Misunderstanding The Metafunctional Hookup

Martin (2013: 108):

Blogger Comments:

On the one hand, Martin's use of "traditionally" here is misleading, because it effaces the theorist responsible. Halliday applied the metafunctions that are intrinsic to language to the cultural context that language realises, yielding ideational field, interpersonal tenor, and textual mode.

On the other hand, this misunderstands SFL's architecture of language in context. The ideational metafunction of language is concerned with the construal of experience as meaning; the interpersonal metafunction of language is concerned with the enactment of intersubjective relations as meaning; and the textual metafunction of language is concerned with weaving ideational and interpersonal meanings together as text.

Field thus is concerned with the culture as a semiotic system in terms of the construal of experience; tenor is concerned with the culture as a semiotic system in terms of the enactment of intersubjective relations; and mode is concerned with the culture as a semiotic system in terms of weaving field and tenor together as situation.

Halliday (2003 [1994]: 437):

The mechanism proposed for this constitutive power of discourse has been referred to as the 'metafunctional hookup': the hypothesis that (a) social contexts are organic — dynamic configurations of three components, called 'field', 'tenor', and 'mode': respectively, the nature of the social activity, the relations among the interactants, and the status accorded to the language (what is going on, who are taking part, and what they are doing with their discourse); and (b) there is a relationship between these and the metafunctions such that these components are construed, respectively, as experiential, as interpersonal, and as textual meanings.

Misunderstanding Rank

Martin (2013: 102):

Blogger Comments:

[1] The first sentence is misleading because it is not true. Since, by definition, an initiating move occurs earlier in a sequence than a responding move, these classifications do indeed sequence the moves.

[2] The second sentence is misleading because it is not true. For example, sequencing clauses in a clause complex does not require a higher ranking unit. Rank is a model of formal constituency (on strata that have forms). Higher ranks are motivated by having constituents.

[3] The third sentence is misleading because it is not true. The relation between ranks is not realisation, because ranks on a scale are all of the same level of symbolic abstraction. For example, the clause system of TRANSITIVITY is not realised by group functions such as Deictic and Auxiliary.

Tone And Syllabification

Martin (2013: 98):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This wording is potentially misleading. It is the choice of TONE, which is the choice of pitch movement for the tonic segment of the tone group, that is relevant to the realisation of MOOD.

[2] Trivially, India comprises three syllables, /in di: ə/, so the penultimate syllable is di, not Ind.

Misunderstanding Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

Martin (2013: 97):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading. To be clear, each lexical item is the synthetic realisation of a set of the most delicate grammatical features, as in Hasan's approach, not the realisation of a single grammatical feature, as in Martin's approach. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network. Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations.

An analogy can be found in phonology. For example, the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the set of features [voiced, bilabial stop], not the realisation of a single articulatory feature.

Not Recognising The Distinction Between Word As Grammatical And Word As Lexical

Martin (2013: 95): 

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because SFL Theory also uses a constituency model, a rank scale, in which the word is a grammatical constituent. But SFL Theory also models the word as a lexical item, wherein it is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate grammatical features. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 568-9):

The folk notion of the "word" is really a conflation of two different abstractions, one lexical and one grammatical.

(i) Vocabulary (lexis): the word as lexical item, or "lexeme". This is construed as an isolate, a 'thing' that can be counted and sorted in (alphabetical) order. People "look for" words, they "put thoughts into" them, "put them into" or "take them out of another's mouth", and nowadays they keep collections of words on their shelves or in their computers in the form of dictionaries. Specialist knowledge is thought of as a matter of terminology. The taxonomic organisation of vocabulary is less exposed: it is made explicit in Roget's Thesaurus, but is only implicit in a standard dictionary. Lexical taxonomy was the first area of language to be systematically studied by anthropologists, when they began to explore cultural knowledge as it is embodied in folk taxonomies of plants, animals, diseases and the like.

(ii) Grammar: the word as one of the ranks in the grammatical system. This is, not surprisingly, where Western linguistic theory as we know it today began in classical times, with the study of words varying in form according to their case, number, aspect, person etc.. Word-based systems such as these do provide a way in to studying grammatical semantics: but the meanings they construe are always more complex than the categories that appear as formal variants, and grammarians have had to become aware of covert patterns.

