difference, affiliation can not be mapped onto the cline of individuation. For example, the bonding of meaners through shared evaluations does not affiliate them as a master identity such as gender or ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity are not created by people making the same interpersonal assessments, and the meaners (personæ) of the same gender or ethnicity can differ markedly in their interpersonal assessments.

David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on Sysfling on 9 Sept 2023 at 18:50:

ET explains...

Blogger Comments:

From Mistaking Numeratives And Epithets For Reference Items at English Text: System And Structure:

Martin (1992: 113): 

For selective Deictics the basic distinction has to do with selection on the basis of order, as realised through ordinative Numeratives and selection on the basis of quality, as realised through superlative Epithets.  Order is realised through ordinal numerals (first, second, third, etc.) or position in time and space (e.g. next, last, final, ultimate, penultimate etc.).  Quality is realised through superlative adjectives, where these are not simply attitudinal; note that in He made the dumbest moves the superlative morphology is not phoric if the dumbest moves simply means 'some very dumb moves worth exclaiming about'.  The opposition between order and quality is illustrated in [3:35]:

[3:35]          Which one will we take?

ORDER            — The next one/the last one/the penultimate one etc.

QUALITY         — The biggest one/the flattest one/the reddest one etc.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the mistaking of nominal group deixis (interpersonal metafunction realised structurally) for reference (textual metafunction realised non-structurally), and the rebranding of the grammatical misunderstanding as discourse semantics.

[2] This continues the mistaking of the construal of experience as participants realised by nominal groups (experiential metafunction) with the cohesive resource of reference (textual metafunction), and the rebranding of the grammatical misunderstanding as discourse semantics.

[3] The claim here is that order is realised by position in time and space.  On the one hand, this presents a definition as an interstratal relation; on the other hand, it reverses the levels of abstraction in the definition such that the Token ('order') is realised by the Value ('position in time and space').

[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, all of these function as ordinative Numerative; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 375).

[5] Note that 'superlative' means expressing the highest or very high degree of a quality, and that, in SFL theory, superlatives do not function as reference items, since they do not present an identity as recoverable.

David Rose Misunderstanding Delicacy And Instantiation

David Rose replied to Beatriz Quiroz on Sysfling on 9 Sept 2023 at 18:50:

The more delicate a system, the more instantial it is, so the more it couples features from multiple systems, eg DEIXIS and IDENTIFICATION

The IFG discussion of DEIXIS is interesting as it shifts back and forth between LG and DS

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. It is the whole system, along the dimension of delicacy, that is located on the cline of instantiation from potential to subpotential/instance type to instance. Clearly, the more delicate system of attributive and identifying process types, for example, is not more "instantial" than the system that includes material and mental process types. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 219).

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327):

Instantiation is the relation between the system and the instance. When we shift attention along this scale, we are moving between the potential that is embodied in any stratum and the deployment of that potential in instances on the same stratum (between the climate and the weather, to use the analogy from our illustration below). Again, this move can be made at any degree of delicacy. 

Delicacy is the relation between the most general features and the most specific. When we shift attention from, say, 'recreation' to 'hockey' at the level (stratum) of context, or from 'syllable' to long open nasal syllable' to /pã:/ in phonology, we are moving in delicacy. Again, we can do this at any point along the instantiation scale.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The number of co-selected ("coupled") features from different systems does not increase down the cline of instantiation. What is true is that the co-selection of features differs at points of variation along the cline of instantiation. That is, registers (subpotentials) differ from one another in which features are co-selected; texts (instances) differ from one another in which features are co-selected.

[3] To be clear, DEIXIS is a system of the nominal group, whereas IDENTIFICATION is Martin's misunderstanding of REFERENCE — Halliday & Hasan's system of grammatical cohesion — relocated to his stratum of discourse semantics and rebranded as his own system. Evidence here.

