Misrepresenting The Basic Unit Of Meaning In Halliday's Semantics

Martin (2013: 6-7):

Blogger Comments:

This pretext for using 'discourse semantics' is very misleading indeed, not least because it is knowingly untrue. Firstly, in Halliday's version of his own theory, the basic unit of meaning is the text, not the clause.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 44):

The basic unit of semantics is the text – language functioning in context … . A text is organised internally as patterns of logical, experiential, interpersonal and textual meaning.

The clause is the highest ranked constituent of wording (lexicogrammar), not meaning (semantics).

Secondly, since the 'sentence' (i.e. clause complex) is wording, not meaning, relations syntagmatically beyond this structure are theorised at the level of wording, as lexicogrammatical cohesion. For evidence that Martin's discourse semantics is largely a rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's lexicogrammatical cohesion, see the 61 posts here, and the 83 posts here.