On Chapters 2-5 Of Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 2):

The second part, consisting of chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5, forms the main body of the book; each chapter addresses a single area of discourse semantics in depth, setting out both the internal details of that area and their often quite varied lexicogrammatical consequences.

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading because it is untrue.  Martin (1992) does not set out the lexicogrammatical "consequences" of discourse semantic systems.  Martin's concern is the discourse semantic systems themselves, not their lexicogrammatical "consequences".

Bateman's use of "consequences" demonstrates that he does not understand that the principle underlying stratification is a form of intensive identity (symbolic abstraction).  Being intensive, the relation between strata is elaborating, not circumstantial (enhancing: consequence).  In theory, discourse semantic systems have lexicogrammatical realisations, not lexicogrammatical consequences.  Martin (1992) does not provide interstratal realisation statements, in the discourse semantic systems he invented.

See also John Bateman Misunderstanding Stratification And Realisation.

(Martin's theory of discourse semantics has no consequences for the SFL theory of lexicogrammar to the extent that it misunderstands the dimensions and principles of SFL theory.)

On Chapter 1 Of Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 2):

The book is organised into 7 chapters, which, for the purpose of this review, I will distribute among three parts. The first part, chapter 1, introduces the basic premises and position of the book, arguing for both the existence of a distinct level of discourse semantics and the approach adopted for uncovering its details.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Martin provides three motivations for a stratum of discourse semantics: 'semantic motifs', grammatical metaphor and conjunctive cohesion.  Of these, only grammatical metaphor provides a genuine motivation for the stratification of the content plane, though it does not justify a 'discourse' semantics, merely a stratum of semantics, which is Halliday's prior proposal.

Martin's understanding of 'semantic motifs' does not justify a higher level of abstraction because it confuses generalisation (delicacy) with symbolic abstraction (stratification), as explained in more detail at The Problems With Semantic Motifs As A Motivation For Stratification.

Martin's understanding of conjunctive cohesion does not justify a higher level of abstraction because it confuses the deployment of structural expansion relations by the logical metafunction in unit complexes with the deployment of non-structural expansion relations by the textual metafunction.  See Not Recognising The 'Continuity' Between Clause Taxis And Conjunctive Cohesion.

For a critique of Martin's three reasons for proposing a discourse semantic stratum, see Why The Argument For A 'Discourse' Semantic Stratum Is Invalid.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue.  Martin does not provide an argument in support of the approach he adopts in uncovering the details of a discourse semantic stratum.  For a detailed critique of Martin's chapter 1, see here.

Moreover, Martin's approach to modelling discourse semantics is to take Halliday's systems of cohesion, non-structural resources of the textual metafunction at the level of lexicogrammar, misunderstand them, and rebrand the misunderstandings as his own systems of discourse semantics.

• The (textual) grammatical systems of reference and substitution–&–ellipsis are rebranded as the (textual) discourse semantic system of identification;
• the (textual) grammatical system of conjunction (& continuity) is rebranded as the (logical) discourse semantic system of conjunction (& continuity); and
• the (textual) system of lexical cohesion is rebranded as the (experiential) discourse semantic system of ideation.

In the latter two cases, there is thus the additional confusion of metafunctions. For the interpersonal metafunction, Martin rebrands Halliday's semantic system of speech function as his own discourse semantic system of negotiation.

On What Martin's 'English Text' Presents

Bateman (1998: 2):

English Text presents a single overarching framework within which functional motivations are offered for an unprecedented range of phenomena, often showing how quite distinct lexicogrammatical realisations must be considered as alternatives available for single classes of discourse functions. These discourse functions are themselves highly organised and structured; indeed, one of the main achievements of the book is to reveal a level of discourse semantics that turns out to be as richly structured and interrelated as grammar has been shown to be — particularly by the work in the functional tradition of, for example, Halliday, Fawcett, Matthiessen and Davidse.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is precisely what English Text does not do. It does not show 'how quite distinct lexicogrammatical realisations must be considered as alternatives available for single classes of discourse functions'.  It does not even provide realisation statements in any of the discourse semantic networks.  Bateman has here accepted, without question, one of Martin's arguments for setting up a discourse semantic stratum, which Martin subsequently does not address in the rest of the book.  The theoretical misunderstandings that invalidate Martin's argument are outlined here.