[4] This is misleading because it is untrue. Unsurprisingly, the discussion of DEIXIS in IFG is only concerned with Halliday's lexicogrammar, not Martin's discourse semantics. This deception is merely an attempt to legitimate Martin's model by incorporating it into Halliday's exposition of the grammar.

Beatriz Quiroz On The Nominal Group System Of Deixis

Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz Olivares replied to David Rose on SYSFLING on 9 Sept 2023 at 11:29:

So you say in IFG4 [selective] and [non-selective] may not be LG choices? And that they are instead be comparable to ET [non-directed] and [directed] respectively? It does make sense, but I wonder... Because Table 6-3 in the same section of IFG4 shows non-specific determiners and that table does include [selective] and [non-selective] for [non-specific: partial] - something that is inconsistent with the system network shown on p. 366.

And on 10 Sept 2023 at 00:12: 

And yes, the kind of DS semantic discussion in IFG on determiners is something that most non-SFL grammarians at this point take into account when looking at determiners, at least in Spanish.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this does not make sense, since features in lexicogrammatical systems, like those of the nominal group are, by definition, are lexicogrammatical, not semantic.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. There is no inconsistency, since Table 6-3 merely provides features that specify non-specific DEIXIS and which are not provided for that system in Figure 6-2. The feature 'selective' just means there are more delicate selections to be made, and so can appear anywhere in a network where such a distinction needs to be made.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 366, 368):

[3] To be clear, there is no discourse semantic discussion in IFG on determiners or on anything else, because IFG, as the name suggests, is an introduction to Halliday's functional grammar, not an introduction to Martin's discourse semantics.

David Rose Misconstruing Discourse Semantic Systems As More Delicate Grammatical Systems

David Rose replied to Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz Olivares on Sysfling on 9/9/23 at 9:32:

Which brings us to IFG Fig.6-2 The nominal group system network: determination

 

Deixis articulates lexicogrammar with discourse semantics, but I’m not sure this network distinguishes LG and DS criteria. The personal/demonstrative and determinative/interrogative systems are clearly LG, but more delicate systems are DS - interactant/non-interactant and selective/non-selective (ET’s directed/undirected).

That may explain its fuzziness of selective/non-selective criteria (system not named)?

How to represent more clearly??

PS In Australian lgs, personal Deictics precede Thing and demonstrative Deictics follow Thing. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this metaphor is theoretical nonsense. DEIXIS is a lexicogrammatical system of the nominal group; lexicogrammar and semantics are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

[2] To be clear, this is theoretical nonsense. A grammatical network does not "distinguish discourse semantic criteria" because it models grammatical potential, not semantic potential.

[3] To be clear, this is theoretical nonsense. The more delicate systems of a grammatical systems are, unsurprisingly, grammatical, not semantic, since semantic systems are on the semantic stratum, not the grammatical stratum.

[4] To be clear, the feature 'selective' merely provides the entry condition for more delicate selections, in number and proximity, whereas the feature 'non-selective' does not.

[5] To be clear, this claim is contradicted by Rose's previously posted analysis of his own data, where the demonstrative nani 'this' precedes the Thing daluk 'woman':

David Rose Mistaking Realisation Rules For Function Structures And Paradigmatic Features For Syntagmatic Units

David Rose replied to John Bateman on Sysfling on 30/8/23 at 22:41:

Just some parameters...

In a rank scale, the initial entry condition for systems is a syntagmatic unit eg clause. Their features e.g. [indicative] are realised by function structures at that rank ↘︎S^F, and each function within that structure e.g. Subject is realised by a syntagm at the next rank ↘︎nom gp.

Phonemes are syntagmatic units at the base of a rank scale. Features at syllable rank are realised by function structures eg ↘︎(Onset)^Rhyme, and each function is realised by a phoneme (complex). Phonemes are produced by tongue and lip postures with voicing, but these lie outside language in the biology of the vocal tract... Jim’s materiality (the ‘etics’ materialising ‘emics’)

So yes, it seems adult social semiosis minimally requires two syntagmatic ranks

Im interested in how that emerges from unranked protolg

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. The entry conditions to paradigmatic systems are paradigmatic features, not syntagmatic units. The rank scale construes formal constituents as a system of features, with the selection of a feature satisfying the entry condition to the systems of that rank.