The Big Lie Of Chapter 5

 Martin (2013: 93):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This very misleading indeed. Martin has spent the bulk of Chapter 5 arguing that, because of grammatical metaphor, SFL needs two system-structure cycles, as if this were his idea and his argument. See also 

• Falsely Claiming That The Content Plane Was Not Stratified Before Martin (1992).
• On The Theoretical Value Of Martin's Stratification Of The Content Plane

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures.

Martin furthers this false impression by falsely claiming that Halliday & Matthiessen propose a single system-structure cycle on the content plane for MODALITY, by making a false claim about their lexicogrammatical system, without considering their semantic system.

Martin makes these misleading claims to argue for his own discourse semantic systems, despite the fact that his discourse semantic stratum does not include a system of MODALITY, and he does not provide one here to demonstrate its relation to the lexicogrammatical system.

[2] To be clear, Martin's stratified social systems are his misunderstanding of linguistic registers and genres as the cultural context realised by linguistic systems.

Giving Priority To Structure In Devising System

 Martin (2013: 93):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. The system of MODALITY represents the choices at clause rank. If one of these choices is realised metaphorically as a projecting mental clause instead of an Adjunct, it can be specified by a realisation statement attached to the feature in the network. Martin's misunderstanding here again derives from giving priority to the view 'from below', structure.

Moreover, in order to account for grammatical metaphor, it is necessary to provide both the congruent and metaphorical analyses. Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 613-4):

Here the cognitive mental clause I don’t believe is a metaphorical realisation of probability: the probability is realised by a mental clause as if it was a figure of sensing. Being metaphorical, the clause serves not only as the projecting part of a clause nexus of projection, but also as a mood Adjunct, just as probably does.

[2] To be clear, the entry condition to clause complexing is the feature clause, and in this metaphor, modality is realised within a clause complex instead of within a clause.

Misunderstanding 'From Above' And Rebranding Speech Function As Discourse Semantics

Martin (2013: 82-3):

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, here Martin misunderstands looking 'from above' as looking 'above' — i.e. from below. Again, this is the direct opposite of SFL methodology. Instead of being concerned with how meaning is realised, Martin is concerned with what wording realises.

[2] Here Martin misleads by rebranding Halliday's semantic system of speech function as Martin's discourse semantic system, which Martin himself proposes.

Misunderstanding Congruent vs Metaphorical As Encoding vs Symbolising [1]

Martin (2013: 80):

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, here Martin misleads by misrepresenting Halliday's system of SPEECH FUNCTION as Martin's discourse semantics.

[2] To be clear, grammatical structure realises (not "reflects") choices made in the MOOD system.

[3] To be clear, 'congruent' is Halliday's technical term for the agreement between semantics and grammar.

[4] To be clear, this seriously misunderstands realisation and grammatical metaphor. Realisation is the relation of symbolic abstraction, and 'symbolising' refers to the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar, irrespective of whether the realisation is congruent or metaphorical. In encoding, the lower level of abstraction (lexicogrammar) is used to identify the higher level of abstraction (semantics), and does not depend on whether the realisation is congruent or metaphorical.

Misrepresenting Halliday's Speech Function As Martin's Discourse Semantics

Martin (2013: 78-9):

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, speech function is Halliday's system of interpersonal semantics. Here Martin misleads the reader by misrepresenting speech function as a system of his model of discourse semantics.

Looking Up To Discourse Semantics

Martin (2013: 78):

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, here Martin misconstrues looking 'from above' as looking 'above' ("up"), and misleads by using this misinterpretation to claim that it is important to look at his discourse semantics, since it may be a rich source of interpreting grammatical structure.

[2] This misunderstands the significance of Halliday's observation of the natural relation between grammatical form and meaning — a relation which is not accommodated by Martin's discourse semantics. Halliday (1985: xvii, xviii, xix):

The relation between the meaning and the wording is not, however, an arbitrary one: the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded. A functional grammar is designed to bring this out; it is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means. …

What this means is that both the general kinds of grammatical pattern that have evolved in language, and the specific manifestations of each kind, bear a natural relation to the meanings they have evolved to express. … the distinction into word classes of verb and noun reflects the analysis of experience into goings-on, expressed as verbs, and participants in the goings-on, expressed as nouns; and so on. …

… the relation of grammar to semantics is in this sense natural, not arbitrary …

Martin's Criticism Of Matthiessen's Network

Martin (2013: 73):

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here, yet again, Martin adopts the opposite perspective to SFL Theory by giving priority to structure over system.  A grammatical system is devised on the basis of the meaning being realised, not the structures that realise it.

