On Semantic Motifs As Exemplifying "The Boundaries Of Grammatical Description"

Bateman (1998: 3):

The first example of reaching the boundaries of grammatical description that Martin discusses is the existence of ‘semantic motifs’ whose diversification in grammatical realisation goes beyond that which any grammar (even one such as IFG) should reasonably be required to cover. Patterns such as the following [p16] suggest that there are systematic choices available to the linguistic system for manipulating the grammatical potential (and its natural semantics) as it is employed in any text.

(a) Ford is smiling because Trillian arrived.

It pleases Ford that Trillian has arrived.

Ford is happy that Trillian has arrived. 

(b) Ford is frowning because Trillian has left.
It disturbs Ford that Trillian has left.
Ford is unhappy that Trillian has left.

The three sentences of both (a) and (b) range across what IFG describes as ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, and ‘relational’ type clauses respectively. The grammar places these clause types in opposition: each involves a distinct ‘syndrome’ of grammatical constructions and phenomena and structurally they are quite diverse; here, however, they appear to stand as alternatives for, in some respects, semantically similar messages. Where, Martin asks, is this semantic commonality in apparent grammatical diversity to be located?

Blogger Comments:

What Martin (1992: 16) actually argues is as follows:

Following Halliday (1985), the first clause in each set is behavioural, the second mental and the third relational — fundamentally different process types. At the same time, all three clauses construct a relatively uniform, and not unfamiliar disposition for Ford. One way to generalise across these various realisations of the same disposition is to stratify the content plane, setting up an attitude network realised across process types (with realisations extending into other areas of the grammar as well; for example, adverbial and nominal groups). 

There are two major theoretical confusions here.

1. Martin uses generalisation as a justification for a higher level of symbolic abstraction.  This confuses one dimension of the theory, the scale of delicacy, with a distinct dimension of the theory, the hierarchy of stratification.
2. Martin proposes setting up an attitude network at the level of discourse semantics to be realised by process types at the level of lexicogrammar.  That is, Martin presents an incongruent (metaphorical) inter-stratal relation as a justification for strata in a congruent relation.

Moreover, despite using the notion of 'semantic motifs' as a justification for his discourse semantic stratum, Martin nowhere attempts to set up 'an attitude network realised across process types'.

See also The Problems With Semantic Motifs As A Motivation For Stratification.

On "The Regularities That Grammar Cannot Capture"

Bateman (1998: 3):

Martin therefore takes pains to position English Text as building explicitly on the broadest approach to the functional description of English grammar currently available, i.e., that set out at length in Halliday’s IFG and elaborated further systemically in Matthiessen’s (1995) Lexicogrammatical Cartography. Martin then considers where such an account — already, as he describes in this chapter, somewhat ‘extravagent’ [sic] in the dimensions of organisation that it provides — itself necessarily ‘runs out of steam’ when we turn to the distinctive phenomena of text and discourse. The regularities that grammar cannot capture then provide the point of departure for those regularities that a distinct discourse semantics may be in a better position to describe and explain.

Blogger Comments:

The claim that the grammar "runs out of steam" is Martin's (1992:16):

Extravagant as systemic functional grammars are, they do run out of steam.  Three of their limitations will now be reviewed.

The three "limitations" that Martin identifies then become the justification for his proposed stratum of discourse semantics.  These are:

1. semantic motifs (p16)
2. grammatical metaphor (pp16-7)
3. cohesion (pp17-9)

The first notion, 'semantic motifs', refers to generalisations across some instances of some process types. However, this does not provide support for a higher stratum of symbolic abstraction, because generalisation is not abstraction.  In SFL theory, this type of generalisation is modelled in terms of delicacy.  Martin's 'semantic motifs' is actually an argument for a more general system of process types, not a higher stratum.

It can be noted that Martin, having introduced the notion of 'semantic motifs' as a rationâle for discourse semantics, promptly forgets about it; that is, it is not addressed in his chapter on experiential semantics (termed 'ideation'), or anywhere else. 

For a more detailed critique, see The Problems With Semantic Motifs As A Motivation For Stratification.

The second notion, grammatical metaphor, on the other hand, does provide a justification for a higher level of symbolic abstraction.  However, this merely justifies a semantic stratum, in general, not a specifically discourse semantics.  Looking at the way Martin words his discussion, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that this argument is Martin's insight, and that Martin is the first to propose a stratification of the content plane.  The insight and the proposal were originally, of course, Halliday's.

It can be noted that Martin, in any case, misunderstands the notion of grammatical metaphor, as demonstrated, for this specific discussion, at Misrepresenting Grammatical Metaphor, and more generally throughout the entire publication here.

The third notion, cohesion, refers to the non-structural resources of the textual metafunction on the stratum of lexicogrammar.  Martin's focus is on conjunctive cohesion, and the fact that this, like clause complexing, involves the deployment of expansion relations.  According to Martin (p19), setting up a discourse semantic stratum 'will permit generalisations to be made across structural and non-structural textual relations.

The confusions here are manifold.  Firstly, the argument again confuses generalisation with abstraction, and so does not support the notion of a higher stratum — discourse semantic or otherwise.  Secondly, the generalisation ignores the distinction between metafunctions: textual (conjunction) and logical (clause complexing), and between non-structural (conjunction) and structural (clause complexing) relations.  See also Not Recognising The 'Continuity' Between Clause Taxis And Conjunctive Cohesion.

In the course of his argument, Martin misrepresents Halliday and Hasan's work on cohesion, as demonstrated in the following critiques:

• Misrepresenting Cohesion
• Misrepresenting The Domain Of Cohesion
• Misconstruing 'Cohesion Within The Sentence'

For a summary critique of Martin's three arguments, see Why The Argument For A 'Discourse' Semantic Stratum Is Invalid.

On The Basic Aim Of Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 2):

The basic aim of the book, as presented in Chapter 1, is to show and explain the systematicity and regularities that allow sequences of grammatical units to be construed as texts. The book seeks to enable its readers to “relate any English text to the context in which it is used’’[p1].

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Martin (1992: 1) explains the aim of the book as follows:

Its aim is to provide a comprehensive set of discourse analyses which can be used to relate any English text to the context in which it is used. … Like Cohesion in English, English Text uses systemic functional grammar to ask questions about text structure, and complements the grammar by developing additional analyses which focus on the text rather than the clause.  Cohesion in English organises the division of labour as the opposition between grammar and cohesion (between structural and non-structural resources for meaning).  English Text organises this division of labour in a different way — stratally, as an opposition between grammar and semantics (between clause oriented and text oriented resources for meaning).

Some of the thoughts that didn't occur to Bateman are:

1. Contrary to Bateman's implication, Martin does not provide realisation statements that relate his discourse semantic "systematicity and regularities" to lexicogrammatical systems or structures;
2. It is the textual metafunction only — and at all linguistic strata, not just semantics — that is concerned with relating a text to its context;
3. Martin misinterprets the distinction between the structural and non-structural (cohesive) resources of the textual metafunction at the lexicogrammatical stratum as an opposition between grammar (in general) and cohesion;
4. Martin takes the non-structural (cohesive) resources of the textual metafunction at the lexicogrammatical stratum and relocates them at a higher level of abstraction, discourse semantics, without providing supporting argument as to how and why they are more abstract; and
5. Martin relocates the non-structural (cohesive) resources of the textual metafunction across the metafunctions, such that lexical cohesion is misinterpreted as experiential (and structural), and cohesive conjunction is misinterpreted as logical (and structural).

See here for more on Martin's "division of labour". In short, Martin (1992) misconstrues a metafunction, the textual, for a level of symbolic abstraction, discourse semantics.

On Chapters 6 & 7 Of Martin's 'English Text'

Bateman (1998: 2):

Then, the final part, consisting of chapters 6 and 7, considers some significant and highly suggestive issues that arise when relating distinct levels of description.  Chapter 6 shows some of the ways in which options selected from phonology, lexicogrammar and discourse semantics are woven together systematically to create and enhance a text’s texture and Chapter 7 closes the book with an extended consideration of the placement of the entire linguistic system discussed in the previous six chapters within its social context and situation of use. This latter chapter raises important issues concerning the definition and interconnections of text types, genres, registerial selections and ideology.

Blogger Comments:

The positive appreciation here (significant, important) is entirely unjustified by the quality of the theorising under review.

[1] In SFL theory, the relation between levels of description is one of realisation, which is an intensive identifying relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction.  Chapters 6 and 7 of Martin (1992) are inconsistent with this stratal model because Martin mistakes the strata along this dimension for "interacting modules" (p390).  This fundamental misunderstanding invalidates the basis of the theorisation in chapters 6 and 7, and leads to deep and widespread theoretical inconsistencies, as demonstrated here (chapter 6) and here (chapter 7).

[2] Chapter 6 of Martin (1992) takes cohesive harmony (Hasan 1985), modal responsibility (Halliday 1985) and method of development and point (Fries 1981), misunderstands each — see cohesive harmony, modal responsibility, method of development, point — and reconstrues them as "interaction patterns" (p393) between strata (misconceived as modules).  Much of the chapter confuses writing pedagogy with linguistic theory, rebranding the terms 'introductory paragraph', 'topic sentence', 'paragraph summary' and 'text summary' as 'macro-Theme', 'hyper-Theme', 'hyper-New' and 'macro-New', respectively.  This also involves misunderstanding the original notion of hyper-Theme (Daneš 1974).

[3] Martin (1992: 384, 393) misconstrues the lexicogrammatical system of information (content plane) as phonology (expression plane).  For Martin's misunderstandings and false claims about phonology, see the critiques here.

[4] In SFL theory, the term 'texture' refers to the quality of being a text (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 2), which is achieved through the textual metafunction, not through interaction patterns between stratal modules across various metafunctions — each of the latter also misconceived by Martin as a module.

[5] Martin's model of social context is misconstrued as language varieties, misconstrued as modules; see [6] below.  In SFL theory, context is construed as the culture as a semiotic system.

[6] Chapter 7 of Martin (1992) takes register (Halliday) and genre (Hasan) and misconstrues them as strata of context (each misconstrued as a module) as opposed to language.  That is, it takes functional varieties of language, and models them as more abstract than language.  This is analogous to claiming that lorikeets are not varieties of bird — and so, not even birds — but are more symbolically abstract than birds.

In SFL theory, register and genre are two views of the same phenomenon, located as a midway point on the cline of instantiation, with register the view from the system pole, and genre the view from the instance pole.