[2] This is very misleading because it is a serious misunderstanding. Features are not realised by function structures. Importantly, in Rose's first example, ↘︎S^F is not a function structure, but a realisation statement that specifies 'Subject before Finite'. Moreover, it is activated by the selection of the feature 'declarative', not 'indicative'. The feature 'indicative' activates the insertion of a Mood element (Subject and Finite). See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 162).

In Rose's second example, ↘︎(Onset)^Rhyme is not a function structure, but a realisation statement of an unidentified feature that specifies 'optional Onset before Rhyme'.

[3] To be clear, the systems that specify phonemes are those that 'label tongue and lip postures with voicing' (and more), so this is not the distinction between phonology and phonetics. The difference is stratal: phonology is a higher level of symbolic abstraction than phonetics. Moreover, the materiality of phonetics is hardly Martin's discovery.

[4] Clearly, SFL Theory maintains that four ranks are required to model formal constituency in lexicogrammar and phonology. But rank only applies to the expression plane of semiotic systems without a lexicogrammar.

John Bateman On The Necessity Of Rank Across Semiotic Systems

John Bateman replied to David Rose on Sysfling on 28/8/23 at 21:03: 

picking up on [your]:

Not sure about necessity of ranks, since lowest lg ranks have only next stratum to operate in

this is an interesting modelling issue. Formally, I would tend to want to include a category even if it is not expanded if it is a logical consequence of other components of the theory. I take rank in this sense — i.e. without some unit of structure there is no place for axis to start its magic.

Also wrt Jim's :

“As systemicists interested in genesis, should we be proposing a major component of our cartography (i.e. a rank, a metafunction or a stratum) in the absence of a distinctive system of valeur?” [Martin 2010]

maybe one ranked unit is enough?

In any case, if I had to put my finger on one reoccurring (quite serious) problem with many many multimodal analyses that I see (including some waving the SFS flag), it would be lack of attention to rank — mostly signalled by system networks hanging wonderously in the air and curious 'multiple options' (e.g. 'either-and' systems) going along with that, mostly, I suspect, because the units aren't clear.

So, I'd be very hesitant to leave out rank.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See David Rose On Ranks, Axis And Strata In Protolanguage.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. Firstly, rank is a means of modelling formal constituency, so it only applies to strata that feature formal constituents. In language, these are lexicogrammar on the content plane and phonology and graphology on the expression plane. Since other semiotic systems do not have a lexicogrammar — they cannot be read aloud — rank can only apply to their expression plane. Rank is a local dimension, not a global dimension (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32).

Secondly, the SFL model of ideational semantics demonstrates that rank is unnecessary, since it has axis, system and structure, but no rank. Instead of a rank scale of forms, there are types of phenomenon: sequence, figure and element (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 49), with each type being the entry condition to systems.

[3] See David Rose On Ranks, Axis And Strata In Protolanguage.

[4] To be clear, the problem here not the absence of rank, but the absence of entry conditions. These are provided by rank units in lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology, but there are no rank units on the content plane of a semiotic system other than language, because only language has a lexicogrammar.

[5] See [2] and [4].

David Rose Misunderstanding Immanence, Transcendence And 'Language Turned Back On Itself'

David Rose replied to Kieran McGillicuddy on Sysfling on 28/8/23 at 14:13:

There’s more to Firth’s apparent disavowal than meets the eye. And times have changed. Here’s a prosaic gloss...

1 Our schematic constructs must be judged with reference to their combined tool power in a way our dealings with linguistic events in the social process.