[2] To be clear, as previously explained, Matthiessen's network properly restricts recursion to just those features that can be realised iteratively. Matthiessen (1995: 232):

Martin's clause network, in contrast, allows potentially unlimited insertions of Medium and Process, and potentially unlimited selections of both 'middle' and 'effective' if the feature 'agentive' is selected. So it is Martin's network that does not account for the structures he has presented.

[3] Matthiessen's network only presents recursion in effective clauses because that was the extent of its description. As Matthiessen (ibid.) made clear:

The system network in Figure 4-14 sets out a partial specification of options and their realisations.

It is misleading of Martin to claim that Matthiessen restricts agency to effective clause, because the network is immediately preceded by instances of agency, all of which are middle clauses. Matthiessen (ibid.):

For instance:

The general kept the soldiers marching.
The general helped the soldiers march.
The general required the soldiers to march.
Well they got the army digging

∞

In summary, Martin here misleads the reader by deliberately misrepresenting Matthiessen's network, and promoting his own very poorly constructed network as successful in comparison.

Repeating A Bare Assertion That Assumes The Conclusion Of This Monograph

Martin (2013: 73):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because it is untrue. As the examination of this chapter has demonstrated, Martin has not shown that metafunction and rank are based on axis — nor could he.

As previously explained, Martin misunderstands axis as system/structure relations, as stipulated in realisation statements. In SFL Theory, axis is a local dimension whose two orders are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), with system and structure as their respective dimensions. Realisation statements are located on the paradigmatic axis, and as the name suggests, the relation between the axes is simply realisation.

Moreover, metafunction and rank are not based on either axis or system/structure relations. On the one hand, the metafunctions are a distinct global dimension from the local dimension of axis (ibid.), and first appeared in Language Structure and Language Function (Halliday 1970). 

On the other hand, the SFL approach to constituency, a rank scale, is a distinct local dimension  from the local dimension of axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), and derives from the method of ranked constituency analysis, rather than immediate constituency analysis, as first set out in Categories of A Theory of Grammar (Halliday 1961), and explained more fully in Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday 1985).

The rhetorical significance of Martin's misleading bare assertion (the ipse dixit fallacy) is that it assumes the conclusion (the petitio principii fallacy) of the entire monograph. That is, it is one logical fallacy serving another in an invalid argument for a false conclusion. In dialogue, the repeating of this bare assertion would be an example of the logical fallacy known as the argument from repetition.

Misconstruing Experiential Structures As Hypotactic Logical Structures

Martin (2013: 70):

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin (1996) associates serial structures with univariate structure of the logical metafunction, and orbital structure with the multivariate structures of the experiential metafunction. This distinction, however, is the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis in the univariate structure of the logical metafunction. The orbital structure is also univariate because there is only type of relation between the nucleus and its satellites: dependency. For more details, see

Misconstruing Hypotactic vs Paratactic Logical Structure As Experiential vs Logical Structure 

[2] To be clear, it is misleading to claim that SFL distinguishes the experiential and logical metafunctions on the basis of recursive systems and Martin's notion of serial structure (i.e parataxis). The metafunctions are distinguished as modes of meaning. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

Ideationally, the grammar is a theory of human experience; it is our interpretation of all that goes on around us, and also inside ourselves. There are two parts to this: one the representation of the processes themselves, which we refer to as the "experiential"; the other the representation of the relations between one process and another, and it is this that we refer to as the "logical". The two together constitute the "ideational" metafunction, whereby language construes our experiential world. The word "construe" is used to suggest an intellectual construction — though one that, of course, we then use as a guide to action.

[3] To be clear, just as the logical metafunction is not based on recursive systems, the other metafunctions are not based on "feature bundling", but are distinguished as modes of meaning. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 7-8):

The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. … The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language, with the adoption and assignment of speech roles, with the negotiation of attitudes, and so on — it is language in the praxis of intersubjectivity, as a resource for interacting with others. The textual metafunction is an enabling one; it is concerned with organising ideational and interpersonal meaning as discourse — as meaning that is contextualised and shared. But this does not mean processing some preexisting body of information; rather it is the ongoing creation of a semiotic realm of reality.

