Seriously Misunderstanding Hjelmslev On Stratification

Martin (2013: 4):

Blogger Comments:

This misunderstands Hjelmslev. Hjelmslev develops Saussure by interpreting the two aspects of the sign itself, signified and signifier, as a content plane and an expression plane, respectively. Hjelmslev (1961: 48, 58):

Instead, we shall speak of something whose existence we think we have established, namely the sign function, posited between two entities, an expression and a content. … We have here introduced expression and content as designations of the functives that contract the function in question, the sign function. …

But it appears more appropriate to use the word sign as the name for the unit consisting of content-form and expression-form and established by the solidarity that we have called the sign function.

That is, all semiosis — including language, "animal language" and protolanguage — is stratified to this extent. Hjelmslev makes no mention of animal language or human protolanguage, but he does make clear (1961: 58-9):

The distinction between expression and content and their interaction in the sign function is basic to the structure of any language. Any sign, any system of signs, any system of figurae ordered to the purpose of signs, any language, contains in itself an expression-form and a content-form.

In short, Martin has confused Hjemslev's distinction between content and expression with Halliday's view of language as the only semiotic system with a stratified content plane of semantics and lexicogrammar.