‘Our metalanguage is designed for research’

2 Such constructs have no ontological status

‘Its terms shouldn't be mistaken for reality’

3 and we do not project them as having being or existence.

‘We don’t pretend they are’

4 They are neither immanent nor transcendent,

I dunno... hence my q to Ed

5 but just language turned back on itself.

‘but now I’m just going to bend your mind’.

and added at 19:53:

Please forgive me all, my ignorance

Immanence and transcendence were of course, not currents in lx theory, but in Christian theology, of the spirit located within or above the material world. But Firth’s readers would all have known that.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, Firth's first point is that theory must be judged according to its explanatory power in modelling language in context.

[2] To be clear, Firth's second and third points are that, in his view, the schematic constructs themselves have no ontological status: no being or existence.

[3] To be clear Firth's fourth point makes reference to opposing orientations to meaning in linguistic traditions, not Christian theology. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415, 416):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules;

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource. …

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models. These external differences are associated with internal differences as well.

(i) First, the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach.

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

Many traditional notions of meaning are of the second kind — meaning as reference, meaning as idea or concept, meaning as image. These notions have in common that they are 'external' conceptions of meaning; instead of accounting for meaning in terms of a stratum within language, they interpret it in terms of some system outside of language, either the 'real world' or another semiotic system such as that of imagery.

[4] Again, Firth's fifth point is simply that linguistic theory is the use of language to model language; linguistic theory is language about language: a metalanguage.

David Rose Misunderstanding Firth

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald On Sysfling on 28/8/23 at 10:34:

Firth’s famous disavowal begs more discussion...

1 Our schematic constructs must be judged with reference to their combined tool power in a way our dealings with linguistic events in the social process.
2 Such constructs have no ontological status
3 and we do not project them as having being or existence.
4 They are neither immanent nor transcendent,
5 but just language turned back on itself. (Firth 1957 [1950]: 181)

The first clause is the argument for an appliable lx

While the 2nd clause is unarguable (they're constructs)...

3 contradicts another position on SFL theory, that its architecture is designed to mirror the phenomena it construes

4 seems unarguable but lx history q... what currents of the time is he countering?

5 foreshadows a mimetic meta language despite his mere modesty

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Rose's gloss misunderstands Firth. Firth's first point is that theory must be judged according to its explanatory power in modelling language in context.

[2] To be clear, Rose's gloss is misleading, because the claim that theoretical constructs have no ontological status is arguable, since it depends crucially on what is encompassed by the meaning of 'ontology'. 

[3] To be clear, Rose's gloss has nothing to do with Firth's point. Firth's third point follows from his second point: having no ontological status entails having no being or existence. So it doesn't contradict Rose's misunderstanding that a theory mirrors the theory it construes (for which, see the previous post).

[4] To be clear, again Rose's gloss has nothing to do with Firth's point. Firth's fourth point is that theoretical constructs are outside the distinction between meaning as immanent and meaning as transcendent. This is at odds with SFL Theory, where all meaning is taken to be immanent, including meaning used to model meaning. At this point Rose is totally lost.

[5] To be clear, Firth's fifth point is simply that linguistic theory is the use of language to model language; linguistic theory is language about language: a metalanguage.

David Rose On Theory Mirroring And Representing A Phenomenon

David Rose replied to Ed McDonald on Sysfling on 27/8/23 at 14:38:

My interest in axis doesn't in any way diminish all you say here. There’s no value judgement as to what part of the theory is more important or primal than any other. MAKH developed it initially as a research tool to map functions and structures, discovering metafunctions along the way, and an empirical model of ranks in grammar and phonology. But the theoretical formalism is not just a tool, it mirrors the organisation of the phenomenon it represents.

My interest is particularly in how it works as a configuration of abstraction and generalisation to make semiosis possible. There is actually no such thing as systems and structures. They are merely generalisations from recurrent instances of sounds and other perceptible phenomena. Yet they turn matter into meaning.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Rose had written on 23 August 2023 at 13:55:

Can I suggest when reading the various philosophers of language cited in this thread, to remember the one missing puzzle piece that lies at the heart of systemic functional semiotics...axis.

 on 24 August 2023 at 00:01:

Axis is the systemic in systemic functional. In this theory, the coupling of generalisation with abstraction in the axial relation is the basis of semiosis.

and on 25 August 2023 at 8:40:

My original point was that axis is the basis of semiosis and that these are all dimensions in which axis proliferates in lg.

[2] To be clear, on the SFL model, a theory neither mirrors nor represents a phenomenon. If a theory mirrored its phenomenon, then there would be only one possible theory. If a theory (Token) represented a phenomenon (Value), then the phenomenon would be more abstract than the theory.

Instead, a phenomenon is a construal of first-order experience as meaning, and a theory is a metaphenomenon: a reconstrual of that first-order meaning as second-order meaning. The complication with language is that it is itself a theory of experience, a metaphenomenon, so that a theory of language is a reconstrual of that theory of experience as a theory of a theory of experience, that is: a metatheory of experience. It is because linguistic theory is 'meta' to language in this way that it is termed a 'metalanguage'.

[3] As previously explained, systems and structures are abstract things in the metalanguages that theorise languages.

David Rose On Ranks, Axis And Strata In Protolanguage

David Rose replied to John Bateman on Sysfling on 27/8/23 at 7:14:

Not sure about necessity of ranks, since lowest lg ranks have only next stratum to operate in. Morphemes and phonemes aren’t configurations, are they? Protolg is not ranked, which may relate to Jim’s qu about materiality. Which reminds me of his 2010 intro in Making Meaning Matter, which contrasted two interpretations of axis and strata in protolg...

First is Xian following MAKH... “The content-expression organisation of protolanguage is thus simultaneously stratal and axial… The dimensions of stratification and axis are not independently variable at this stage: the content stratum is organised paradigmatically, while the expression stratum is an inventory of indivisible postural or gestural syntagms.” [Matthiessen 2007: 516]

Second is JRM... “As systemicists interested in genesis, should we be proposing a major component of our cartography (i.e. a rank, a metafunction or a stratum) in the absence of a distinctive system of valeur?” [Martin 2010]

Here’s MAKH [2004/2012] on Nigel @ 15 months reinterpreted by me as axis and strata...

Blogger Comments:

[1] Clearly, if this were true, it would be an argument against the necessity of rank in language (morpheme, phoneme). To be clear, rank is one way to model formal constituency, so the lowest rank, by definition, has no constituents. But a syntagm of lowest rank units realises the structural configuration of the higher rank: a syntagm of morphemes realises word structure; a syntagm of phonemes realises syllable structure. Moreover, as a rank unit of lexicogrammar, a morpheme does not "operate in" phonology, since lexicogrammar and phonology are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

[2] To be clear, the reason why rank does not apply to protolanguage is semiotic, not material. Protolanguage has no formal constituency, and so it has nothing to model as a rank scale.

[3] To be clear, Martin's model of protolanguage posits structure where there is none. A structure is the relationships between functional elements, but there is no configuration of functions in protolanguage. Each realisation is an individual and indivisible sound or gesture.

[4] Strictly speaking, these are not syntagms, since a syntagm is a sequence of classes, and the expression stratum of protolanguage involves no sequencing.

[5] To be clear, Martin has himself violated his own principle by proposing "a major component of our cartography", structure, "in the absence of a distinctive system of valeur" that specifies structural configurations.

[6] To be clear, Rose's reinterpretation of Halliday (2004/2012) 

• proposes structure where Halliday says there is none,
• misrepresents expression (an:a, dada) as content, and 
• mistakes the resonance feature 'nasal' for a type of (oral) closure.

John Bateman On Dimensions Across Semiotic Modes

John Bateman replied to David Rose on Sysfling on 26/8/23 at 20:16:

… But the following [from Rose] is very nice to hear:

Metafunctionality as I tried to suggest, is a property of lg that its syntagmatic structuring has evolved to enable, together with ranks and strata. So it’s basic to lg but not to semiotic modes in general.

I'm wondering how well that statement goes down more generally: consequences should actually follow.

I think the question of what dimensions are common across semiotic modes is very interesting and also central for a semiotics. I'd readily take rank to have to be present, otherwise axis has no domain (s) to operate in. Structural configurations have to be configurations of something. Stratification is also a good bet. Moreover, since semiosis is inherently dynamic, we'll have instantiation and sedimentation relating to reservoires and repositories I'd expect. These would all seem to be necessarily bound up in a single 'definition' of a particular kind of signs for my money. This means there is no 'picking and choosing' to do. …

Metafunction again turns up there as a bit of a swamp... the original idea of "distinctive regions of relatively interdependent systems" gets tricky without sufficiently strongly motivated systems. And I am not yet sure to what extent the different kinds of structure (which I like a lot) actually match well with kinds of functions parallel to linguistically motivated metafunctions in nonverbal semiotic modes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not "very nice to hear" from a theoretical point of view. See David Rose Misunderstanding Metafunctionality And Axis (Inter Alia).

[2] To be clear, rank is one way of modelling formal constituency. In language, rank is a dimension of lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology. Therefore, in modelling semiotic systems without a grammar — that is, those other than language — rank can only be a dimension of the expression plane, not the content plane.

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue. To be clear, semantics has no rank scale because it has no forms to rank, and yet semantics is modelled with both axes, paradigmatic and syntagmatic; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

Bateman's false claim derives from two theoretical misunderstandings. Firstly, rank is not the domain of axis. Axis and rank are distinct local dimensions. Axis has two orders: the paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Rank has four orders: clause, group/phrase, word, morpheme in lexicogrammar. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32):

Secondly, structures are configurations of functions (Senser^Process) not rankscale forms (nominal group ^ verbal group). The sequencing of formal units is a syntagm.

[4] To be clear, without the stratification of content and expression, there can be no semiotic system. Semiosis requires that a Token means a Value. However, the stratification of the content plane is restricted to language, as demonstrated by the fact that only language can be read aloud, since the locutions that a Sayer projects are the wordings of the lexicogrammatical stratum.

[5] This is possibly a garbled reference to 'reservoir' and 'repertoire' in Martin's Bernstein-derived model of individuation.

[6] To be clear, this misrepresents the metafunctions. The metafunctions are "strongly motivated" as the basic types of meaning: construing experience as meaning, enacting intersubjective relations as meaning, and weaving these together as text. Each of these understandings of the metafunctions can be applied to semiotic systems. Indeed, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 532-3) are sceptical of there being full semiotic systems without metafunctions:

These three "metafunctions" are interdependent; no one could be developed except in the context of the other two. … There are — or could be — semiotics that are monofunctional in this way; but only very partial ones, dedicated to specific tasks. A general, all-purpose semiotic system could not evolve except in the interplay of action and reflection, a mode of understanding and a mode of doing — with itself included within its operational domain.

Jim Martin Spruiking His Group's Work On Systemic Functional Semiotics

Jim Martin wrote to Sysfling on 25/8/23 at 11:43:

Cute, but let’s not be too cavalier about dismissing work that can reasonably be counted as SFS (such as that noted below). This work is explicit enough and comprehensive enough with respect to a range of semiotic modes that probing questions can be raised (and have been), including…

• Has enough attention been paid to materiality (the ‘etics’ materialising ‘emics’)?
• Has enough attention been paid to ‘constituency’ (ranks and taxis)?
• Has enough attention been paid to the interdependency of systems and their possible correlation with types of structure (re ‘metafunctions’)?
• Has enough attention been paid to stratification (is one stratum being made to do too much work)?
• Has enough attention been paid to instantiation (especially the modelling of abductive inferencing as texts unfold)?