Misunderstanding Word Rank Forms As Clause Rank Functions [1]

Martin (2013: 66-7):

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the basic descriptive challenge alluded to here is said to arise from Martin's self-contradiction of privileging system by using structure to motivate systems.

However, this is misleading, because privileging system poses no challenge for describing clause rank systems, since these phenomena are word rank markers of clause rank functions. It is not that the Subject agrees with the verb, but the form of the word serving as the Head of the nominal group serving as Subject agrees with the form of the verb serving as Finite of the verbal group serving as Finite + Predicator.

This misunderstanding arises from confusing ranks and again viewing the clause 'from below', how it is realised, instead of 'from above', what it means.

It will be seen in the following posts that this confusion of function and form across ranks as "syntagmatic dependency relations between functions" is a persistent source of confusion for Martin.

Misrepresenting System As Axis

Martin (2013: 59):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading because it misrepresents system as axis. System is the dimension of the paradigmatic order of the dimension of axis, and it is system, not axis, that disclosed the notion of metafunction to Halliday. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 20, 32):

The misrepresentation is motivated, however, since it is presented as evidence for Martin's central claim in this monograph: that axis, misunderstood as 'axial relations', is foundational. 

Misrepresenting The Tagging Of Negative Clauses

Martin (2013: 55-6):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because it is simply not true that negative clauses always reverse their polarity in the Tag, as demonstrated by instances like They won't pay, won't they?. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 173-4) provide the view 'from above':

Misrepresenting Rank As Derived From System Networks

Martin (2013: 52):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday's concept of rank was first published in Categories of a Theory of Grammar (Halliday 1961), five years before his first publication on system networks, Some Notes On 'Deep' Grammar (Halliday 1966), and nine years before the first publication on metafunctions, Language Structure and Language Function (Halliday 1970).

The rhetorical function of this misrepresentation is to support Martin's claim in this monograph that  "axial relations" are 'foundational'.

Misrepresenting Axis As the Origin Of Metafunction And Rank

Martin (2013: 52):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This gloss of the metafunctions is potentially misleading. The ideation metafunction is the construal of experience, not the construal of discourse, and the interpersonal metafunction is the enactment of interpersonal relations, not the enactment of discourse. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 7-8):

The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. … The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language, with the adoption and assignment of speech roles, with the negotiation of attitudes, and so on — it is language in the praxis of intersubjectivity, as a resource for interacting with others. The textual metafunction is an enabling one; it is concerned with organising ideational and interpersonal meaning as discourse — as meaning that is contextualised and shared.

[2] The claim that 'SFL's distinctive approach to meaning and constituency in fact grew out of the development of axis (system/structure relations) from the early 1960s' is very misleading because it is untrue on several counts.

Firstly, Martin misunderstands axis as system/structure relations, as stipulated in realisation statements. In SFL Theory, axis is a local dimension whose two orders are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), with system and structure as their respective dimensions. Realisation statements are located on the paradigmatic axis, and as the name suggests, the relation between the axes is simply realisation.

Secondly, the SFL approach to the metafunctions and constituency did not grow out of the development of either axis or system/structure relations from the early 1960's. 

On the one hand, the metafunctions are a distinct global dimension from the local dimension of axis (ibid.), and first appeared in Language Structure and Language Function (Halliday 1970). 

On the other hand, the SFL approach to constituency, a rank scale, is a distinct local dimension  from the local dimension of axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), and derives from the method of ranked constituency analysis, rather than immediate constituency analysis, as first set out in Categories of A Theory of Grammar (Halliday 1961), and explained more fully in Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday 1985).

The rhetorical significance of Martin's misleading bare assertion (the ipse dixit fallacy) is that it assumes the conclusion (the petitio principii fallacy) of the entire monograph. That is, it is one logical fallacy serving another in an invalid argument for a false conclusion.

Rebranding Halliday's Work As Martin's

Martin (2013: 45-6):

Blogger Comments:

Again, this augmentation for devising the system network begins by taking the view 'from below': grammatical form and structure. 

The claim that the second perspective is 'discourse' semantic is misleading, because it rebrands Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION as Martin's system. Martin has made a career out of rebranding other people's work as his own, as demonstrated here and here, for example, and has even won a prize for it (recorded here).