On Martin's Argument For "Stratifying Identification With Respect To Nominal Group Structure"

Bateman (1998: 11): 

These phenomena generally revolve again around cases of noncongruent relationships between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. This was one of the general motivations for stratifying lexicogrammar and discourse semantics given in Chapter 1. ‘Noncongruent’ realisations involve Halliday’s notion of grammatical metaphor, whereby the lexicogrammar ‘repackages’ the information it expresses in diverse ways, as “variation in the expression of a given meaning’’ (IFG: p342). Applying this to IDENTIFICATION meanings, then, Martin claims [p129] that while all participants (semantic) are realised through nominal groups, it is not the case that all nominal groups realise participants.

Blogger Comments:

Here Bateman is reporting on Martin's theoretical justifications for stratifying his discourse semantic system of the textual metafunction, IDENTIFICATION, "with respect to nominal group structure".  Here are some of the thoughts that didn't occur to Bateman:

1. In order to demonstrate that the system of IDENTIFICATION is located on a higher stratum than the system of reference, Martin is looking at what he claims to be noncongruent (metaphorical) relations between units: between the proposed unstructured unit of IDENTIFICATION, the participant — the entry condition of IDENTIFICATION system Martin (1992: 129) — and the syntagmatic structure of a unit of form on the grammatical rank scale, the nominal group; and this despite the fact that the system of reference is not realised by any structure, let alone that of the nominal group.
2. Although purporting to be providing examples of incongruent (metaphorical) realisations of participants, Martin instead provides examples of mismatches between participants and nominal groups, which, if true, would be categorical, not metaphorical.
3. In purporting to provide examples of incongruent relations between participants and nominal groups, Martin, if correct, would be providing examples of ideational metaphor.  That is, Martin is purporting to use ideational metaphor to justify a stratal relation between systems of the textual metafunction (Martin glosses IDENTIFICATION as 'reference as semantic choice').  As previously explained, Martin's notion of 'participant' results from confusing the referent ('the participant tracked') with the system of referral.