The answer to each of these questions is some degree of “no”; in some cases extant SFL theory makes room for improvement (cf. van Leeuwen on the ‘materiality’ of sound or colour) and in other cases it is sorely lacking (e.g. how to model coupling, commitment and the abductive inferencing highlighted in the dynamic take on discourse semantics propagated by John and his colleagues).

The paper attached from the 2010 UTS ICOM meeting touches on many of the issues raised in this thread:

Multimodal semiotics: theoretical challenges. S Dreyfus, S Hood & M Stenglin [Eds.] Semiotic Margins: meaning in multimodalities. London: Continuum. 2011. 243-270.

images

Kress & van Leeuwen Reading Images

picture books

Painter et al. Reading Visual Narratives

animations

He ‘Towards a stratified metafunctional model of animation’ Semiotica 2021; 239; 1-35

paralanguage

Ngo et al. Modelling paralanguage using SFS

emoji

Zappavigna & Logi Emoji and Social Media Paralanguage (in press CUP)

infographics

Martin & Unsworth Reading Images for Knowledge Building

space

McMurtrie The Semiotics of Movement in Space

math symbolism

Doran The Discourse of Physics

chemistry symbolism

Yu Multimodal Knowledge Building in Secondary School Chemistry Textbooks (forthcoming Bloomsbury)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's concern here is not with whether theory has been understood and consistently applied in such work, but simply with whether the work is explicit and comprehensive enough to ask questions about what else needs to be done. The academic quality of the work is immaterial.

[2] To be clear, coupling and commitment are two of Martin's misunderstandings of SFL Theory. The notion of coupling derives from Martin's misunderstanding of metafunctions and strata as interacting modules (Martin 1992: 390ff). In fact, it merely makes the banal observation that features are selected with other features in instantiation. 

The notion of commitment derives from Martin's misunderstanding of delicacy and instantiation, namely: that speakers can choose the degree of delicacy they traverse in systems during instantiation, with greater delicacy corresponding to greater commitment. In fact, it is only by traversing the entire system to the most delicate features that lexical items can be specified.

[3] To be clear, abductive inferencing is not the best available mode of reasoning:

Abductive reasoning (also called abduction, abductive inference, or retroduction) is a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations. It was formulated and advanced by American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce beginning in the last third of the 19th century. Abductive reasoning, unlike deductive reasoning yields a plausible conclusion but does not definitively verify it. Abductive conclusions do not eliminate uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or "most likely".

In later years his view came to be: 

Abduction is guessing. It is "very little hampered" by rules of logic. Even a well-prepared mind's individual guesses are more frequently wrong than right.

Moreover, abductive reasoning is formally equivalent to a logical fallacy:

Abductive reasoning allows inferring a as an explanation of b. As a result of this inference, abduction allows the precondition a to be abduced from the consequence b. Deductive reasoning and abductive reasoning thus differ in the direction in which a rule like "a entails b" is used for inference. As such, abduction is formally equivalent to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (or Post hoc ergo propter hoc) because of multiple possible explanations for b.

[4] Trivially, the papers in this publication are from the 2007 conference at the University of Sydney titled 'Semiotic Margins'. Non-trivially, Martin's paper in this collection includes his classic misunderstanding of Saussure and Hjelmslev. Martin (2011: 245):

To be clear, Saussure's signifié and signifiant correspond to Hjelmslev's content and expression, and it is these that are the focus of linguistics. The relation between these two levels of symbolic abstraction is simply realisation. 

[5] With regard to the work by Martin and his colleagues on paralanguage, see:

• Buyer Beware!
• Martin's Model Of Paralanguage

[6] For a critique of some of the theoretical misunderstandings in these works, see the earlier post Yaegan Doran On The Metafunctions In Mathematical And Chemical Symbolism.