[2] Here again Bateman accepts Martin's claims without question.  The "structures" that Martin sets up, which he terms 'co-variate' (following Lemke 1985), are the non-structural cohesive relations of the lexicogrammar, transposed to discourse semantics.  Unknown to Martin (1992), Lemke later (1988) acknowledged that his notion of co-variate structure was not a type of structure.  For details, see here; for critiques of Martin's notion of structure, more generally, see here.

[3] As demonstrated here, Fawcett continually misunderstands Halliday's theory, and misrepresents it in ways that favour his own position, while arguing by means of various types of logical fallacies (examples can be viewed here).

On The Purpose Of Bateman's Review Of Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 1-2):

In this review article, therefore, I seek to provide a bridge and a motivation for engaging with the book in depth. I also attempt to position somewhat the book’s concerns and possible applications; English Text should, for example, be required reading for any student concerned with the organisation of (particularly, but not exclusively, English) text or the functional motivation of lexicogrammatical phenomena. This can sometimes be difficult without appropriate support or introduction to the premises and methodology on which the book rests, but the effort involved is more than worthwhile. At the very least, an improved understanding of the sheer breadth and systematicity of the relations between discourse construction and lexicogrammatical phenomena would be hard to avoid. And this can only encourage a significant increase in the maturity and sophistication of the questions asked in and by text analysis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Engaging with English Text in depth reveals that its theorising is based on misunderstandings of SFL theory, at macro and micro scales, and is inconsistent with itself, as demonstrated in great detail here.

[2] Because of its fundamental and pervasive misunderstandings of SFL theory, English Text should not be required reading for anyone seeking to understand SFL theory.

[3] English Text does not provide the functional motivation for lexicogrammatical phenomena.  Instead, Martin's model of discourse semantics takes the lexicogrammatical systems of cohesion, the non-structural resources of the textual metafunction, and relocates misunderstandings of them on a different stratum — with strata misconstrued as modules — and creates further theoretical inconsistencies by misinterpreting them as structural and distributing them among the four metafunctions, also misconstrued as modules.  None of the system networks introduced by Martin provide realisation statements that specify lexicogrammatical realisations.

[4] The premises on which English Text rests are misunderstandings of SFL theory, and the methodology on which English Text rests is largely taking Halliday's model of grammar, misunderstanding it, and then relabelling those misunderstandings as 'discourse semantics'.

[5] Given the above, the effort of engaging deeply with English Text is not worthwhile for anyone seeking to understand SFL theory.

[6] Given the above, English Text does not provide an improved understanding of 'the sheer breadth and systematicity of the relations between discourse construction and lexicogrammatical phenomena'.

[7] Given the above, English Text cannot 'encourage a significant increase in the maturity and sophistication of the questions asked in and by text analysis', as demonstrated by the absence of same in the 25 years since its publication.

On Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 1):

The study of the semantics of discourse has grown immensely over the past decade or so — approaches from ‘mainstream’ linguistics, formal semantics, pragmatics, educational linguistics, computational linguistics and many others have all placed increasing emphasis on their treatments of discourse. Researchers, students and teachers alike therefore no doubt scan eagerly the lists of newly published books and articles in the area. Which, curiously enough, could well be a pity, since they may just then miss what is one of the most significant books on the discourse functional motivation of linguistic phenomena to have appeared in the last decade: Martin’s English Text from 1992. …

The issues and approach set out in English Text are, if anything, even more relevant and appropriate today than they were 6 years ago, the potential consumers of its ideas wider and more needful not only of its insights but also of its questions.

Blogger Comments:

As this blog develops, it will be seen that Bateman uncritically accepts Martin's theorising — despite occasional appearances to the contrary — without checking the provenance of the ideas, and without examining the consistency of the theorising with Systemic Functional Linguistic theory or even the self-consistency of Martin's own theorising.

In the meantime, the 2,000+ thoughts that did not occur to Bateman in his review can be viewed at Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre.